The Palestinian Who Hired a Jewish Lawyer

Enjoy this very Israeli-Palestinian story.

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This is a guest post written by Elissa Wald of “Never Alone.”

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An Israeli friend of mine here in Israel invited me to coffee because he said he had a story to tell me.

We met today and now I have a story to tell you.

He is in real estate, and this story starts with him getting a call from a colleague — also Israeli — who is selling a condo. The seller was not in town, but the buyer wanted to see the place right away, so the former asked my friend Yosi if he would show the condo to the interested party in his stead. Yosi agreed.

Here is how things developed, in the words of Yosi:

We meet and I show him around. It turns out he is Arab. After a while, he asked me where I am from. And I have no idea what makes me say this, but almost as a reflex, I blurt out: “I’m not going to tell you.”

He said: “You’re Israeli, aren’t you?”

And in response, without saying a word, I hold out my hand for him to shake.

But he doesn’t take it. He stands there eyeing my hand for a long moment, and eventually I drop it.

“And you’re Palestinian,” I say. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” he said.

Again, I hold out my hand.

This time, after a long beat, he takes it.

We do not talk about the war, even though it is the elephant in the room. I show him the place. I cannot really tell what he thinks.

But then the next week, to my surprise, he called me on the phone. He had never met a Jew before. He said that he wanted to talk to me again. He invited me to his agency.

So I went over there, and as I walked in, I saw three people turn and just stare at me. I am thinking that they are obviously three Palestinians. But I am slightly wrong; it turns out they are two Palestinians and one Syrian. And they just drop everything they are doing and come over and sit down in a ring around me, looking at me — as if I am an exhibit in a zoo.

And we start talking. The man I met at the condo, he said to me: “I have to tell you this: I hate the IDF. But I want to tell you something else: The IDF is not made up of Israeli soldiers. Did you know that?

[Here I broke in. “Did he mean that the IDF is not made up of professional soldiers, but all Israeli civilians when they come of age, except for the ultra-Orthodox?”]

No. That is not what he meant. What he meant was in the Twilight Zone. He told me the IDF is an entirely foreign army.

Really, I said to him. I did not know that.

He tells me he watched a video in which IDF soldiers identified themselves as coming from Morocco and Romania and all kinds of other places.

And I said: “Well, that’s very interesting, because I was in the IDF, and I didn’t see any Moroccans or Romanians. So please tell me a little bit more about that.”

He said: “yes, yes, I saw this in a video. Moroccans and Romanians.”

So I tell him: “I think you may have misunderstood. When an IDF soldier says he is Moroccan, he means that he is a Moroccan Jew. And when an IDF soldier says he is Romanian, he means that he is a Romanian Jew. Maybe the video did not explain that.”

[Here I broke in again: “Are you sure he didn’t mean he watched some propaganda video saying the IDF is made up of foreign mercenaries?”]

I am not sure about anything.

But at any rate, we continued to talk, and he began every other sentence with: “I saw a video…” “I saw a video..” “I saw a video…”

Another video he watched said that the IDF’s favorite pastime was to bash in the heads of babies. And yet another video said that Israel, right now, is trying to conquer and occupy Saudi Arabia.

And I told him: “Wow, I never saw or heard about any of that.”

[“So you are playing it straight?” I asked.]

I am listening.

[“Okay, but you are playing along, pretending he is enlightening you?”]

I am trying to listen. I want to understand: Where are we? Where are we on this map? What is going on? I need, first of all, to listen.

[“All right. Well, you are a better man than me,” I said, which is also my favorite way of slyly “conceding” to my husband.]

Next he told me that there is only one thing worse than what is happening in “Palestine.” And that is the situation in Syria.

[“Okay,” I said. “So he understands that over the previous decade, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad killed more Palestinians than have died in this Israel-Hamas war?”]

Yes. And I asked him why he thinks no one ever gets upset about that.

He gave me the most perfect answer. And he was not trying to be funny. He was not being ironic. He answered in a serious way. He said: “Well, it is hard to find videos about that.”

And the conversation continued in this vein. We talked and talked and he told me all these amazing things. And finally I asked him: “So, what do you want? What do you want to happen now? What is your desired outcome in this conflict?”

And then, to my surprise, he totally lost it. Right in front of everyone, he started to cry like a child. And he said: “I just want it to stop.”

I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder and said “Okay, okay, I am with you. I hear you. But let me ask you this: Let’s say we stop. Let’s say we call a ceasefire right now. Then what? What next?”

And here, for a moment, I switched to Arabic. And I have a flawless Arabic accent. In Arabic I said to him: “And don’t bullshit me — what do you really want to happen after that? Do you want October 7th to happen again and again?

And he told me that October 7th never happened at all. It never happened. Nothing like that ever happened.

This is when I finally understand the hatred, all the videos he has seen, all the facts he thinks he knows. I understand that there is an internal logic inside the insanity. Because this is what he truly believes.

This is also when I understand that there is nothing more to say. I thought there was an unbridgeable river between us and now I see that, in fact, it is an ocean.

So I left, and I thought I was done with him, but then the next week, he called me. Instead of calling his agent, he called me. Even though his agent is Palestinian and I am Israeli. He called me to negotiate with me directly. And he said to me: “That condo is not worth much. It is really small, and to be honest, it is kind of trash. But you know what, I will give you 100,000 for it.”

And I thought: What do we have here? We are about to have an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation! On a micro level, but okay!

The condo was listed for 155,000 — so I tell him that I will convey his offer to the seller (who, again, is also Israeli). And I did that. But the seller did not want to negotiate. He said: “I don’t want to sell to a Palestinian.”

I told him: “Well, I cannot say that. It is illegal. I will just convey that you are not accepting his offer.”

So I called the guy back and said: “I’m sorry, we don’t have a deal.”

Next he said: “Okay, well, I will give him 110,000.”

Again, the answer was “no.”

It took a full week for him to come back after that. But he did come back, and he countered with 130,000. My friend said no.

Finally, after yet another week, the guy called me back again and said: “Alright, I am ready to buy it. What will it take for me to buy it?”

I told him: “Well, the price is 155,000. In my experience, you might be able to get it for 150,000. But I don’t know. I can ask.”

So the next day, after talking with his own agent, he wrote me an offer for 145,000. I called my Israeli friend and asked:” Do you want to counter with 150,000?”

He said no, only the full price.

That is when I knew the negotiations were over. He was not going to pay full price. You have to give the other something — emotionally, I mean. They have to feel that they are getting something. But I had to give him an honest answer, so yet again, I tell him: “I am sorry, no, the condo is 155,000.”

And he surprised me. He said: “Okay, 155,000.”

So here is the end of this story. I received the paperwork, and I looked at the closing date. Can you guess the closing date?

[“Is it October 7th?” I asked.]

It is October 7th. I was shocked. I was completely shocked.

[“And what is your interpretation of that?”]

I never asked. I never asked. I just told the seller: Okay, you win, you get full price.

And he said: “I still do not want to sell it to him. I do not want to sell it to a Palestinian. How do I know he is not planning to use it as a terror cell?”

I told him: “You cannot refuse to sell at the asking price. It is illegal.”

So the deal was done. And afterward, do you know what the Palestinian said to me? He said: “Wow, you people — you people! Of course he wanted to say you Jews — but he said, you people are very tough to negotiate with.”

Then he added: “I will give you this much. If I ever needed an attorney, I would want a Jewish attorney. And you know why? My father was supposed to serve a 25-year prison sentence in Israel.”

He did not tell me what his father did, but I can well imagine.

He just said: “My father was supposed to serve 25 years in Israel. But after he hired a Jewish attorney, he only had to serve one.”

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