Mahouz Inan

And I was raged.

I wanted to punish the Israeli government.

I want them to pay the price for the way they betrayed my parents and my friends.

And I want to do everything I can in order to take them down.

I started a protest only a month after, October 7th, with another Israeli bereaved father who lost his son.

Also on October 7th, opposite of the Knesset in Jerusalem, and we called everyone to come and join us to take this government out of the office, out of power.

And one afternoon I shared with my family, close family and three friends, how I'm literally going to act in order to take the government down.

And they told me, Maoz, it's a good plan, but you might go down with them.

So we need you to create hope.

And they taught me that I can choose forgiveness.

I can choose forgiveness in order to save myself from

from the feelings of revenge, because revenge is not filling the hole in your body that was created when I lost my parents and friends.

Revenge will only make this hole bigger and bigger, and then I realized it will become big enough to be my grave.

I traveled a lot, and I traveled twice around the world, visiting Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South America.

And I learned so much about indigenous community, about their lifestyle, heritage, culture, faith.

And then in summer of 2004, like traveling in South America,

And I said, we know nothing about the Palestinians.

And between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there are 7 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews, 14 million.

So I learned that we lived all our life within total ignorance of the other, of the Palestinians, and realizing that when there is ignorance, there is fear.

And when there is fear, there is hate.