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Israel Story

118: Wartime Diaries - Faiz Abu Sabehan

Israel Story

Israel Story

Judaism, Palestine, Jewish, Stories, Religion & Spirituality, Israel

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over the last five weeks we’ve spoken to many families of hostages. That’s how we met Faiz Abu Sabehan, whose 53-year-old brother-in-law, Farhan al-Qadi – a father of eleven – has been kidnapped into Gaza. Faiz is a Bedouin politician, and has twice served as mayor of Rahat, the largest Arab city in Israel. He’s also an educator – a teacher, a principal and an administrator. Much like his political patron, Mansour Abbas, Faiz holds a complex position – he’s in favor of fully integrating into Israeli society on the one hand, but remains steadfast and uncompromising when it comes to central tenets of Islam on the other.

Being the mayor of Rahat is one of the most difficult jobs in the country – the city is poor, under-policed and sees more than its share of violence. In fact, Faiz himself has survived multiple assassination attempts. Some of what he says is challenging and might make certain listeners feel uncomfortable. But nevertheless we felt that it’s important to bring his voice too, as an Israeli, as a Bedouin leader and as a family member of a hostage.

The end song is Shir Ahava Bedoui (“Bedouin Love Song”) by Tzlil Mechuvan.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

In a man, a Muslim,

0:03.0

how you're doing what you're going to

0:06.0

how you're doing what you're going to?

0:08.0

So, as a believer, as a devout Muslim,

0:11.0

how do you deal with what happened on October 7th?

0:13.0

How do you see it?

0:14.0

What I see is that it is a

0:16.0

that's a thing that is a

0:18.0

the way I see it, what happened is something that goes against our religion.

0:23.6

It's infuriating.

0:25.8

We all obviously condemn the acts of Hamas, which are horrible criminal acts.

0:31.8

When you see people slaughtering other people, it's something that's simply unacceptable,

0:39.7

both according to our religion and according to common sense. But that's also my feeling when I see planes bombing innocent people.

0:54.1

That's also a crime in itself, which is why we Bedouins call on both sides,

0:59.0

the Palestinian factions and the State of Israel, which is a sovereign state, to stop and to start returning the hostages.

1:08.0

It's painful.

1:11.2

People can't sleep at night when their loved ones are held across the border.

1:15.6

We can't just sit around at home.

1:19.8

Hey listeners, it's Mishi.

1:22.8

So as you know, during these incredibly difficult days, we're trying to bring you voices we're hearing among

1:29.0

and around us. These aren't stories, they're just quick conversations, or postcards really,

1:36.4

that try to capture slivers of life right now. Over the last five weeks, we've unfortunately spoken to many families of hostages.

...

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