Mixed up in the Middle East

Reya El-Salahi, taking you through Sunday evening.

I'm Reya, and I'm 25.

On my weekly radio show, I explore race and identity in Britain.

My own background is complicated - I'm mixed Arab Muslim and Jewish.

Now I'm going to Israel to try to understand the conflict

that divides my own family.

Bitter conflict over land and power in Israel between Jewish Israelis

and Arab Palestinians has been going on for decades.

It's a really dangerous place to be the sort of person that I am.

And I can imagine a lot of people won't take that well.

I'm definitely not ready for some parts of Israeli life.

And in some places, being mixed puts me in a difficult position.

My dad would not be allowed here,

and he'd be mistrusted.

I see the divisions created in the name of security...

I can't imagine what it would be like, this is your view

out of your bedroom window.

..and ancient divisions that leave me isolated.

I know it's not religion itself and blah, blah,

but religion is bullshit.

I see victims of the conflict here on the Palestinian side...

My eyes and skin are burning, I feel like I'm going to be sick.

I can't see justification for shooting tear gas at kids.

..and I see how Palestinian violence affects Israelis...

His head just... SHE POPS

..popped off like a champagne cork.

I don't know if I'm going to find any place in this country

where I could belong.

I'm haunted by what I saw. That will never leave me.

Growing up mixed race in Britain is complicated,

but my background is extra difficult.

My dad is North African Arab, from a Muslim background.

My mum was born and brought up in Britain, but she's Jewish.

When my mum met my dad, her mum actually refused to meet him.

My mum's side and my dad's side, we don't mix too much.

I'd love for both sides of the family to be more integrated

and put aside their politics, just to be able to have

Christmas together, of all events, or Eid or Hanukkah.

My family wrestles with how to feel about the conflict.

Even my Jewish mother has her doubts about Israel...

I was born just after the war, always heard my parents

talking about the Holocaust. And Israel was somewhere to look to

and to support - it was our place. But my views on that changed.

And I now, and for many years now, don't support a Jewish state.

I want a secular state for everyone in the Middle East.

Am I Jewish or am I Muslim?

At the moment, that's not something that I'm willing to decide.

I feel like I'm both and that is the answer.

My brother, Zaki, went to Israel ten years ago

in a pro-Palestinian student group.

You don't want to see people being killed anywhere,

but Israelis, they've got to accept that if they occupied

someone's land, there'll be a reaction.

There's that sense that you have your opinions,

and you're quite kind of sure in what you think.

And then the other side of the family, that are more

Mum's side that are more pro-Israel, have their opinions

and it's like there's no middle ground.

I really want to go to this place that is such a source of contention

in my family, in the world, and experience it for myself

and have my own opinions, rather than what one side of my family

tells me and the other side of my family tells me what I should think.

'It's my farewell dinner.

'My family is supportive of my journey to Israel

'but well aware that parts of it will be dangerous, too.'

I'm quite scared about it.

Zaki went there and he almost got shot.

I wish that you go there and do your job and come back safely.

Bye, house!

The best outcome from this trip for me, the absolute ideal would be

to come away feeling like I know more about who I am.

The worst thing that could come out of this is that

I feel like I don't belong anywhere.

I want to come back feeling like it's opened a door to find out more,

not like it's closed a door.

My first experience in Israel is not a good sign.

Everyone in the crew gets through passport control

but I get taken away for questioning.

At first I was like, "Here we go".

But it's to be expected, isn't it?

I can't come here with a name like El-Salahi

and expect to be walking through,

waving, skipping, holding hands with security guards.

But at the same time, it is just funny to sit in that room

and everyone in there is brown.

And everyone getting through with no problems seems to be lighter skin.

Maybe that's just a coincidence, but that the only other guy in there

was called Mohammed. Oh, what a surprise!

"Hi, Mohammed, I'm Reya El-Salahi, nice to meet you."

The modern country of Israel was founded in 1948,

following the Holocaust of the second world war.

Before that, Jews were scattered all over the world.

But Palestinian Arabs say this land is theirs

because they've lived here for over a thousand years.

My first impression of Israel was a bit intimidating.

But tomorrow, I'm meeting some young Israelis who will help me

figure out what Tel Aviv is really like...

I hope!

I'm meeting Keren Cohen,

a Jewish girl born in Israel, who went to university in the UK.

She moved back to Tel Aviv two years ago,

and she and her friend Shenae are keen to show me

what they like about Israel.

Hey, lovely to meet you! I'm Reya.

Hey there, nice to meet you.

-Shenae.

-Hello, lovely to meet you.

Thank you for taking me round today. I'm very excited.

-We have to have our bags checked?

-Yes.

-OK.

Whenever you're going in and out of shops?

-You have to get your bags checked.

