People tell me I'm courageous. Maybe I am. I'll let you decide, but I never think about myself that way. I think about what the right thing to do is and what makes sense.

And I leave it at that.

I was taught that Jews hated me because of Muslim

and in turn I was taught to hate them because they're Jews. That's pretty much

what every child grows up thinking in the Arab board. I grew up in Bahrain. After

graduating from university I went to work in the education

sector. I didn't think much about Israel at the time. Out of sight, out of mind. Then when the Abraham Accords a new partnership between Israel

and the Gulf State took shape. I began to take notice. This was interesting, I thought. We live in the same neighborhood.

Israel is a thriving tech hub. It stands to reason that they might have products and technology that would benefit the

Gulf economy. Then in 2020 out of the blue I was contacted by a non-profit

NGO called Charaka, whose goal is to introduce and educate

Arabs and Israelis about one another and promote peace. They asked if I wanted to visit Israel as a part of a Bahraini delegation

connected to the Abraham Accords. I accepted. By this point I was very curious. Who were these Israelis?

I went all over Israel. I visited with Jews, of course, but also Arabs.

I met with Christians, Druze and Bad Ones. I toured Jerusalem, Tel Aviv,

and many holy sites, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

What I discovered shocked me.

These weren't horrible people.

This wasn't a horrible country.

It was a dynamic democracy. It was also incredibly diverse, different

races, different ethnic backgrounds, different religions. From what I could tell, everybody seemed to get along.

And the Israelis, I discovered, were very anxious to establish good relations with Bahrain.

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