The middle east & Israel

We can also pray for justice for all concerned. Without justice, there is no true peace.

@ana I am Jewish.

Israel was not set up as a safe haven,  this implies that an outside entity granted it as a gift.  Jews and Arabs lived on that land for thousands of years. It was not a gift granted by any means. You might think it was just stolen by Jews in the 20th century but the reality is more complicated. 

The fact that Jews needed a safe haven is an indictment of many many countries, governments, and peoples throughout history.  There is an implicit and normalized assumption, commonly articulated, that hatred of Jews will just always be around. A callousness masquerading as worldliness. Even the best people..... And the Palestinian cause is one that surrounding countries may say that they champion but do not accept Palestinians as immigrants to their countries. 

All of Israel is 8550 square miles, smaller than the state of New Jersey, which is 8729 square miles. in the 1920s, my father's best friend in Jaffa (the older part of Tel Aviv) was an Arab young man. Today there are many Palestinians and Israeli Jews forging bonds, through music, education, peace movements, they are neighbors.  We outside of Israel cannot begin to appreciate the levels of generational trauma in all of those engaged in conflict right now and what it takes for the peacemakers to move beyond their own internal histories and damage. I grew up knowing Holocaust survivors, and I know some Israelis, and they share certain psychological armor and distortions.

As frightened as I am right now for everybody on the ground in Israel, I have faith in the people there of all ethnic groups, who will ultimately refuse to be pawns of the political machinations of their leaders. They all have nowhere else to go, and they know it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

No more comment from me here except I do hope the people of Israel and all the Middle East can find common ground and work it out, one of these days.

Until we finally see all human beings as our brothers and sisters, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

We are all human beings and we need to find our own humanity in each person we interact with.  Our neighbors and friends, our co-workers and family members.  Those who are blue and those who are red, the haves and have nots.  Children and elders, those raised in love and those raised in fear. Those who have white privilege, and those who must try harder than others to achieve half of what their peers achieve. The masked and the maskless. Those living with constant scarcity and those who dwell in abundance.  Those who have one God, many Gods or no God. 

If we are taught to fear others, to think of them as below or above us, evil or filled with hate, we run the risk of becoming the very person of whom we live in fear.  

We must learn to love people.  We must find a way to make the opaque box in which they have be placed into a transparent one opened  doors and windows.  We need to see their humanity and in doing so we might find ours.

@lovendures

Beautifully said! Amen. 

May our world consciousness grow in the coming years to embody the spirit and substance of your words....

More unfortunate Israeli news.

A very crowded synagogue has had what is being called a mass casualty event after bleachers collapsed at an Orthodox synagogue in the West Bank settlement of Giv'at Ze'ev northwest of Jerusalem.  It was a live televised event.

The photo I saw shows a packed room. 

My first thought was " What is happening with Israel?"  My next thought: "Something is not right, they are not in a good place right now.  They are not in balance."  

2 weeks ago the had a mass causality event which was a stampede at a holy site, then the bombings events and now this.  

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/16/middleeast/israel-bleacher-collapse/index.html

@lovendures

Israel is out of balance for sure. While the Israelis are dynamic and intelligent people, the endless years of fighting for their survival has created a huge amount of reactive psychological trauma.  The same can certainly be said of the Palestinians who live under far worse living conditions. Both sides are immersed/entrenched in their respective reactive traumas and it takes comparatively little to trigger them.  Netanyahu and Hamas BOTH have to go. They are both major hindrances to peace.  Imo, Jerusalem should be mandated a "separate international territory" like the Vatican --  separate and apart from the country of Israel with access to all.

Build the Palestinians apartment blocks that are clean but simple.  Provide them with sufficient electricity and water.  Provide food for their families and basic medical care. Were Israel to lay down their arms and do this (easily achievable in 3-6 months) then THAT would represent a truly radical act, a "game-changer", a compassionate heart and an act worthy of the best that Judaism has to offer.

This morning in news...at least 59 Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrikes... that's like two classrooms full of children. I pray for peace. Can anyone see a peace there at some point? 

Per an article in today's NY Times, Both  sides have been committing war crimes. Until an outside neutral body (like the International Criminal Court) can step in and hold them both accountable, sadly, I don't see how the situation can change without a major shift in perspective by both sides...

Israel and Hamas Fighting Raises Questions about War Crimes - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

@lovendures

I had the same thought when I heard about this news out of the West Bank: "Something is out of balance in Israel."