-Any public area.

-Oh, wow.

Keren and Shenae have decided I'm going to get to know this city

with some good old-fashioned retail therapy.

Is it wrong that I'm going straight for the disgusting bright pink?

-Don't do it!

-Poptastic!

Thank you! I'm feeling ready to go out now.

Yeah, now we're ready.

I was having such a great girly day.

But then on our way to the beach, we heard there had been violent attacks

by Islamic militants on a town just three hours away.

Eight people were killed.

'The bus attack was quickly followed by two more coordinated assaults.

'Within minutes, an anti-tank missile blasted a private car,

'and a roadside bomb blew up Israeli soldiers

'on their way to help the bus victims.'

For me that's really scary. Does it not, in a way,

put you off living here, that there is that, in as much as you've

got this like beautiful beach life, beautiful shopping,

you've got that sinister side?

Just like anywhere else,

you can, I don't know, get run over by a car.

I don't think that it shortens my life that I live in Israel,

because anything could happen anywhere.

We grew up in this reality, so we kind of get to know it.

It still shocks us every time,

but we just know that we have to carry on.

After a few drinks on the beach, it's not too hard to forget

about the threat of violence. But I don't know

if I could live with it every day,

like young Israelis do.

Today, I'm going to one of the most contentious places in Israel -

a Jewish settlement called Itamar.

Earlier this year, a settler family was brutally murdered there.

Two young Palestinians from a nearby village

were arrested for the killings.

I've been invited because of my Jewish side,

but, given my Arab side, I'm not sure what reception I'll get.

Today...

..I'm going to have to swap all that

bright pink...fluffy stuff

for this body armour,

which is really weird.

In the space of two days in the same country,

that was yesterday, this is today.

Settlers are Zionists who believe they have a sacred duty

to build communities everywhere in Israel -

on land that Palestinian Arabs say is theirs.

Settlements are considered illegal under international law.

Itamar is surrounded by Palestinian villages,

deep in the heart of disputed territory.

It's protected by the Israeli army and security is really tight.

I'm meeting Rabbi Moshe Goldsmith, the mayor here.

God gave us our homeland

and obviously the deed to the land is the Bible.

We have right to return to our land and we have to work hard for it.

Moshe shows me a memorial to young people killed in attacks

on the settlement.

Gillard Stiglets, Avro Mushoff, Ceto Enshmal.

All these boys from the school,

these three were killed here on premises - these three boys.

He looks so young...

They are, sure. They all were. Don't forget, they're up to

17 and 18 years old, each of these boys.

This is very, very difficult tragedy.

This is the price, a terrible price, Israel is paying

to be Israel, just to want to live.

It's a bit strange. I think some members of my family,

they wouldn't be allowed here, which is why I feel so uncomfortable.

My dad would not be allowed here

and he'd be mistrusted, which is why it's really strange.

But...I'm interested to find out more.

I was really surprised and pleased when Moshe invited me to his home.

He's lived here since 1985, when the settlement was just

two rows of houses.

Now, over a thousand people live here.

Moshe's daughter, Merav, is studying to be a make-up artist in Tel Aviv.

What's life like living here, for young people? Is it fun?

Yeah, I love it.

The world is upside down, everything, you know, is so mixed up.

And my head, like, hurts and I come here

and I feel peaceful, like, I feel like, "Ah, I'm so happy,

"I'm so lucky to live here." It's kind of like a bubble.

'Like her mum and dad, Merav is very proud of being a settler.'

Here, it's exactly the heart of the land.

And if someone, like... If you take a heart out of a person,

you can't live.

I always say, everyone who lives in Israel is a settler.

Moshe took me to the site of the horrific crime

that happened here nine months ago. The Fogel family lived here.

Both parents and three of their children were murdered

on a Sabbath night, including a three-month-old baby.

I can't begin to imagine what that must be like.

'The two young Palestinian men arrested for the murders

'were from the village of Awarta, just across the valley.'

The daughter, Tamer, who was 12 years old,

she's the oldest daughter of the family,

she escorted her friends, at around 10.15, out of the home.

At that moment, one of the terrorists looked and they saw one

of the kids in the house, they ran into the house

and they locked the door from the inside,

and they grabbed a hold of this boy and they cut his throat.

Then they went into the next room and they killed another boy.

They went into the parents' bedroom, and they first killed the father,

then the mother came out, and they murdered the mother.

They went out of the house, they heard the baby crying,

they went back in and they cut the throat of the little baby,

they stabbed the baby. A little tiny baby about that big.

The Fogels' daughter, Tamer, discovered the bodies

of her family when she came home.

She ran out of the house, screaming,

the whole community woke from her screams.

And, unfortunately, we found this horrific story,

this terrible bloodshed here.

