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"TEL AVIV, Israel – Danny Mahlouf, a 70-year-old Israeli plasterer from Ashkelon, has a message for Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and it’s personal. "Tell Ismail Haniyeh to lose the beard, and stop making trouble!"
They go way back. In the late ‘80s, Haniyeh worked for five years as a plasterer in Ashkelon and Mahlouf was his boss. "We were close friends but we lost contact," Mahlouf said. "Then one day my son was watching TV and suddenly he shouted, Dad, come quickly, Ismail’s on TV. He’s prime minister!"
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| Hatem Moussa / AP file |
| Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh waves to supporters in Gaza City, Dec. 8. |
Their story tells much about the ties between Jews and Arabs that have been lost in the violence. The relationships between Israelis and Palestinians weren’t always full of the tension and hatred that often characterize them today, and that raises the possibility that one day, somehow, it could go back to the more peaceful days.
Old friends
I met Mahlouf in a café in Ashkelon, while waiting for Grad rockets to fall, fired by Haniyeh’s men in Gaza. My new friends in the café, where I went every day during the recent three-week war, told me Mahlouf’s story and said I must meet him. Then one day he came in, and we talked for an hour.
He’s a tough old guy who still works a six-day week. He stood up, blew out his chest, patted his firm stomach and boomed, "Guess how old I am! Ismail would recognize me right away!"
I won’t get in the way of his words, for they tumbled out. But it’s Mahlouf’s explanation of why he believes Ismail Haniyeh changed from a humble worker to an Islamic militant, and what his old friend thinks about him:
"He was a good worker, he worked for me for five years on a salary. He went with my son to Netanya, all over, he came to my house and I went to his in Gaza.
"There was no border post then, we all just came and went. We went to him, I went to Jabaliya like going to my own home, we ate fish there, we lived together, no difference between Jews and Arabs. We ate together, they went to Tel Aviv in their cars, I went to his house, his old house, not the new one now! Gaza was like Tel Aviv for me.
"Weddings, funerals, we were friends. He came with his wife and two children to my daughter’s wedding. But one day his brother was killed and from that very day he became a Hamasnik."
On May 20, 1990, an Israeli, Ami Popper, who had been dishonorably discharged from the army, lined up Arab workers in the road in Rishon-le-Zion, and killed seven. One of them was Haniyeh’s brother. Popper was sentenced to seven life terms for murder, one for each of the seven Palestinians he killed, but he could be paroled by 2023.
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| SLIDESHOW: Gaza's road to recovery |
"I went to Ismail’s house for the funeral," Mahlouf continued. "There were four men in masks. I thought, walla! I’m finished. I’m a dead man. Then one took off his mask and it was Ismail. He said, ‘I told you not to come. I’m finished. I’ll never come to Israel again.’ He came with me to the Erez border to make sure I was safe, and he never came back to work. I never saw him again.
"He wasn’t religious – only later when his brother died. Then I didn’t see him again till [I saw him on] TV, and he’s prime minister! But today, let him stay in the bunker.
"That day at the funeral, I told him, get better, you can’t kill the Jews, we are one state, you are many, you won’t beat us.
"What’s to talk about? They ate with us, worked with us, lived like kings. What happened? They want to get rid of us, what? Tough, we have our state, that’s it. Nothing they can do about it. There they kill each other, what did they get out of it?
"That’s it, if you see him, best wishes to Haniyeh. I say to him, Ismail, get better, stop making problems, it’s over. That’s my message to Ismail. And lose the beard. Tell him your boss, Danny the plasterer, Rachel’s husband, sends his best wishes and stop making all those problems. We all want peace."Original here
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