My Feeling on the Current Situation
To All my friends
to my International friends,
to my Israeli friends
and especially to
my dear Palestinians friends.
I returned home this evening after the first Shiatsu class this year. We were a group of good people; there was a good atmosphere, a sense of purpose and goodwill, caring and kind: something that is so lacking now in the Israeli-Palestinian reality. Instead of “love your friend as yourself”, there is a developing over-reaction among individuals and groups who are trying to eliminate anyone who is not “one of us”. Where are we going? How far can hatred and evil reach in the world? How do we stop or transform the avalanche?
I was going to go tomorrow with members of the Villages Group to visit Palestinian friends at Susiya, Umm al-Kheir and al-Twane – but, I got a call from Erella who told me that Nasser requested that we not come tomorrow. He said, “the situation is calm at the moment, but could change at any moment. And if misfortune stumbled upon the wrong place at the wrong time – it can end badly. We need you to live.”
“Life!” I think the question is “what kind of life”? Right now everyone is under tremendous pressure to entrench themselves, and for each group to take comfort in itself, separating itself from others and destroying anyone who tries to say something, protest, or show emotion. Right now I feel the need to visit my Palestinian friends even more urgently than before.
Please note that I am against any bloodshed, violence and other means to hurt someone. On the contrary, I condemn all manifestations of violence whatsoever, but we also feel the fuse runs out and there is no pause. Anyone who challenges the status quo – even in conversation, poster, condemnation or demonstration where violence is not part of the protest – is met with a disproportionate response, which perpetuates the cycle of violence.
I feel exhausted from the realities we live in now.
Lucky I have friends from the “other Group “. We can talk to them eye to eye and say what hurts each other, to empathize with the pain, and together we can hope for better days for everyone.
May the coming days bring peace to all.
Would that we can accept ourselves and others equally?
May we open our hearts so we can bypass “labels” and “headlines” and arbitrary decisions that recycle the history of hatred that takes root and prevents us from sharing a good life together in the “Holy Land – the land of milk and honey”.
May it be quiet here.
I wish there will be peace now!
I Wish you all a quite Night.
Love with a tear,
Eyal
14 October 2015
The Villages Group: Cooperation in Israel-Palestine 