The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (17 page)

The next year, 1991, San Diego experienced more rainfall than it was able to absorb. The result was flooding everywhere, including the basement of the building
that housed my dojo. Even when the walls began turning green from moss, parents still brought their kids to my classes.

After a few months in the basement, an advertising representative from a local family magazine found me. This was amazing enough because while I could not even afford a proper sign, he actually sold me an ad. The ad cost $400, which I didn’t have, so I decided to call my brother Yoav, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University, who happened to be on sabbatical in Florida at the time. He was kind enough to lend me the money.

It made an unbelievable difference. I quickly went from ten to fifty students, many of them from what I perceived to be the glitzy suburb/city of Coronado. By the time my second anniversary came around, I needed to move again. I found a spacious studio that had formerly housed another martial arts school. It was perfect—long and wide with an office and meeting room. The number of students grew steadily, soon nearing 100. I eventually began teaching classes in Coronado a few times per week and finally opened a full-time dojo there. After trying to juggle the two schools for some time, I realized that 80 percent of my students came from Coronado. Following another year of heavy rains and another flood that ruined parts of my building, I closed that chapter and dedicated myself full-time to the dojo in Coronado.

Once again things were moving fast. I went from 100 to 200 students practically overnight. On January 26, 1994, our first son, Eitan was born. Six months later, we moved to Coronado. Two years after that, on August 19, 1996, our second son was born. Because he was born on my mother’s seventieth birthday, we decided to name him Doron, which in Hebrew means “gift.” Another six years later, we had our third child, a daughter who we named Avital Zika, or Tali for short.

In 1998, Israeli television produced a series called
Tkuma
, which means revival in Hebrew. It had 22 chapters covering the first 50 years of the state of Israel. My brother-in-law Rami bought the entire set for me and sent it to me in the U.S. He added a handwritten, heartfelt letter in which he wrote,

This is a special gift from me to you as a token for the love and admiration that I have for you…from time to time I am reminded of a young, passionate boy arguing with me as if going to battle. Armed with little but great enthusiasm, half formed ideas and ambivalent historical facts, only to be met by my unforgivable cold, cruel cynicism and my inability to listen and be persuaded.

As I read this letter I was reminded of heated political arguments Rami and I had, when I just a young teenager, sharpening my mind and debate skills. They were always about the smallest, minute details because when it came to the bigger issues we agreed with one another and with my father, whom we both adored.

Rami’s letter continued,

But we have since matured and calmed down and we understand the hard, painful facts of life.this series will not be easy to watch. At times it will bring you to tears, or cause you to raise your fist in anger, but it will remind you and your children from where you came and to where you will one day, hopefully, return. With Love, Rami.

I watched every chapter of that series. When the show turned to events that I knew from family stories, like the immigration of the Arab Jews to the new homeland and the awful discrimination they experienced in Israel, or to events I had actually lived, like the visit of President Sadat or the Lebanon War, my debates with Rami would come back to me. And the words in his letter echoed in my head. I knew this country would always be a part of me, but would I ever return?

Things were moving along smoothly for me in California. We had purchased our first home in Coronado and for the first time in my adult life I was establishing roots and I was doing it away from my family and far from the country I loved so much. I was back in southern California, as though drawn by fate, building a home and a family here.

1
Okinawan Goju-Ryu, is one of the original forms of karate, and is unique in that it has maintained its initial form and traditional training methods along with its principled moral foundation.

2
Kinneret is Hebrew for the “Sea of Galilee.”

3
Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, was established by the Israeli government on September 28, 1982, to investigate the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The Kahan Commission was chaired by the president of the Supreme Court, Justice Yitzhak Kahan.

4
Black belts ranks are called “dan” in Japanese, which simply means level. Nidan is second-dan or second-degree black belt.

Then, in the fall of 1997, an unthinkable disaster befell our family. Two young Palestinians blew themselves up on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and killed my niece. Smadar was with friends, shopping for books for school. My mother had just returned to Israel from visiting us in California, and had my niece chosen to meet her at the airport instead, she would not have died that day.

All this was unfolding while I sat, helpless and dumbstruck, in my peaceful home in southern California. Smadar was the first granddaughter in our family, and she would have turned 14 two weeks later. She was the kind of kid you couldn’t get enough of, with eyes that seemed at once innocent and wise. She’d visited us in Coronado two years earlier, just before her Bat Mitzvah, the twelfth birthday ceremony when a Jewish girl becomes a woman. Her hair was long and straight and honey-colored then, and she was sweet and a little shy. She refused to let us take her picture, but we managed to do it anyway. After a few days with us, we noticed that she began every sentence with “Anyway…” emulating the way Gila talks.