Two of the Fogels' little boys survived because they were asleep.

Along with their sister, they don't live in Itamar any more.

What did it make you think of the people who did it

in the village, that's just in sight of where we are?

It's almost hard for us to believe they could do something like that.

More of disbelief. Like, how could human beings could come along

and, in such a cruel way, murder children, a family, on the Sabbath?

What would you say to people who would say that this is Palestine,

this is the West Bank and so this is Palestinian territories?

I would say to them that the best seller of any book

in the world is the Bible - and the Bible is an outright history,

the deed to the land of Israel for the Jewish people.

Although I was shocked by the murders,

I found Moshe's beliefs difficult to get my head round.

I can't understand how, based on a book,

you can feel you have a right to live in a land.

It just doesn't make sense to me YET.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the Fogel family.

I'd love to know what my brother would say

about a child his daughter's age being stabbed in her cot.

I don't know what he'd say about that because the loss of life

on either side is wrong and terrible,

but that's just one side of that story.

People are dead, that's a fact, but I'd like to speak to...

the other side, I'd like to hear what the other side had to say.

If I can, later in my trip, I'm going to visit the Arab village

Moshe pointed out, so close across the valley to Itamar.

But first, I want to find out about one defining feature

of Israeli life.

Israeli citizens must join the army for two to three years

and it's an important shared experience for most young Jews here.

Arab Israelis are exempted. They CAN volunteer, but it's rare.

I meet a young lieutenant called Keren Hajioff.

The Israel defence force has arranged for me

to spend the day with her in her flat, and tomorrow on her army base.

There's a press officer with us all the time.

THEY CONVERSE IN OWN LANGUAGE

He's got no basil! I mean, who doesn't have basil in their market?!

Keren was born and grew up in London,

but two years ago she moved here on her own to join the army.

In Israel, women serve on the frontline and in combat.

I asked her what prompted such a huge decision.

Israel is just such an important part of Judaism

and, I mean, there's so much of a reason to be here,

so much of an importance as a person for me to be here

and I've never been this happy in my life

and I was a happy, spoilt little British girl in London.

Then Keren gets a call -

there's been another attack by Islamic militants

in the south of Israel.

There's been a rocket attack on a school in Be'er Sheva.

Which is where your base is?

Which is very close to my base.

They told everyone in the area in the south of Israel

just to stay in shelters, not to leave the shelters

until further notice. Don't know how long that'll be.

Does everyone have a shelter in their house?

That's how we have to live.

Even here, there's a shelter cos it's Israel which is...

We're threatened on a daily basis.

'Despite what had happened, Keren remained so upbeat

'about the army and Israel.'

I notice on your hand, is it a tattoo?

It's not actually a tattoo.

I don't know why, I take a pen and draw the Star of David on my hand.

Whenever I look at the watch, it's just like,

"What's the time? Oh, it's time to, like, love Israel." I don't know!

She's British, she speaks with a British accent,

she grew up in Britain, spent most of her life in Britain,

and yet, to her, it sounds like this is home.

And I find that so strange, cos for me, Britain is home.

Cheers, guys. Thank you for...

'I meet Keren and her friends for a drink.

'They're a close group, all Jewish and mainly from London, like Keren.

'Some live here, but three of the girls are on holiday.'

At home, we tend to live near each other, go to similar schools, camps,

quite similar synagogues, so we do tend to mix.

We're quite insular, I guess, without meaning to be

because of who's around.

I think that's one of the things that people our age

love about Israel - where you go, everyone's Jewish,

you go to a club, and everyone's Jewish. It's just really nice.

I found this idea strange.

Maybe everyone THEY hang out with is Jewish

but that doesn't mean everyone in Israel is.

We're driving to Keren's base in the far south.

We'll be passing close to areas hit by the Islamic militant attacks,

so I'm a bit nervous...

at first.

Safety here is vital.

Don't go in any area that I don't tell you to go.

Make sure you stay with me the whole time.

Shooting is something that every soldier has to go through.

They need to know how to protect themselves.

At the end of the day, we're an army

and we're here to defend a country and a people.

So we're going to go now. Don't be scared, I'm with you!

Hold my hand, I've got you. It's fine.

-OK, you ready?

-Yes, I'm ready.

-Amazing, let's go.

Good afternoon, we are now going to do some shooting.

I will now give the order to fire!

SHE SHOUTS ORDERS

GUNFIRE

Check you are on safety, stand up.

Hold your weapons at 60 degrees in the air.

Ten out of ten! Well done!

-He got ten out of ten?

-Yes.

-Am I all right to take these off?

-Yes.

Everyone's stopped shooting.

What about you? Eight out of ten for a girl - that is impressive!

You're a chauvinist.

I'm not - I'm showing the world that women can do this too!

