Nov 1st, 2023

​I did not want to write this. For days I have been avoiding it, waiting for it to go away. But it won’t. It demands to be heard, and so I write. This is not an historical encounter, nor is it a political argument. Believe what you may.I grew up in a country where those who hate are loud and violent.
I also grew up in a pro-peace environment: ‘They are not all like this, most just want to live a quiet, peaceful life’. My father worked with them daily, in picking season at the orchards. We were invited once to a feast. I had never seen so much food. We were welcomed, and treated with respect. And still, I was uneasy, all of that night.
I remember once, on a peaceful afternoon, we were walking in the meadows, I would have been quite small. We came across a group of Arab ladies picking wild herbs. I was scared, out there with no one else around. My dad started chatting with them as if this was the most natural thing in the world, and for many, it probably was. At the end they wished each other Shalom, and Inshallah, may there be peace.
Eventually the first Intifada came, then the second. Israeli employers were murdered by their lifelong employees, and perceived friends. With riots throughout the country, Israelis stuck in the wrong places were in trouble. Some were saved by Israeli Arabs, proving to us again, that things are not always what they seem. Many were not so lucky.
We grew to believe in a ‘Silent Majority’ who want peace, but sadly, are impotent to exact change.
The Ramallah lynching, where two reserve soldiers were taken, murdered, and their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets with glee, was a turning point for many. One of the wives was told by a terrorist while she was calling her partner’s phone: ‘I just slaughtered your husband’.
We began to get accustomed to pictures of ‘freedom fighters’ holding their bloody hands up to the cameras in triumph. And as this new level of madness prevailed, many an Israeli heart turned. Not with hate, but with anger, horror, and a resigned acceptance that the peace we were told to trust, is no longer. ‘Reinforce the wall, let them stay there, we will stay here. No more coming over the border for jobs, no more murdering our people….’ And the rockets began.
And that ‘Silent Majority’, seemed less likely.
All my life I had dreamed of my father being killed in a terrorist attack. He trusted in human nature and was never afraid to live and connect. Poetry for Peace was his life’s long devotion, and life never stopped. No matter how many busses were bombed, he would get to his weekly poetry group, be it in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or anywhere else. When he finally died of old age, part of me was relieved, as my premonitions dissipated away.
And so it continues. Israeli forces and citizens evacuated Gaza in 2005. The occupation was over. Hamas was voted into government, and the rockets kept coming. ‘Palestine is not Hamas’; we are told by the news again and again. But Hamas is their government, elected by the Palestinian people. And the rockets keep coming. Food, water, electricity, fuel, all kept flowing through to Gaza from Israel because apparently, it is Israel’s moral responsibility to maintain Gazan life, despite the ongoing assault on its citizens. And the rockets keep coming.
Gazans kept coming through the border to work; thousands of new work permits were issued just before the Oct 7th Saturday massacre. Israelis, who had been volunteering to help provide medical aid to Gazan children for years, were kidnapped and murdered that day. The kibbutzim that were attacked had been providing Gazans with work, and their residents were murdered for it: Gazan workers had been providing Hamas with the detailed mapping information they needed to execute their attacks.
On Saturday, Oct 7th Hamas infiltrated Southern Israel, managed to invade border communities, and committed a massacre of unprecedented scale and barbarity. They murdered woman, children, babies, men, woman. Beheading babies, butchering people, raping girls, cutting babies out of mother’s wombs, burning families alive, this list of horrors goes on. They took hundreds of hostages, who they promptly raped, tortured, mutilated and paraded through the streets of Gaza like trophies. We all know that, we’ve all seen the gory footage, to some extent or another.
But I ask you, what were the Palestinian people doing while this was happening? What was the news showing us in the first 48 hours worldwide? Were there calls of outrage from the Palestinian people at these atrocities? Did they call on their elected governing body to stop the terror? Did they try to help the hostages who were paraded through Gaza's streets?
I did not hear a single voice of protest, not one! I did, however, see rallies of thousands of Palestinians, in Gaza and the West Bank, chanting and celebrating Hamas actions. Glee and sadistic joy were all there was to witness. I will forever remember that sweet, sweet girl, maybe 10 years old, such a peach she was. Held on her father’s shoulders, celebrating Saturdays horrifying events, a hand gun in one hand, a semi-automatic in the other. Her father holding weapons as well, and every other person around her, as far as the eye can see. This was in Jenin, in the West Bank, less than 10 kilometres from my own childhood home, where my family and friends still live today.
And what about the hostages? Even Hamas admitted only two days ago, that they do not hold all the hostages. Some are dead, and many unaccounted for, are held in Palestinian homes, in the hope of future ransom.
Israel retaliated, of course. And it didn’t take the rejoicing Palestinians long to cry foul! It took no time at all before the propaganda started, before false accusations of Israeli hostilities flooded the media (let’s not forget the hospital event, 500 declared dead, Israel blamed, and false footage emerged within minutes, and broadcasted by most media channels with no validation).
And of course, it’s all Isael’s fault. And when food, water, and fuel start running out, it is Israel’s fault. Apparently, it is Israel’s responsibility to support the people that bomb them on a regular basis and cheer-on the sadistic monsters they have elected to government. And one must wonder, while Egypt stubbornly refuses the Palestinian people entry to their own country, and Hamas are enjoying fuel, food, water, and medical supplies they have stockpiled for months, not to mention the shelter of their underground tunnels, why don’t the Palestinians, and the rest of the Palestinian-supporting world, turn to Hamas to please, share some of their spoils and underground safety with their own people?
And as this disgusting display of hypocritical sentiment continues, and pro-Palestinian demonstrations worldwide turn to violent riots against Jews and Israelis alike, I watch the silent majority I had put all my faith in, shrink to what seems to be a silent minority at best. As my hope for peace silently slips away, I look to those who have endured unspeakable horrors, but somehow, manage to hold strong onto the love in their hearts. I look to them as they shine ever so brightly, in hope they may show me a way, in these dark and terrible times.