Gila and I and the two boys had visited Israel just a few weeks before the terrible day. By that time, Smadar had become tall and more confident, her body already that of a young woman. She had dyed her long hair black. “She has such beautiful hair, why does she have to dye it?” my mother complained. But Smadar was now a teenager and in need of asserting herself. She could go from serious and independent to childlike and joyful in a matter of moments. She played with my sons—Eitan, who was three, and Doron, who was one—and she was even comfortable changing Doron’s diapers. We have a picture of her playing with Doron as a baby.

When my mother first called from Israel to say that my niece was missing, I quickly rationalized: Smadar must be at a friend’s house, oblivious to the bombing. When I grew up in Jerusalem, even when I heard about a bombing while I was out with friends, I wouldn’t always take the trouble to call home. “
Kulam beseder?
” I would ask, when I eventually walked through the front door. “Is everyone all right?” It was a kind of dissociation, the thick skin a young person cultivated to create some semblance of normality in a place where catastrophes were a part of life.

Still, I had a terrible feeling that something was wrong—that the worst had in fact happened. I kept telling myself my emotions were misplaced, that she was too smart, too alive. Nothing could happen to a girl like that.

A few cars passed by on our quiet cul-de-sac, and an ocean breeze blew. I was alone in our children’s playroom watching the news on CNN. “The previous suicide attack had taken place six weeks earlier at the open-air market in Jerusalem,” someone on TV commented.
Yes, I remember
. It had been a Friday; the market was bustling with shoppers buying food in preparation for the Sabbath, and it was a massive bloodbath. As soon as I’d heard the reports, I called home to Israel as I always did after a bombing to make sure everyone was safe. It was a relief to hear the voices of my mother and sisters reassuring me everyone was safe, and I went about my day pretending all was well. But even when my own family had not been harmed, things were not well. Every act of violence was always followed by retaliation, and the cycle did not stop. Deep down I feared that it was only a matter of time before something like this might happen, that someone close to me would be killed.

CNN went live to a scene in Jerusalem. My eyes were fixed on the images streaming from the television, my ears hearing the sirens wailing thousands of miles away. I saw medics carrying the dead and injured and noticed the body of a young woman on a stretcher lying with her back to the camera.

No
. I had a terrible feeling as I wondered who this young lady might be.
Impossible
. This young woman’s hair was cropped short. I had seen Smadar a few weeks earlier and her hair was long and dyed black.

Calls continued back and forth from Jerusalem to California as the day wore on. Every call would raise my hopes and then dash them. Smadar wasn’t with this friend. She wasn’t with that friend. She hadn’t been seen in any of the hospital emergency rooms in town. I was not certain if this was good news or bad.

Soon it was time for me to drive up the coast to teach a class. I had recently opened a second karate school in Poway, about 30 miles north of Coronado. I was trying to keep to my schedule and retain a sense of business as usual. I was determined to be focused and present, telling myself that the call reassuring me that Smadar was fine would come at any minute. In the car, I found myself phoning my travel agent, an Israeli who I knew would understand: “I might need a ticket to fly home right away.” As I hung up, I realized that I was holding back a choking feeling.

The police waited until late at night to call, as if allowing Nurit and her husband Rami to reach the inevitable conclusion on their own. After Smadar’s parents returned from the morgue, where they identified their little girl, Ossi called me.

As I was packing, I realized with horror that my passport had expired. I couldn’t fly with an expired passport, and the renewal process would take days. I did not have days. I did not have even one day. Jewish people must bury their dead within 24 hours. I had to get to Jerusalem now.

I discovered that grief intensifies some memories and blurs others. To this day, I cannot remember how the arrangements were made or how I got to the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. I have no idea if I flew to LA or drove. I remember being greeted at the consulate in hushed tones. They knew my niece had been killed in the recent suicide attack and that she was the granddaughter of the late General Matti Peled. They knew that the state funeral was being held up until I, her uncle living in America, went home to Israel. They quickly ushered me into the office of the consul general herself.

I was treated with great kindness and the reverence given to anyone in my position. In Israeli society, those who have lost loved ones in war become members of a holy order. They become untouchable—they are The Bereaved.

The officials waived every formality. Still in a daze, I was out the door with my new passport in 20 minutes and on my way to the airport.

On the plane, I was overwhelmed by grief and engulfed by terrible thoughts. I found myself hoping that those responsible would be caught and killed, which was absurd because they had already killed themselves. Anyway, how could there possibly be vengeance for a death such as this? As the Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik wrote and Nurit would repeat over and over again, “Satan has not yet invented vengeance suitable for the blood of a young child.”