I thought, coming down here, that I would really want to have a go.

I was really pumped, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Seeing that, I definitely don't want to.

And the thought of me as an 18-year-old being given a gun...

I hate to think. There's x amount of people standing within

arm's reach of me with deadly weapons.

And I've never ever experienced that before. People my age.

So that was quite weird.

Keren brings me to try out an armoured personnel carrier.

OK, hold onto everything, nothing falls off.

And...there you go.

The next step that's going to be brave of you,

you have to put on a helmet. Put it on like this.

-It doesn't fit on my head.

-It does, you've just got to yank it.

-What happens if you've got a big hairstyle?

-That's why you don't.

-I'll hold onto it.

-You can.. OK, hold onto it. I'll wear the helmet.

I'd seriously have a freak-out. I'd freak out. It's so tight.

Do you know what's crazy? People our age have to sleep in this.

I really doubt what I've experienced today

is what army life is actually like.

'She's not just saying it, she clearly loves being here.

'But it just feels like propaganda.'

And I don't feel like I'm going to leave this place with any

better understanding of what it is that makes people come here

and give three years of their life to this army.

Right now, if someone asked me, I wouldn't have a clue. I wouldn't.

I'm moving on to Jerusalem,

the city at the heart of the conflict in Israel.

It's a fascinating but divided place.

Palestinians and Israelis both claim it's THEIR capital city.

The different cultures and religions don't seem to mix -

East Jerusalem is Arab, and west is Israeli.

It's also had some of the worst violence -

between 2000 and 2011,

there were over 40 attacks by Palestinian militants.

The last one was nine months ago.

Some of the most important religious sites in Judaism

and Islam are right beside each other here.

I'm going to visit the Western Wall for my Jewish side

and the al-Aqsa Mosque for my Arab Muslim side.

I'm not religious,

but I'm hoping that such spiritually important places might give me

a little taste of the faith people like my dad have.

But today, things go wrong from the start.

Once again, what a surprise, I'm the only one stopped

as we all walk through and somebody from the crew has to say that

I'm with you, otherwise I'm not allowed through

because I have to be checked.

What a surprise!

I am boiling, it's hot and I'm wearing respectable clothes

whilst loads of other people are wearing far less than me.

I'm hot and bothered.

Then I discover that the Western Wall is segregated.

Look at that - the men's wall has loads of space

and women get like a little section.

As I approached the wall, I change my mind.

I just don't want to be here.

Just doesn't mean anything to me

and in one sense feels a bit disrespectful to go.

So I don't really want to, and do the whole walking backwards thing.

And have to cover my hair.

For most Jews, the wall is literally the holiest place they'll ever go.

For me, that's all the more reason that dividing it up is wrong.

I moved on to visit al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

But once again, I have problems from the start.

This time, they won't even let me in.

'He doesn't accept that I'm Muslim.'

The first thing it made me do was I went and called my dad.

He's the most religious person I know.

We've just tried to go into the al-Aqsa Mosque

but they won't let me in because they say I'm not Muslim.

Is that normal?

My dad was like, "No, that's not what being a Muslim is about."

It's just been such a disappointing afternoon.

The religion stuff is such bullshit.

I know it's not religion itself, and blah, blah, blah...

but religion is bullshit.

Being mixed race, sometimes, is really cool,

cos it means you have entry to more than just one culture.

But sometimes it means you have entry to none.

It's like you're all or nothing.

And today it feels like...

I'm more nothing.

This is the barrier built by Israel, which separates itself

and the Palestinian region of the West Bank.

It's hundreds of miles long.

Most Palestinians can only travel through the barrier

with Israeli permission.

I can't really imagine what it would be like that this is your view

out of your bedroom window every morning.

Israelis say the barrier is for security

and prevents suicide bombers getting through.

But Palestinians say Israel has used it to take control of land

and restrict their freedom.

I've heard the Jewish take on Israel.

Now, I want to hear from the other side,

so I'm crossing the barrier line.

Oh, I hate these things.

'First, we have to pass through a checkpoint called Qalandia.

'Checkpoints are controlled by the Israeli army

'and there's a lot of security.'

I feel completely caged in.

It's tight and there's people trying to get through.

Imagine rush hour - everyone trying to get to work, through there.

I would not want to face a checkpoint every day of my life.

Even being in there for two minutes, I feel pissed off.

If I had to do that and I was running late for work

and I hadn't had time to do my make-up and I was trying to get

everything done as it is normally on a Monday morning, I would be livid.

Now we're in the West Bank,

on the way to the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Crazy - just a half-hour drive

and you're in a completely different world.

No Hebrew written down any more.

My brother was here nine years ago,

when the Israeli army launched a crackdown on Palestinian violence.

