Basel I founded the Jewish state." At the time he had never been to Palestine, he had no idea who lived there. A fellow activist coined the memorable phrase: "A land without a people for a people without a land."⁵ For them, Palestine was empty, uninhabited.

But the grandfather of Sari Nusseibeh was living in Palestine at the time, together with another half million Arabs. They had no idea-and could have no idea-that somewhere in Switzerland, in a town they probably had never heard of, a meeting was taking place whose results would change forever their own fate and the fate of their children and grandchildren, their family, their town, their village, and their country.

Anti-Semitism set Zionism in motion, the Holocaust lent it tremendous moral power; even today it sends masses of Jews from Russia, Argentina, and France to Israel.

The Palestinians have many enemies-but none is as dangerous as anti-Semitism. If in some Arab countries an effort is made to import this foreign anti-Semitism from Europe, it is a fateful mistake.

Sari Nusseibeh and I, two Semites who speak closely related Semitic languages, must be allies in the battle against this old-new mental disease. I believe that we are.

I want to add at once: the curse of anti-Semitism must not be abused in order to choke every criticism of my state. We Israelis want to be a people like any other people, a state like every other state, to be measured by the same moral standards as others.

Yes, here, in Germany, too.

No Sonderbehandlung, please.⁶

The conflict has now been going on for more than a hundred years. On both sides, a fifth generation has been born into it, a generation whose whole mental world has been shaped by it. Fear, hatred, prejudices, stereotypes, and distrust fill this world.

We are standing on the edge of an abyss, and in both peoples there are leaders who command: "Forward, march!"

We are here because we want to save our peoples from this abyss, because we want to show them another way.

The state of Israel exists; nobody can throw us into the sea. The Palestinian people exist; nobody can push them out into the desert. Our Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, wants to turn all of Palestine into a Jewish state. Muslim fundamentalists, like the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, want to include all of Palestine in a Muslim state. That is the direct route to catastrophe.

We both believe in peace and reconciliation between our two peoples. Not only do we believe in it, we work and struggle for it, each in his own way.

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