This is a cross-post by Marc Goldberg
It’s taking a long time to write this blog post. Usually I can get one out in about 40 minutes but this one…well this one is tricky.
We’re all watching right now, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, we’re all watching. We’re watching John Kerry, we’re watching Bibi Netanyahu, we’re watching Mahmoud Abbas and we’re watching the whole ballgame begin right before our eyes.
Many Israelis and many Jews will be hoping that nothing happens, that the whole idea of talks disintegrates before their eyes and that this whole event simply disappears. There are plenty of Muslims and Palestinians hoping for the same thing.
I am not hoping for disintegration, I am not hoping for the talks to fall apart before they begin, I’m hoping for them to result in a Palestinian state, an end to settlements a withdrawal from the West Bank in a way that is conducted in agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
I am hoping that all of this will finally come to an end.
I’m hoping that just perhaps, instead of hoping for a better world we will actually be able to create one…we already did it once, perhaps we can do it again.
No not perhaps, we CAN do it again.
When a new baby is born in Israel parents mutter a prayer that perhaps in 18 years there will no longer be a need for their perfect little child to serve in the IDF. They mutter the prayer certain that it won’t happen. They have served, they have lived their lives in the shadow of fear, they hope but they don’t believe.
I believe.
I have broken into too many Palestinian homes, torn them apart in front of the people who live there, except of course for the men, they had already been arrested, detained and checked one by one. I have scared, petrified too many women and children to believe that there is any honour in occupation.
And seen to much to deny that occupation is what we are doing.
My friends and I had a top 10 most wanted list of terrorists and despite the fact that we arrested and killed our way through that list every time I looked at it there were still 10 names on it. Because the list of wanted terrorists never ends, it’s a magic document where you find that the more names you cross off it the more names appear.
For all the terrorists we ‘took out’ we created replacements with every foray we made into Nablus or Jenin or a hundred other towns and villages whose names I can’t even remember. We arrested and we shot and we ambushed and we patrolled and here we are still, no peace no war.
It doesn’t end with the gun. It doesn’t end with killing it ends with an agreement or it doesn’t end at all.
Which would you prefer?