It was a dangerous place then.

I want to see what it's like today.

Stars and bucks!

It's not at all what I expected.

I'm already quite in love with this place.

I feel really kind of connected to it in a way I haven't yet.

I haven't been in this country and felt like, ah, I get this.

But I really get this, this is cool.

This doesn't feel like Israel at all. At all.

Now that I'm seeing the West Bank as Palestinian,

it's strange to think that Itamar is in this area.

I'm going back to visit Awarta,

the village just across the valley from Itamar.

The young Palestinians arrested for murdering the Fogel family came from here.

My first thought when I heard that was, what would drive somebody

to want to kill a child in a cot

and then, by the sounds of it, not feel any remorse.

That's what I was told and kind of wanted to find out for myself

if that's what the feeling is.

I had hoped to meet the families of the arrested men,

but when I arrive, they're too upset to talk to me.

Instead, I meet a villager called Khalid, who knew the two young men.

He tells me what life is like here since the murders.

Did you understand, after what happened, why the Israeli soldiers

came here and interrogated the villages,

because babies were killed, a baby was killed in its cot in this crime?

Khalid says, since the arrests, the villagers' movements

have been restricted.

As tragic as what happened to the Fogels was, I'm wondering

if it's right that the whole village be punished.

I think it's almost irrelevant

whether the people living in Itamar have a right to this land or not.

I think the real issue is... You can't... It's just not fair to have

one village on one side of the hill is gated off and has running water

and is relatively modern, and on the other side of the hill,

you've got dirt-track roads and people delivering water on a donkey.

Itamar and Awarta feel like they could be a million miles apart.

'Back in Ramallah, I'm meeting up with Zainab Musleh,

'a Palestinian student who grew up here.'

She remembers Israeli soldiers in her home

during the crackdown nine years ago.

We didn't go to school for two months or three months.

We were not able to go out of our houses.

Israeli soldiers used to take our houses and live in them,

in the same house.

'Zainab protests for Palestinian rights

'and has strong political beliefs about the conflict.'

Do you ever feel sorry for young people

perhaps living somewhere like Tel Aviv,

a young girl, your age, who is worried about maybe suicide bombers?

Do you sympathise with that?

-No...

-Why not?

Because when I see kids,

when I see babies in Gaza getting killed for doing nothing,

when I see kids being...

in jails because of the Israeli occupation,

I can't sympathise for those people.

Do you find here that people are ever friends with Jewish people?

Of course, there are many. Jews are not bad,

not all Jews are bad, not all Jews are the same.

'I wasn't prepared for Zainab's idea

'of how things could ultimately be resolved.'

So, what would you like to see happen?

Them going out of our country and returning to where they came from.

But, for some of them, they were born here.

They were born here,

but they were born here as...

people who are occupying this country.

Their fathers occupied us, killed us, their grandfathers.

They came from all around the world, so they can go back.

If the United States loves Israeli people this much, so give them,

they can give them shelter. US is very big.

It's bigger than here.

'I can't understand how Zainab could think that way.'

Saying that all Jews need to go to America because America likes them

is bullshit. Like, it's not going to work,

it's unworkable, it's unrealistic.

And she also did that thing that so far has bugged me

about a lot of the Israeli Jews that I've met,

about talking about Jews as though it's "them".

And I understand that it comes with completely different experiences,

but it's just as ignorant as the other side of things

that I've been listening to.

'Today is the last Friday of Ramadan and I'm going back

'to Qalandia checkpoint at the West Bank barrier

'to see a demonstration against Israeli restrictions.'

From what I've heard, these protests are really passionate

and people are really, kind of, even, like, violent at times.

And so, in a way, I'm quite, kind of... It might sound wrong,

but kind of excited to see a different type of demonstration.

'This is a very holy day, so Palestinians are queuing

'in the hope they'll be allowed to enter Jerusalem

'to pray in al-Aqsa mosque.'

'During Ramadan, the Israelis restrict access to men over 50

'and women over 45.

'This is the women's queue.

'Many have been waiting here, in the hot sun, for hours.'

When Zainab was talking yesterday, my first reaction was, like,

"Oh, it's the other side of the coin,

"it's just as vengeful and hateful

"as the other side of the argument I've heard."

Seeing this today, I'm understanding exactly what she means.

If I have to go through this,

just to go and do something that's part of my culture,

and you have people like Keren, who I met at the IDF base,

who talked about this being fun and loving it so much

and protecting her country...

She was born in Britain, her family were born in Britain,

Zainab's family have lived here for hundreds of years.

This is not fair.

There's no human exchange here, the way they're dealing with people.

They're standing there, like, with guns that are loaded

whilst women and children walk past them.

CALL TO PRAYER

'It's time for noon prayers, so these women are praying in the road.

