The worst part of this month is that I don’t know myself anymore. The worst part is that for the first time in my life I feel hatred and more than that, I feel fear. Who are we? What has become of us, mankind? I am so sad. I truly believe that one of the most terrible results of this never ending conflict is the hate and fear that people carry inside them.
During the past 4 weeks many people around me had generated so much hate, blind hate. And I’m not only talking about Muslim people and Jewish people who blindly hate each-other. I also talk about the terrible hatred and violence between people with the same national or religious belonging who can’t accept different opinions and views. This situation is unacceptable, many times in the last few weeks I thought to myself, how is it possible that all of this is happening in 2014? It is almost like we are going backwards in time. Instead of learning from history, the history repeats itself.
A large gap was created in the Israeli society, a gap which divides a group of people who should stick together in these horrible times, but instead of doing that, people choose to hate each other and to generate more violence. And as if this is not enough, the number of people who hate Jewish and Israeli people is only increasing as I write these words. How many enemies can we have? In Israel, outside Israel, how many people can hate? Is this my future, my children’s future?
I was literality attacked on my Facebook wall by some Israeli ‘Facebook friends’ who couldn’t accept the fact that I am sensitive for the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people. I really don’t know what is wrong with people these days; it is not even an issue of being on the right or the left side of the political map, I am only being human, and I think it is completely natural. But what a surprise, when I was being sensitive to the Israeli pain and suffering, I was criticised by some people who don’t seem to realize that in Israel there are people too! And people who sacrificed so much in this bloody conflict! This blind hate is awful.
It has been a very hard month, and as I wrote in my last blogs, it is not easy to experience this situation outside Israel. I don’t have any smart words, and I don’t know what the solution is, this is not my job, and who am I to decide? I do know that racism, anti-Semitism and blind hate are not the solution. And like this Facebook campaign says ‘Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies’, this is what I believe in.
I hate this new feeling of mine, that I don’t feel safe anymore in Europe, I hate the fact that I walk down the street and think to myself what will happen if someone recognizes where I am from, can someone attack me? This is the most terrible outcome of this bloody conflict. Peace you make in words and not in blood, and I desperately hope that one day we can all live together safety in Israel and in Europe.
After all these nerve-racking days I am finally going on my summer holiday, I am going home to Israel. Despite all the blood, death, suffering, pain, violence and hate, this is my home, my only home, and I don’t need to apologize for that whether you like it or not. Let’s all pray for some quiet and peaceful days, may all the citizens and soldiers who lost their lives rest in peace, my heart is broken and I hope for better days to come.
It is indeed terrible that violence and feelings of unsafety are the result of the bloody conflict. I would argue that all the death and destruction is worse, still.
I hope you will be able to handle your anxiety, anger and sadness and use it as fuel to help end the devastation. Things are likely to settle down when injustices end.
Meanwhile, be safe!
My wife and, as a result, daughter are Jewish. This story gets tears in my eyes.
Vast heel interessant, waarom niet in het Nederlands (vertaald)?
Dit is een toch een Nederlandse website!
Wat moeilijk voor jou. Dat je je zo voelt. Ik hoop dat je rust vindt tijdens je vakantie thuis. Hoewel…… wat is nu je thuis? Daar of hier?