Read Online The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled - Free Book Online Page A

I was exposed to American culture and, more than that, to the diverse nature of Los Angeles and particularly the UCLA campus during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I remember going with my father to the drive-in theatre to see the famous fight between Joe Frasier and Mohammad Ali, where Frasier knocked out Ali. When we returned, I saw that the entire neighborhood was in uproar, particularly the African Americans who lived there. More than a boxing match, this was a huge social and political match even though both Frasier and Ali were African American. Ali represented the antiwar, anti-establishment African-American rebellion of the time. His defeat was viewed as unfair, and as a loss for the African-American struggle.
    We were also there during the presidential elections when Richard Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey. It’s almost hard to believe today, but my father supported Nixon over Humphrey. As he supported the U.S. bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam—because he was completely and thoroughly anticommunist and pro-American. Watergate began to surface during our final days in the U.S.
    Even after we returned to Israel, I kept up with American politics and culture, much more so than most Israeli kids my age. And I held on to certain pop culture associations from the time: Peanuts, the young Michael Jackson, and all the television series and shows that marked that period and remained iconic in American culture. So that when I moved back to Southern California as an adult, I was in some ways returning home.
    My father had an office at UCLA on the tenth floor of one of the tall buildings on campus, and he spent most of his time there. In the evening, after dinner, he would watch the news and then I would join him on the couch for an episode of Bonanza or The Wild Wild West , or a police drama, before going to bed.
    While I enjoyed America, I was glad to eventually return to Jerusalem. But in Israel things did not go so smoothly for me. I had first-grade Hebrew skills and was sent to fifth grade, but received no help in order to catch up. Plus, what was cool in the U.S. was not necessarily cool in Israel. Here no one cared about UCLA beating USC at basketball; I knew nothing about local sports; and the American mannerisms I’d picked up made me an outsider from the get-go.
    The first day of school my mother dropped me off at the house on 18 Rashba Street—our old building where my grandmothers now lived—and said, “Just follow all the other children, they are all going to the same school.” I didn’t know my way around so I was terrified, but I did what she said. Then once I got to school, I had no idea where to go. There were hundreds of children who seemed like they knew what to do and where to go, and I was embarrassed to admit I was clueless. Eventually, I found my class, and the teacher gave me name cards to hand out to all the students, not realizing I could not read Hebrew well enough to read the names.
    The first couple of years back in Israel, my greatest fear was that I would be asked to read out loud and people would find out that I couldn’t read very well. I fell behind in all subjects and that, along with my father’s unpopular views, made for some tough times for a ten-year old. Because my father, the retired general, called for compromise and criticized the state, he was called an “Arab lover,” and so was I—although I still hadn’t formed any particular political views. It’s safe to assume that the other kids repeated at school what they heard at home, and it made little difference if I held the same views as my father or not. It took me three years to catch up, both socially and academically. By eighth grade, I felt pretty good and I had a few friends. As far as school was concerned, other than English, with which I felt at ease, my confidence was always low and my performance poor. So while three years in the U.S. was a great opportunity, because no one thought to work with me through the transition,