'Once prayer's finished, the demonstration begins.'

The mood's completely changed within a couple of minutes.

Kids are running around holding stones in their hands.

CHANTING

We're having to move completely out of the way.

We've been advised to just move out of the crowd.

CHANTING

Someone's just thrown a stone.

Across at the soldiers.

'Immediately after the first stone is thrown from the protesters,

'Israeli soldiers fire tear gas into the crowd.'

'It creates complete panic.'

SIRENS AND COUGHING

'The tear gas is really powerful and works so fast.'

My skin's just fucking burning, my eyes are burning.

It's just fucked up...It's like...

REYA SNIFFS

CAR HORN HONKS

-MAN:

-What happened?

You want some help?

What happened?

No, it's fine, thank you.

I don't have a right to cry.

I don't have to go through this at all.

But it's like fucking kids, like, running along

being, like, tear-gassed, like, kids, like the same age as my niece,

like a kid that was about six or seven.

'It's just total chaos here.

'And it gets worse.'

SIRENS

Oh, my God!

'Luckily, there was no-one in the back of the ambulance

'and no-one was seriously hurt.

'I can't stop thinking about how most of the people there today

'could face the same thing next week.'

I'm not easily shocked

but I'm completely haunted by what I saw,

that will never leave me.

Dealing with people like they're animals.

'I want an explanation about what I saw at the checkpoint.

'The Israeli Defence Force agrees to give me

'an interview with a senior press officer.'

Two stones were thrown as far as I saw.

And the response, immediately, was that a tear gas canister

was fired into a crowd of people which included me,

other press, which included old women, old men,

people with children, babies

and also soldiers who didn't have tear gas masks on.

Why was there no warning?

Our experience shows us that when we use,

when we don't use that immediately,

then the stones increase in their number...

But why was there no warning given before they were thrown?

Was there a warning for the protest? I don't think so.

'I tried to explain how it felt on the other side of the barrier.'

It still, to me, felt as though I was going into a different world,

where, all of a sudden, people with guns were shouting at me and...

Well, how would you protect yourself? Tell me...

I mean, I can tell you as an Israeli, forget the uniform.

I'm a mother of three children.

Between the years 2000 and 2006, I forbade them from going to malls,

from using public transportation,

or even walking along on the streets without me.

Imagine 1,000 people, amongst them Arab Israelis,

that were killed only from suicide bombers,

in restaurants, in coffee places, in malls, in buses.

You have to understand where we're coming from

with the security situation here.

'I appreciated the chance to put my questions to the IDF

'but it didn't change my opinion of what happened at the checkpoint.'

If the same happened in Britain after the suicide attacks

and I was stopped from moving around

because my dad happened to be Muslim,

and told, "You can't travel to London any more

"because there've been suicide attacks."

There might not be any attacks afterwards

but why should my freedom be curtailed?

I'm a human being, I have just as much right to freedom

as her and her kids.

'I haven't yet had that moment of feeling connected to Israel

'that people have told me about.

'I still feel like an outsider.

'But I've managed to track down distant relatives

'of my Jewish mum's family here in Jerusalem.

'My second cousins. Maybe they'll give me some connection here.

'But there's a lot at stake.'

This could be quite life changing, if we find

the first part of our family that actually live here,

and I get on with them, it could mean the rest of my family

coming out here and spending time with them.

So, yeah, I am nervous about this one.

I feel like I've dressed like a nun,

schoolgirl, first day at school.

'My cousin's name is Amir Levin.

'He and his wife, Efrat, have three young children

'and live in a suburb of Jerusalem.'

Thank you! These are for you to say thank you for inviting me.

Thanks a lot.

It's a very small thing but thanks so much for welcoming me here.

'Amir and Efrat made me feel really welcome.'

London, I was born, and then moved to Oxford when I was, oh, how old?

About five. And lived in Oxford ever since.

It's lovely there, good excuse for you to come and visit and see it!

-I loved Oxford.

-What were you doing there?

Just touring. But it's so beautiful.

Yeah, it's lovely.

'I could see a real resemblance between Amir and my mum!'

It's not a very good picture of her,

she'll probably be very unhappy with me showing that.

That's her with her champagne and the dog.

-I want to see your mother.

-Let me show you!

What does she do?

She worked in publishing.

'Amir showed me old photos of our family.

'His great-great grandfather and my great-great uncle

'was Shamaryahu Levin,

'one of the early leaders of the movement

'that led to the founding of Israel.

'It's amazing to think I'm connected

'to someone so significant to the history of this country.'

His eyes look so much like my mum's eyes, it's really weird!

'Amir explained that Jerusalem in particular

'is not always an easy place to raise a family.'

Here you see the conflict, it's everywhere, every day,

and it doesn't always feel very nice.

