“I used to say: ‘I am not a journalist, not a politician, not Israeli—don’t ask me,’ ” Osman said.
“Until I was invited for a tour in Judea and Samaria. I sat down near a water spring and a pomegranate tree, looking at the Jordan Valley, and I thought for a long time, and concluded—if Jews have the right to live in Tel Aviv, they definitely have the right to live in Judea and Samaria,” she said.
“It is part of their story, of their past, and it must be part of their future.”
Osman, born in Damascus to Muslim parents, grew up marinated in antisemitic attitudes. “Growing up in Lebanon, I was fond of Hezbollah. I belonged to the masses of useful idiots. And I hated Israel—and the Jews.”
“Whatever we were told about the Jews and the Israelis, we believed it—especially because there were no Jews left to contest what was said about them,” she said.
Only after moving to France in her 20s and encountering Jews was she able to free herself from the indoctrination of her upbringing. She studied, researched and eventually became a Zionist. In fact, she is in the midst of converting to Judaism, a process she described to JNS as “coming home.”
JNS asked Osman if she thought Israel could have done anything differently in waging its war against Hamas, given her insight into Arab and Muslim culture. She said that Hamas officials at the start of the conflict vowed to empty Israel’s jails of their terrorist prisoners.
“They wanted every prisoner back. If I were an Israeli official at the time, I would have given them everybody back, taken my hostages in return, and then waged a war against them,” she said.
That Hamas immediately broke the ceasefire deal came as no surprise, she said. The group isn’t interested in a durable peace.
Palestinians believe they have gained from the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Activists are “promoting the idea that they were victorious, that they won thanks to Oct. 7, and now that they have momentum, they should not lose it,” Osman said.
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician considered among the “most moderate voices,” is advocating that position, she said. He is pushing for mass demonstrations in Western cities to “free Palestine.” The protesters are “professional antisemites.” They want to exert large-scale pressure on Israel.
“They are going to escalate. They will continue to provoke because they’ve never had such momentum. They will not stop until they see tens of thousands of Israelis packing and leaving. They want this country gone,” Osman said.
As to whether it’s possible to deradicalize the Palestinian population, given their level of hatred, Osman said that it’s possible; it worked with Nazi Germany. “If there’s a German embassy in Israel and an Israeli embassy in Germany, everything is possible,” she said. Though she noted that Germany was first smashed by the Allied powers.
Osman said moderate Arab countries must help enforce mandatory deradicalization programs for Palestinians, tying participation to the receipt of humanitarian aid. Financial assistance would only be given in exchange for engagement in such programs, which would promote an “alternative vision” and acceptance that a Palestinian state will never exist.
“The Palestinian cause was liquidated on Oct. 7,” she said. “We’re going to stop infantilizing the Palestinian people and tell them that their entire ideology was invented with the help of the KGB. Even Palestine isn’t an Arabic word. In 1964, [Palestine Liberation Organization leader] Arafat introduced this project, and it’s a losing project. It caused enough damage already,” Osman said.
