Pradilla has not given voice to the Israelis and that’s it, the context and the journalist’s in-depth analysis help to position the reader in front of this complex society. After all, the book presents us with a state full of contradictions, always in conflict (religious and secular, right-wing and leftist, Jews coming from very different countries...).

We have the image of a unified state, but internal tensions and disputes abound.

Being a colonial state that defines itself exclusively as Jewish, the immigration of Jews from all over the world has been encouraged – not always in the best way – and this has created great social inequalities: the European elite that controls the main institutions of the country forever; those who come from Arab countries, in a second level, although they are the majority; and even more marginalized, in the third level, the Jews who arrive from Ethiopia. There is also a great divide between secular and religious, between those who want to live with a European orientation and those who are increasingly religious and have more weight. The latter seek to impose religious norms on every citizen. For example, civil marriages do not exist in Israel.

The power of religion and the Ultra-Orthodox is therefore great.

Yes, and it is curious because the leaders who built the State of Israel are secular, but they need the help of religious to protect the State. It would be a bad image if the rabbis did not support a state that considered itself Jewish, which is why various demands have been accepted on the religious, and their power has been strengthened. Israeli politics is multi-party, there are many parties in parliament, each ethnic and religious group has its own party, and religious people are always needed to form a government. Thus, the religious have privileges, it can be said that the government subsidizes them, several families are paid to pray... and the laity see all this very badly.

Yes, you tell in the book, for example, that on holidays it is forbidden to do anything and that so many do not see well the religious influence so much that it is harmful to the economy. In such a suffocating environment, can the power of the religious lose its strength?

Those who are losing their strength are secular, especially because in the conflict against the Palestinians it is the nation-religious (ultra-right-wing violent movement) who are gaining power. Their discourse is gradually penetrating the Israeli society: “This is the Earth that God has given us and we are here because Abraham promised us this Earth 3,000 years ago.” On the other hand, as has already been said, they have taken on many responsibilities in the Government and, as a result, they gain privileges and have the opportunity to establish rules. Listening to our media, it seems that there is only one fundamentalism, Islamic, but it is not, and I wanted to make it clear that there is also fundamentalism among the Jews.

But despite the differences, the concept that unites all citizens is, unquestionably, the defense of the Jewish state.

That's what it is. A democratic and Jewish state, as it is defined, although it seems contradictory. But it is democratic for the Jews and the Jews for the Palestinians, who, in defining themselves as Jews, are mutually exclusive with those who are not – there are 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel. It is equivalent to the white South Africa of the apartheid era, it is not acceptable, in a way that would not be acceptable a state of blue eyes, or a state of blondes... And yet, the national consensus in the fight against the Palestinians is almost complete today. Remember the attack on Gaza in 2008-2009, which was applauded by 95% of the population, who came from the Gaza area in the form of picnics to see the bombings! It is a sick society.

But what does it mean to be a Jew, in their own words?

According to religion, a Jew is born to a Jewish mother, but to be Israeli, they expand the definition and their law says that anyone who has a Jewish father, mother, grandfather or grandmother can immediately obtain citizenship. Those who do not comply with it are excluded from public life and live in a state of apartheid.

Apartheid is mentioned in the book. Can it be compared to South Africa? Could the path they followed be useful?

It is similar and increasingly segregated, but it has peculiarities. On the one hand, the West Bank and Gaza are becoming equal to the batustans they made for blacks in South Africa: areas inhabited by indigenous people, blocked, isolated and an opportunity for cheap labor. But even within the State, there is a policy of discrimination with the ultimate goal of expelling Palestinians or at least maintaining Jewish supremacy. It is evident, for example, in the villages of Galilee, where the Palestinians are the majority, or in the Neget desert, where some 60,000 Bedouins live and have suffered devastating attacks.

You have also stated in the book that anti-Semitism is a double-edged sword. There is, but it has become an excuse not to accept criticism against Israel and to act as they please.

The first thing we have to say is that anti-Semitism exists, we cannot deny it; Jews have been persecuted at various times, especially in Europe. Curiously, as a Jew who came from Morocco told me, Jews have been persecuted in Europe, but Israel has cut off relations with Arab countries. Today, anti-Semitism is often confused with criticism of Israel and this is one of the greatest victories of the State, anyone who criticizes Israel to be anti-Semitic. This stigmatizes any dissent, any criticism, even if the State repeatedly violates international law.

Moreover, the book also talks about exploiting and instrumentalizing the suffering of the Jews of World War II, taking advantage of this victimization.

