Arabic → English transcript

Jonathan, I mean I want to start with you from the beginning, you are 34 years old.

And you went to Israel at the age of nine, tell me a bit how you moved,

today you are exiled.

And they accuse you of collaboration.

Yeah, first of all, I mean, first of all I want to…

encourage you and salute you too for doing this interview,

because I know the situation is not easy, but in the end…

like you said, in the end it comes down to the truth.

And I believe that today we…

I, for example, do not consider myself expelled, I am in exile,

exiled from my homeland because…

our cause still exists today after 26 years,

our cause is still in our hearts and it was not resolved, and we feel…

that in the end we did not come to Israel so that…

our life would become better or because we are looking for jobs, no,

in the end we came to Israel…

we are living in exile today because, in the end, the… Lebanese state abandoned us,

if you want to put it that way,

and if we want to say it in a straightforward way…

in plain, blunt Arabic, because in the year 2000, when Israel withdrew…

From South Lebanon,

and they went back to their border,

they pulled out every Israeli soldier there.

In South Lebanon, and in the end, someone called Hassan Nasrallah, who was the head

of Hezbollah, came out and threatened,

exactly a few days before the withdrawal,

and said that they were coming to slaughter the families of those who were in

the South Lebanon Army, in their beds,

meaning they were coming into their homes to slaughter them in their beds.

These are the exact words, word for word, of what Hassan Nasrallah said,

and the Lebanese state did not protect us. The Lebanese state

did not come and tell us,“ No, you

you are victims,”

or“ you are traitors to the country,” or “ collaborators,”

in the end, because it was the Lebanese state that pulled me,

and it was the one that pushed us to go and collaborate with the Israelis to

defend ourselves.

I mean, at that time the Lebanese state abandoned us in 1975,

and then in 1976 it gave us the go- ahead and told us,“ Go talk to the Israelis so

they can help you defend yourselves,”

because the road was cut off between Beirut and South Lebanon. At that time,

the Lebanese state again sold our lands to the Palestinians, to Yasser Arafat.

And then to Hezbollah, so this is what happened,

This is the reason why today we are in Israel,

because the Lebanese state abandoned us,

The Lebanese state did not speak about our cause, and the Lebanese state

in a certain way, you feel it does not want to talk

about this topic because it knows it is wrong about this,

I mean Lebanon is ultimately our country, and we hope that one day,

and hopefully these days will be soon,

we can go back and visit our country, but in the end, our right

still has not been given to us, and we hope this will happen as soon as possible.