We have many similar problems, like many other places in the world

but what's different is that we live very close to an "enemy,"

mixed up with them,

everyday life, you feel the danger, you know,

my daughter, we thought to let her use the bus,

and just now happened to be a terror attack somewhere.

And then I'm saying, "No, I'll take her, I'll drive her."

So it's always...

and how do you explain to a little child not to make him hate Arabs

but to be aware that it's very complicated?

'Meeting the Levins gave me a different insight on Israel

'and we make plans to stay in touch.

'I wish my mum could have been here.'

It does make you reassess things.

It's funny how as soon as it's your family,

even if it is family I've only just met,

as soon as your family are the ones being in any way attacked

it, kind of, changes what you think

and how you feel about the situation.

So yeah...

'Walking down these streets in Jerusalem,

'the thought is never far away that a bomb might go off.

'Between 2000 and 2006 there were 25 suicide bomb attacks

'by Palestinians in Jerusalem.

'187 people died and hundreds more were injured.

'Avigayil Spero is a Jewish Israeli girl,

'who amazingly lived through four separate bomb attacks

'before she was 22.'

Nice to meet you. I'm Reya. How you doing?

'Avigayil moved to Israel from the US with her family

'when she was eight

'because her father wanted to live in the Jewish homeland.

'Eight years later, Avigayil was on her way home from school one day

'when a triple suicide bombing happened just here.'

There was this huge blast,

and it hits me,

and I go flying against the wall.

There were a few moments of just deafening, deafening silence,

the silence of death,

and then, immediately afterwards, panic.

Everyone started running towards the opposite direction

and people were screaming and running all over the place.

That was the only bombing in which I saw the body

of the suicide bomber.

But the interesting thing was,

was that his head just... popped off like a champagne cork

and it was a few good metres away from him

and his head was in complete tact,

he had gel in his hair and it was in perfect condition, his head,

but his body was completely fucked up.

'Five people were killed and 181 injured in the bombing.

'Avigayil witnessed a second Palestinian suicide bomb attack

'near here but wasn't hurt.

'A couple of years later she was caught up in yet another attack.'

I didn't realise that I was injured for a while

because of the adrenaline, I didn't feel pain yet, at that point,

but I started feeling something drip down my face

and I looked down and I see blood all over my clothes

and that's when I realised that I was injured.

Some people tell me, "You're lucky. God is looking out for you."

So what kind of God would subject me to this in the first place?

Avigayil lost her job after that attack.

She now works as a trainer for rescue dogs, like Jimmy.

Although the attacks deeply affected her,

I'm amazed at the outlook she now has on them.

People just want to live their lives at the end of the day.

And the Palestinians, a lot of the Palestinians,

have been robbed of a lot of their basic freedoms and rights,

not only by the Israelis, by the way, also by their own government.

But I can understand where they are coming from,

I can understand their anger.

That's amazing, that sense of kind of having compassion

is something that I've been looking for since coming here,

and one of the things that I've experienced since being here is the wall that was set up,

and heard a lot of people say that Israel is a safer place because of that wall.

It is, and that's a fact, and I have mixed feelings about the wall,

but the effectiveness of the wall

has proven itself over the years. It's indisputable.

'Like meeting the Levins, meeting Avigayil has given me

'a new understanding of the Israeli side of this conflict.'

I think she's a really amazing person.

I don't know, hand on heart, that I could say if the same thing happened to me

if I would be so...progressive in my thoughts

and not fall into that trap of blaming a group of people

where, in a country like this,

it seems like the easiest thing to do when anything goes wrong.

Despite the current tensions, we've been given the OK

by our security advisors to go to Gaza,

one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East.

I'll get to see life there and speak to a young Hamas activist.

There's a real risk of being attacked or kidnapped

by Islamic extremists, so we only have a window of a few hours.

When I spoke to people, I realised that to really understand this place, I had to visit.

So no second thoughts at all, but...

..I am feeling a little bit panicky.

Gaza is a tiny Palestinian area on the southern tip of Israel.

Over a million Palestinians live there. It's completely fenced in,

and Israel tightly restricts access for both people and supplies.

But inside Gaza, the militant Islamic group Hamas are in control.

America, Europe and Israel consider Hamas to be terrorists.

By closing off Gaza, Israel wants to isolate Hamas

and stop rocket attacks on Israeli towns.

We're just about to arrive at the border.

We have to get out of the car and walk across. We can't drive.

And our Israeli producer can't come with us

because Israelis aren't allowed across this border,

so it's just us, the film crew, walking through.

'We're not allowed to film inside the checkpoint.'

We've just come through the border into Gaza,

and it's literally like a rat-run.

A ten minute walk through a caged kind of walkway.