Yes, and it is interesting how the State itself has discriminated against the victims of the Holocaust. According to a 2006 study, where one in three of these victims lived in poverty in Israel, demonstrations have also been held to demand aid that has not reached them, all of which clashes with the image that the State sells abroad as a place to receive the victims of the Holocaust. In the preface to the book, activist Sergio Yahni explains how the creation of the State of Israel is the continuation of the mass that began in Germany, because Europe suddenly found itself with thousands of pariahs of concentration camps: what to do with them? Then send them to Israel. That’s why I say that at its origin the conflict is not religious, but colonial – a territory that was occupied by the dispossession of 600,000 indigenous people and the destruction of more than 500 villages. They want to sell us an image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is not true, that there are two parties or fighters, and we forget the true origin of the conflict: An exclusionary and colonial state like Israel, because the Jews of Europe decided to build a state that is only for the Jews, expelling their citizens.

You've shown an Israel obsessed with security, too. People believe they can be destroyed at any time.

It's due in some way to the ideology they have. The Israeli army has won all the wars, but they still believe that the danger is permanent. It is true that they live in the midst of an armed conflict, and such a juxtaposition, the time of suicide bombings, has created a society obsessed with security, with strict control. And all this is also being exported: both internal control (cameras) and what has been learned during the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The security industry is a leading area in Israel.

The phrase in the book is: “We are not a state with an army. We are an army of states.”

One of the first inputs told me, and it is true that the power of the army is enormous in Israel, it is a fully militarized society, partly because all citizens spend three years in the army, then move on to the reserve and internalize the vision of this organization. Many analysts have told me that the power of the army is not so great because the military doesn’t get into politics later, but if you notice, many Israeli leaders have been military before, usually medallists. They are a guarantee for voters, he says, “you are one of us.”

And is it because of this obsession with security that we have to understand that the vast majority of Israelis applaud the bombings against Gaza?

It's hard for me to understand, too. The Israelis are people, you can talk to them... After all, through decades of propaganda, selling victimhood... they have made them believe the idea that they are sick. Michel Warschawski, son of the Rabbi of Strasbourg and a Jew of the far left, said to me: “We have become monsters, we don’t talk about people living in Gaza, they don’t fit in our discourse.” And when television bombs you that you’re in constant danger, when they show in schools that being in Israel is God’s will... a public opinion emerges that is hard to turn around.

It is hard to read the position of the leftist soldiers: they blame the Palestinians for having forced the Israelis to commit crimes they do not want.

Golda Meir said that, a terrible phrase, in no way: “We can forgive them for killing our children, but we can’t forgive them for forcing them to kill theirs.” However, the soldiers who had denounced abuses and atrocities were a minority, and it was also an internal process in Israel: there was talk of the moral consequences of maintaining the occupation, but not of alternatives or other solutions.

Are you having trouble talking to people?

Not in particular. I have imagined a society that is closed to itself, but in their approach they have the conviction that they are the ones who are threatened, so they have no problem explaining this discourse. Sometimes it wasn’t even worth discussing, because when God gets involved it’s hard to get to logical reasoning.

The solution most posed in the book is a democratic and secular State, unique to all and with equal rights.
This is an option that has been defended by the Palestinian Left and the extreme Israeli Left, but it seems to me a utopia. However, I am a Basque journalist and the Palestinians themselves will have to see what the solution to the conflict will be.

But the Israelis also have something to say, and the solution seems difficult in an increasingly right-wing state...

Israel will not be destroyed, it will not throw itself into the sea, and it would be absurd to dismantle the peoples that are built. It’s not about deciding if I’m going to take most of the land and give you four little fields, but doing the right thing, and the problem is in segregation – what happens to the one and a half million Palestinians living in Israel? What about the seven million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world? A just solution should come from complying with international law, but then Israel should cease to be a Jewish – and only Jewish – state. Compliance with international law would allow refugees to return home and put an end to Jewish domination.

You have included at the end an interview with Mordejai Vanunu, who has spent years in prison for saying that Israel possessed nuclear weapons, and he says that Israel prefers to keep the war rather than achieve peace because it suits him better.

Israel’s economic machinery is based on colonization. Economic growth depends on it. Furthermore, in order to maintain the cohesion of this State, which, as has been mentioned, has so many internal differences – because the Jew who has arrived from Russia is very different from the Jew who has left Morocco, they have nothing to do with it – the fight against the Palestinians is useful. It's the one that gives them the connection. On the other hand, in a state of peace, many Israelis would leave the village; a large part of the elite who had come from Europe, if it were to cease to have the privileges it has, would leave the country.

I have read to you that we can see ourselves reflected in the society in which you represent us more than you think. Should we be scared?

On the one hand, those of us who are sensitized to the Palestinian cause or to other international causes can see ourselves reflected in the paradigm of the leftist settler, who indicates to them whether he wants to liberate the indigenous people and what should be the appropriate way to do so. On the other hand, objectively, we have more to do with the Israelis than with the Palestinians. We listen to the same music, watch the same cinema and read the same literature, because a large part of society is culturally very European. Often, they also seek this complicity, “because we look like it,” they say...