I landed in Israel at dawn. My brother Yoav picked me up at the airport and took me to Nurit and Rami’s apartment in Jerusalem. We drove in silence, Yoav deep in thought. He finally said, “Of all of us why did it have to be her… I mean so many of us had fought in wars and survived, and yet it had to be this innocent little girl walking down the street. It makes no sense, no sense at all.”

He was so right. When we arrived, the street was empty and I sat in the car for a while. Then I got out and glanced at the morning paper in the yard—I saw the headline: “Granddaughter of Peace Activist General Matti Peled Killed by Palestinian Suicide Bombers…”

I walked up the stairs to Nurit and Rami’s apartment. They lived in the house where I was born, 18 Rashba Street in Jerusalem. It was the longest flight of stairs I ever had to climb. When Nurit opened the door, we fell into each other’s arms sobbing with the abandon of small children. I still don’t know what to say or think as September 4 approaches each year. I feel the same way I did then, crying in my sister’s arms, over and over again, even all these years later.

Smadar was laid to rest near my father, her grandfather, in the small hilltop cemetery just outside of Jerusalem. As police motorcycles cleared traffic for the funeral procession, I felt a sense of déjà vu. Two years earlier we had driven the exact same route escorted by police motorcycles. Only that time we’d been following my father’s coffin to his final resting place. That too had been an emotionally charged state funeral attended by Israeli and Palestinian dignitaries, representatives from Israel’s entire political spectrum, and the press. The difference was that he
was nearly 72 years old and an accomplished man. Smadar was 13, just beginning to bloom.

My niece, Smadar, who was killed in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

I never imagined we would be taking the same route again so soon, and under such unthinkable circumstances. Nor did I know how dramatically my life would change, and what an unexpected quest awaited me as a result of this searing grief.

As we got out of the van, someone approached me and said, “Would you help us carry the coffin?” My heart felt heavier than the small coffin on my shoulder.

Israelis and Palestinians, family members and friends from across the political spectrum, famous leaders and ordinary people, came to give eulogies or express their sorrow at this unspeakable loss. To this day Nurit cannot forgive herself for leaving her baby girl alone in the cold, damp ground.

For the next seven days, Nurit and Rami’s apartment was packed from 6 a.m. to midnight. Dignitaries, reporters, mourners, friends, and family members walked through their door. The door through which past statesmen, generals, and diplomats had once entered, and which today has a sticker on it reading: FREE Palestine.

Among those who came to pay respects were Ehud Olmert, then the mayor of Jerusalem and future prime minister, and Ehud Barak, who holds the distinction of
being Israel’s most decorated soldier. Barak later rose to be Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, but at the time he was the head of the opposition party and doing everything he could to be elected prime minister. Barak was largely seen as Yitzhak Rabin’s designated successor. The expectation was that if elected he would take on the role of peacemaker, a role which Rabin had paid for with his life. Here he was, sitting among us, trying to convince people that in order to really make peace he had to run without making it look like he wanted peace so he wouldn’t lose votes for being a peacemaker. I sat quietly wondering if anyone really believed such nonsense. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and said, “Why not tell the truth?” The room became silent. “Why not tell people that this and other similar tragedies are taking place because we are occupying another nation and that in order to save lives the right thing to do is to end the occupation and negotiate a just peace with our Palestinian partners?” All of us in the family felt this was true, in fact we had known this for years. At this moment I could no longer keep it in. Here was a major decision maker and future key policymaker in the room, and he wanted our support.

I received a withering look from Barak, and when he prepared to leave and made the rounds of handshakes, all I got was a cold shoulder. I also received a lecture from one of his cronies about not understanding politics and being naive.

One person who played a significant role in this tragedy was actually Benjamin Netanyahu, or Bibi
¹
. He was prime minister at the time of Smadar’s death. Nurit had gone to school with Bibi, and his first wife is one of Nurit’s lifelong friends. I remember him from my childhood neighborhood in Jerusalem. He’d been the picture perfect young Israeli, a paratrooper and a member of Israel’s elite commando unit,
Sayeret Matkal
. Known simply as “The Unit,” it’s the cutting edge of Israel’s Special Forces. To my five-year-old mind, he was a subject of immense admiration with his uniform, good looks, and of course the red beret. Bibi also served as a reservist in The Unit and had participated in several heroic missions. We would visit him when he returned home to hear his stories. He was slightly injured in an operation to rescue a Sabena Belgian airliner that was hijacked in May 1972 and landed in Tel Aviv. The Unit commandos dressed as repair technicians and managed to get into the plane, rescue the passengers, and kill the hijackers. Bibi was shot and suffered a flesh wound in the arm. After the operation, I went with Nurit to visit him. The bandaged arm seemed to me like a medal of honor.