Miko Peled’s viral video

How does this Miko Peled video get 2.7 million views — how is that possible? This isn’t a puppy or music video.

The tragic answer is that it is because it is the most beautiful thing we have in the world right now. Those 2.7 million are surely mostly Muslim; it’s a Muslim channel.  Imagine them sitting in Pakistan or Morocco, or maybe they’re smart curious kids who still get internet in Yemen. All the Israeli generals and spokespeople they see on TV sound the same. If it wasn’t so painful it would be painfully boring: listening to them on BBC and al-Jazeera, they all sound exactly the same. It’s like they can’t be human for one second. With every action Israel wages in the occupied territories it’s getting impossible to imagine the death and suffering. And the same stupid prattle forever. With the same smug condescending confidence that there never is even one tiny little stain on Israel’s moral ledger. (Just be a human being for one second of your life!)

And here they see one of the most beautiful people they’ve ever seen in their life. What a beautiful Jew. How different he speaks from almost all the American Jews they’ve seen on TV who talk about this issue. Someone wrote that Peled is not famous in America, how can that be? He has such great English. He is handsome. Look how he carries himself. An 8th degree black belt or something. His grand father was a top Zionist leader. His father was a general during the Six Day war, and met with Arafat. What a story. This man can’t be dismissed. His niece Smadar was blown up in Jerusalem and he dropped everything in his life to work for justice in Palestine. He must be on TV in the US! He would be the best guest on any show about the Israel/Palestinian conflict. We know America likes to have debate on their TVs.

Israel can have anyone in the world representing them. Almost every Muslim/Arab/Palestinian watching this video would love for this Israeli Jew to speak for the Palestinian case on American audiences. Think about that number 2.7 million: every single one while watching it talked about this amazing Jew and asked, How many are there like him?

And they start looking and they see Gideon Levy. Wow another Beautiful Israeli Jew. And they find more. And there is love, and there is hope. You need to close your eyes and imagine a couple of million Muslim conversations about this amazing Israeli Jew Miko Peled and this amazing talk. How elevated were those conversations — how much hope? We can’t even conceive of how much more love is in the world because of this video.

We are told that all these Muslims think the “only good Jew is a dead Jew” — that they are watching Miko Peled and thinking: “This Jew going to help us destroy Israel.” But maybe the Muslims watching this video are like everyone else and they look at this Israeli Jew with human wonder and and maybe a little deference. There goes a special man. While Sam Harris recently reminded them, if they were listening, how ignorant they were compared to Jews. Jews have so many Nobel prizes compared to Muslims.

And they have heard it all since 1948. Jews are so amazing. But this isn’t Israeli propaganda. Here indeed was a special human being who is a Jew.

I only saw this video recently. How could it be that someone like me wouldn’t be familiar with him. How sick is our society that I never heard of him? It is Orwellian. We have the people we have on TV that teach their audience nothing about this issue, just obfuscation, and they know that if they step outside the line they will get 1000 emails and phone calls from crazy Israel supporters, not to mention Dov Hikind with a megaphone outside the building. While Peled has 24 people listening to him in some basement synagogue lord knows where, and 2.7 million Muslims on line. It’s shocking.

Just World Books lately released a second edition of Miko Peled’s book: The General’s Son. Peled launched that book with a video talk here.