Over four months have passed since October the 7th. A day that hell broke loose, and we went from fear to terror to anxiety to sadness and grief, to escape, not to mention bewilderment, to the shattering of all my dreams and belief in mankind.
What happened went far beyond anything one can understand and explain. The thought that kept running in my mind was, if only you had listened to me before we wouldn’t have reached this outrageous situation. If only we had, and when I say we I mean both our leaderships Israeli and Palestinian, started some sort of dialogue understanding that we are both here to stay and we must decide on how to make it work between us.
Today I don’t know if we have who to talk to, it seems that we both have allowed fanatics, extremists to take over and rule our lives, not caring for the people, for life but ready to kill and die for an unreal ideology.
Are all Palestinians Hamas? I don’t believe so but, as I am asked every time, I say that, how do we know? I trust my friends, but I quite understand all those who don’t trust anyone anymore. I too have been disillusioned; I too have my doubts. But I know that neither of us is going anywhere, we are both “Freedom Fighters”, we are both fighting for our lives and for both of us, this is the place we each believe is ours because we are not really accepted anywhere else in the world. Why? I don’t know. But I do understand that this is a fact. As soon as we do, again, both Israelis and Palestinians, we can make it work. There are various formats that can be considered, and we can find a way to live, each, in equal right, and mutual respect. We can choose peace over war, life over death.
I say this when living away from home because we are not safe there. I say this after losing dear friends and relatives. I say this after seeing my friends on the other side running for their lives, losing families and friends, and having no home to return to. The only difference between us is that I have a leadership, whether I agree their diplomacy or not, that does see to my security by building saferooms for us and operating the Irone Domb that counteracts the rockets launched upon us which is the only reason we don’t have so many more casualties and destruction. Whereas my friends have a leadership that hides behind them under their homes, schools, and hospitals regardless of them, their lives. With all our empathy, humanitarian understanding, we must not forget that as things are right now, it is a question of our lives or theirs, and to be quite honest I am not ready to give up my life, my children’s and grandchildren’s lives and many others’ not even for the sake of my friends. Does that make me inhuman? I don’t think so, especially because I know we can chose another way.
War is terrible, war is not a solution. When we talk about proportionality, what do we mean? The number of people killed on either side in the process? Israel didn’t send terrorists into the homes of people at the dawn of a Saturday morning when most were still sleeping in their beds, kill them slaughter them, and kidnap them – men, women, young and old, children and babies. Israel did not ambush a festival, killing, kidnapping, and raping the participants. No! Is that what we should have done for the reaction to be proportional? Are we measuring the numbers or what actually happened and how? Can we really be blamed for doing our utmost that it will not happen again?
It could end if the kidnapped were released if there were guarantees that never again. If the moment ceasefire is agreed upon negotiations were to commence to ensure that both people on both sides have equal rights to live a real just life with the building of successful, secure life with no occupation and no blockade, with equal possibilities.
It seems completely unreal at the moment with so much suffering on both sides. With 132 innocent people still kidnapped, with minimal food, water, and medication, 29 of which have been proclaimed dead and their bodies are still held in Gaza. With close to 564 soldiers killed in action, so far. While 1.4 million homeless people in Gaza, living in tents with drastic shortage of food, water, and medication. They are caught between the Hamas, who are doing their best to prevent then escaping and Israel trying to release the hostages and chasing the Hamas leadership.
In this situation can we really hope for a better future?! On the other can we relly afford to lose hope?!
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