We have to travel with the local BBC producer

in a bulletproof car at all times for security.

Already, through driving into Gaza for less than five minutes,

I can already see such a stark difference

to everything I've experienced so far since being here.

There's graffiti on every single wall we pass by.

We're heading for Jabaliya Refugee Camp. It's a stronghold of Hamas.

It's hard to believe this is still part of Israel.

But the person I was supposed to meet has been arrested this morning.

I still want to explore and try to speak to someone else.

Lots of people out on the streets,

young people out on the streets, by the looks of it.

There are not enough schools or teachers here,

so children can only attend school in shifts.

As soon as we get out of the car in Jabaliya, we have an audience.

-Hello!

-Hello!

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Hello.

Mohammed.

Mohammed?

Hello, Mohammed.

CHILDREN GIGGLE

That's one way to get the kids to go!

HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

'We get an invitation from this little boy to visit his home.

'It's not part of our plan,

'but we're going to take a chance that it's safe.'

Such small spaces. Hello, nice to meet you.

-How are you?

-Very well, how are you?

-My name is Eman.

-Reya. I'm Reya.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Where are you from?

-England. From England.

We come. This is my home.

'This is Eman. She was born in Jabaliya

'and shares this house with seven other members of her family.'

'I can't believe eight people live here.'

-Excuse me, I speak little English.

-Your English is good.

My Arabic is not.

Eman tells me one of her brothers was killed by the Israeli army.

He's now regarded as a martyr.

Eman describes how the children are affected by the violence they've grown up with.

-They play games of being an Israeli and a Palestinian?

-Yes.

Can you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up?

'Our local producer is worried we've been in one place for too long,

'so we have to leave.'

I asked a 12-year-old, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A fighter."

And she was talking about when he sleeps at night,

he dreams about the Israelis breaking in and trying to kill him.

And he was 12, and he looked about eight! He was tiny.

We head to a place called Beit Hanoun.

It's closer to the Israeli side,

and I can see signs of fighting with the Israeli army.

This building on the left here with all the holes in...

-is that bullet holes?

-Yes.

Oh, my God.

I would not want to live here.

If I was given the choice of living in Tel Aviv

where you can get your nails done

or relax on the beach with a Mojito,

and go shopping and clubbing and all the rest of it,

or you can live in the middle of a rubbish tip,

with bullet holes in your front door, I know which one I'd prefer.

But then they've not got the choice here to make that decision, so...

it's this or nothing.

'Despite the terrible poverty, parts of Gaza

'are still much livelier and busier than I expected.

'But everywhere I look there are Hamas flags and graffiti.

'You can see just how strong the political opinion is here.

'I'd still like to talk to young people about the politics.

'A young guy called Karim approaches us. He's a Hamas supporter.

'I ask him how he feels about Israel.'

Young Israelis say this is their country,

they have the right to live here. What do you think?

We're running out of time in Gaza.

We have to get back before the checkpoint closes.

If I had to live in this kind of condition,

under these rules, I wouldn't be saying,

"Oh, I want peace and to hold hands and skip around a campfire."

I'd be a 12-year-old saying that when I grow up

I want to be a fighter.

I do understand why for Israel this is like a real threat,

this place is their enemy on their doorstep,

and I don't know what the answer is, but this is not it.

Making over a million people live in an open prison is not the answer.

I'm coming to the end of my time in Israel

and feel like this experience has really opened my eyes

to the conflict that runs right through the heart of my family.

It's such a complicated place

and it seems everyone has an opinion about what should be done.

Being both Jewish and Muslim really highlighted some of the problems

and inequalities in the country to me.

There is absolutely no integration in this country,

and particularly coming from Britain where I think,

despite all our problems, when it comes to integration, we're good.

But this thing of living completely separate lives within one society,

and everyone is so separated, just isn't going to...

it's not going to end up well.

Hello...?

-Hello!

-Hey! Puppy!

-Hey, Dad, how are you doing?

-Fine.

'It's strange to be home and look back at everything

'I experienced and how it's changed me.'

-Can I have a Mum cup of tea, please?

-Yes, of course you can!

'A little side of me thought before going out to Israel'

that I would go there and I would figure out the answer

to the conflict and I'd be able to save the world and fly the flag,

and the whole country would be renamed Reya's Land,

and that's not going to happen. The more time I spent there,

the more difficult and complex

and complicated I realised this issue is.

But that's because it's people.

And I don't know whether there is a simple answer.

But I definitely feel like having the experience that I've had

has opened my eyes to different people's perspectives

and to walk a day in other people's shoes,

and that's where, if anywhere,

that's where the conflict's going to come to begin to be resolved.

Maybe I could save the Middle East yet.

Reya's Land could be the newest nation to be born!

Yeah...

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]