In an email to VestraLux I sent a year ago, I speculated that every modern nation-state would be forced to deal with its collective shadow during the course of this pandemic (if not during the pandemic, then in this decade). It seems that Israel is being forced to grapple with the tensions of living up to the standards of a secular, multi-ethnic democracy while also purporting to be a homeland for a specific religious group; these tensions have been made all the more unsustainable by Netanyahu's demagoguery and the passage of the 2018 Nation-State Bill. There also seems to be a contradiction in how, to keep the Israeli Jewish people unified, the Ultra-Orthodox population is often given a free pass by the regulatory infrastructure. Unfortunately, that lax oversight played a major role in first the explosion of Covid cases in Haredi communities, and now the Lag b'Omer stampede and this bleacher collapse.

I agree with @amyv, though: the Israeli and Palestinian people are capable of untangling their problems. I know they're being helped by higher beings. That's why I'm not existentially panicked by what's happening now in the Middle East.

@coyote your post gives me hope. It's too heartbreaking. 

Like @coyote and @Vestralux, I think the great unraveling and the great turning is for the world, not just the US. So much change to come.

I knew making this thread would be a difficult subject. People tend to have different views and beliefs on this and it was always going to carry the risk of being a difficult subject to discuss, and I am sorry for that.

The Israel-Palestine situation always stirs emotions because of its complex history.

But being pure to who I am and my concerns and intuition, I wanted to raise awareness to the situation unfolding, because I felt this would be more than a mild skirmish. What size the situation transpires to eventually be, time will only tell.

I also want to make clear that I have no pro Israel or pro Palestine views or agenda, and I wish only peace and an end to suffering like everyone else, for the sake of all innocent lives caught in between.

@luminous  You were brave to venture into this particular minefield,   and I agree it was important to raise the topic. 

Like others, I have a sense that recent events mark a start of unraveling of the complex knot in which the region and its people have found themselves entangled. 

I for one am happy you started this thread.  Yes, it is a very sensitive subject indeed but we are all connected and I agree with @lowtide, it is a great unraveling for the whole world.  At the very least we can send light to the Israeli and Palestinian people.  Hopefully we can do that AND open our minds as well.  I am certain we all have some more unravelling to do.  It is like an onion. No, an artichoke.  You peel leaf after leaf, getting poked by the spikes on each tip in the process.  You get to the slime like weird leaves and then the filament hair icky choke part. It sticks to your fingers your fork and your teeth. Finally, after a lot of digging, you can actually get to the heart. It takes a lot of what to get to the heart of a situation such as this but the reward iis worth it in the end.  I hope they can break through that filament ick soon.

@ana and @lovendures thanks for your kind words.

I agree with you and hope and pray peace can be made soon. 

In the below article, this Israeli Trauma Surgeon indicates that, despite the bloodshed and extreme partisan feelings in Israel & Palestine today in SOME places at least, such as in his hospital, EVERYONE works together to help everyone as one unified team: Whether Israeli, Arab, Christian or Druze -- both on the incoming patient side and on the medical staffing side.  Sounds crazy given the political situation now but it is true.  May this become a model for the future for this part of the world.

Opinion | I’m a Trauma Surgeon in Israel. In My Hospital, We Are in This Together. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

@isabelle that is such an amazing story.

I am 100% with you and believe we should have no politics involved in healthcare and saving lives, and that it should be every human right to have access to treatment and medical help. I hope the same also for clean water, sanitation, food, and shelter. We should have these right now world wide, but we dont.

I've always had a weird picture in my mind of the UN taking a potential bigger role in the future in helping to solve global issues, in terms of peace keeping, aid, climate change, and with a new new bill of human rights - especially after what has happened globally during the pandemic. 

I really hope we one day see more coming together like in that article, it really is a wonderful thing to see.

Posted by: @lovendures

  It is like an onion. No, an artichoke.  You peel leaf after leaf, getting poked by the spikes on each tip in the process.  You get to the slime like weird leaves and then the filament hair icky choke part. It sticks to your fingers your fork and your teeth. Finally, after a lot of digging, you can actually get to the heart. It takes a lot of what to get to the heart of a situation such as this but the reward iis worth it in the end. 

Good analogy, but I keep thinking of the scene from "Shrek" where Donkey reminds us that parfaits and cakes also have layers.    https://tacoma.bibliocommons.com/v2/quotation/1127786157#:~:text=Parfaits%20are%20delicious!,Ogres%20are%20like%20onions!

Posted by: @lovendures

 I am certain we all have some more unravelling to do.  It is like an onion. No, an artichoke.  

This is such a good analogy, Lovendures. I'm sure I have more unraveling to do myself, and this thread is already challenging what i thought I knew about this part of the world. I believe it was @frank who proposed that the the advance from 2020 to 2026 can be thought of as an ascent through the 7 chakras. 2020 was the year of the root chakra, 2021 is the year of the sacral chaktra, 2022 will be the year of the solar plexus. Fortunately, in 2023 we reach the heart chakra, and things will start getting noticeably easier. 

So if anyone is freaked out by what's still happening in the world now, hold on for another 1 1/2 years. You've already made it this far.