The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled
Authors: Miko Peled
Tags: BIO010000
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refusing to serve in the occupied territories, and to his political writings.
His final academic work was the translation, from Arabic to Hebrew, of a book called The Sages of Darkness by the Syrian-Kurdish writer Salim Barakat. It was a big project, and he had many exchanges with the writer, which he greatly enjoyed. He used a modem to communicate with Barakat over the Internet. For this last work of his, he was awarded the Israeli Translators’ Association Award. He gave me an inscribed copy, which of course I cherish.
My father’s last political article was titled “A Requiem to Oslo” and appeared in a magazine published by The Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. 11 Therehe predicted the disastrous end to the peace process. He argued that the process had already reached an impasse from which it may not recover. “The failure was due, quite clearly,” he wrote, “to Rabin’s refusal to redeploy forces on the West Bank and allow general elections to be held in the Occupied Territories.” He continued:
When my my father was making a point, he was often compared to one of the prophets who chastised the people of Israel.
The real cause for Israel’s position is that the results of general elections confirming Arafat as the unchallenged leader of the Palestinian people, would place the Palestinian side closest that they ever came to statehood status.
This he said during the years that Rabin was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and the world saw him as the man of peace. So, once again, he was saying the unthinkable.
When we learned of my father’s illness, Gila and I decided not to wait to take Eitan to see his grandfather. We ended making two trips to see my father, going once in October of 1994 and then again in December.
It was very moving to see Father so frail yet still sharp and smiling. We took several pictures of him as he held Eitan. We also had a wonderful family gathering with all four siblings, Yoav, Nurit, Ossi, and I with our spouses and children. My father told stories, and we all listened intently, suspecting that this mightbe our last gathering where he was still well enough to speak. Now I wish I had recorded the moment, because try as I may I can’t recall what stories he told us that evening. Over the days and weeks that I was with him, I kept asking my father to write about himself and about his life, but he refused. “I find it boring to write about myself,” he insisted, and he wouldn’t consent for me to record him either. He was very optimistic about his recovery and his mood for the most part was quite relaxed.
Smadari was there too. Naomi Shemer, Israel’s most beloved songwriter and an old friend of the family, wrote a poem in his honor. The poem begins with the words, “The body’s betrayal, the loyalty of spirit,” alluding to Father’s sharpness of mind even as his body was being eaten by the cancer.
I continued to visit every few months on my own. As his condition got worse there was no point in Gila and Eitan coming along. The third time I visited, my father had just begun receiving chemotherapy, and I went straight from the airport to the hospital. “How are you?” I asked. He looked terrible.
“Miserable,” he replied, and then added, “You should go home and rest, you must be exhausted from the long flight.” He was never an easy man, but he was a little more relaxed as a grandfather than he was as a father. The disease accentuated his moods so when he felt good he was actually quite jovial, but when the pain hit him or the chemo was in him, he was miserable.
I stayed about 10 days. My mother decided to care for him at home as opposed to a hospice. On my fourth visit I stayed till the end. He held on to life as long as he could, believing until the very end that medicine would cure him. Finally, in the early morning hours of March 10, 1995, he succumbed to the disease. My mother and siblings had been taking shifts staying by his bedside.
His final academic work was the translation, from Arabic to Hebrew, of a book called The Sages of Darkness by the Syrian-Kurdish writer Salim Barakat. It was a big project, and he had many exchanges with the writer, which he greatly enjoyed. He used a modem to communicate with Barakat over the Internet. For this last work of his, he was awarded the Israeli Translators’ Association Award. He gave me an inscribed copy, which of course I cherish.
My father’s last political article was titled “A Requiem to Oslo” and appeared in a magazine published by The Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. 11 Therehe predicted the disastrous end to the peace process. He argued that the process had already reached an impasse from which it may not recover. “The failure was due, quite clearly,” he wrote, “to Rabin’s refusal to redeploy forces on the West Bank and allow general elections to be held in the Occupied Territories.” He continued:
When my my father was making a point, he was often compared to one of the prophets who chastised the people of Israel.
The real cause for Israel’s position is that the results of general elections confirming Arafat as the unchallenged leader of the Palestinian people, would place the Palestinian side closest that they ever came to statehood status.
This he said during the years that Rabin was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and the world saw him as the man of peace. So, once again, he was saying the unthinkable.
When we learned of my father’s illness, Gila and I decided not to wait to take Eitan to see his grandfather. We ended making two trips to see my father, going once in October of 1994 and then again in December.
It was very moving to see Father so frail yet still sharp and smiling. We took several pictures of him as he held Eitan. We also had a wonderful family gathering with all four siblings, Yoav, Nurit, Ossi, and I with our spouses and children. My father told stories, and we all listened intently, suspecting that this mightbe our last gathering where he was still well enough to speak. Now I wish I had recorded the moment, because try as I may I can’t recall what stories he told us that evening. Over the days and weeks that I was with him, I kept asking my father to write about himself and about his life, but he refused. “I find it boring to write about myself,” he insisted, and he wouldn’t consent for me to record him either. He was very optimistic about his recovery and his mood for the most part was quite relaxed.
Smadari was there too. Naomi Shemer, Israel’s most beloved songwriter and an old friend of the family, wrote a poem in his honor. The poem begins with the words, “The body’s betrayal, the loyalty of spirit,” alluding to Father’s sharpness of mind even as his body was being eaten by the cancer.
I continued to visit every few months on my own. As his condition got worse there was no point in Gila and Eitan coming along. The third time I visited, my father had just begun receiving chemotherapy, and I went straight from the airport to the hospital. “How are you?” I asked. He looked terrible.
“Miserable,” he replied, and then added, “You should go home and rest, you must be exhausted from the long flight.” He was never an easy man, but he was a little more relaxed as a grandfather than he was as a father. The disease accentuated his moods so when he felt good he was actually quite jovial, but when the pain hit him or the chemo was in him, he was miserable.
I stayed about 10 days. My mother decided to care for him at home as opposed to a hospice. On my fourth visit I stayed till the end. He held on to life as long as he could, believing until the very end that medicine would cure him. Finally, in the early morning hours of March 10, 1995, he succumbed to the disease. My mother and siblings had been taking shifts staying by his bedside.
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