A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (59 page)

These efforts have not always been successful, but, despite setbacks, progress has been made. That progress would not have been possible without the determination of a handful of individuals, Jews and non-Jews. In 2003, for example, Judea Pearl, father of the murdered journalist, and Akbar S. Ahmed, former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and professor of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, DC, began a series of public discussions that tackled the religious and ethnic hatred that divided their own communities.

As children, both men had witnessed the terrible consequences of hatred. Ahmed was born in India. In 1947, when the subcontinent was divided into two nations—a predominantly Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan—he and his family were among the millions of people uprooted by the conflict. Judea Pearl grew up in British Palestine and saw the violence that erupted there immediately after the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 (see
Chapter 14
). Those memories and the murder of Pearl’s son inspired their conversations. In reflecting on their first encounter in 2003, Ahmad wrote:

What was I to say to a man whose son had been killed in the city where I grew up, and at the hands of those belonging to my own faith? In turn, how could I communicate the political anarchy and social implosion that provided the setting within which we are to understand the murder? And what purpose would dialogue serve in the first place?

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Most of the Jews in the world today live in two nations—Israel and the United States.

I agreed to go to Pittsburgh in order to express my support to the Pearl family for creating in Daniel a symbol of compassion in spite of the personal tragedy. As a Pakistani I felt it would also allow me to express my deep sympathy. As a Muslim I could make the point that Danny’s murder was un-Islamic. Indeed Danny’s death symbolized that far too many innocent people—Muslims and non-Muslims in different places, in different societies—were being brutally killed in our world
.

In explaining why he agreed to the dialogue, Dr. Pearl said that he was a scientist who wished to avenge Danny’s murder by attacking the hatred that took his son’s life and by challenging the ideology that permitted the hatred to bloom.
⁴⁶

At that session and those that followed, Ahmed and Pearl did not speak as Muslim or Jew, Pakistani or Israeli, but rather as concerned individuals. They shared memories, fears, and dreams. Not everyone who heard them thought that these conversations were a good idea. Ahmed noted:

Many [Muslims] felt that the victimization and killing of Muslims around the world provided no reason to talk to the Jews. Others pointed out that the Pearl family was associated with Israel and therefore no dialogue or reconciliation could take place unless the problem of the Palestinians was resolved. Still others distrusted dialogue attempts because they felt they had been let down too many times in the past. The criticism made my task of public dialogue even more difficult.
⁴⁷

Pearl encountered similar criticism from some in the Jewish community. Nevertheless, the two men persisted in their belief that their public conversations were “tiny steps toward mutual understanding and dialogue.”
⁴⁸

A number of observers have wondered how much two grandfathers on a stage can accomplish. Can speaking to several hundred people in the United States or Europe lead to significant change? To Ahmed, the value of such conversations cannot be measured by the number of people in an auditorium. He noted that thousands more read about these events in newspapers or see portions of them on TV or the Internet and begin to see “the other” as individuals rather than as stereotypes. Ahmed insisted:

Dialogue by itself is empty…. Two people talk, they go home and nothing happens. But dialogue that leads to understanding [is
different]. I’ve gotten to know Judea. I’ve come to know the pain, the history and the traditions of his people. From this dialogue we have seen the possibility of friendship and friendship changes everything. When people become friends…. [t]hey are prepared to make compromises, to change, to accommodate.
⁴⁹

Members of a soccer team from Abou Gosh, a village in Israel, include both Israeli Jews and Arabs. They are often invited to play in Europe to demonstrate that Arabs and Jews can get along.

The journey in which the two men have been engaged requires mutual respect, empathy, and a willingness to honestly confront the past as well as the ability to compromise, change, and accommodate. As Elie Wiesel noted, “Although we today are not responsible for the injustices of the past, we are responsible for the way we remember the past and what we do with that past.” Only through the process of facing history and ourselves can we hope to reduce the hatred and prevent further violence.

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