Do we dare have the audacity to hope for change in our very conflicted world? To create change? To make change? To expect change? To allow change?
Yes, I believe we do.
The Gaza bound flotilla from the United States, The Audacity of Hope, is stalled in Greece right now and has for over a week. In fact, Greece is blocking ten ships in the flotilla from sailing on to Gaza. With activists on board such as award-winning author, Alice Walker (Click here to listen why Alice Walker joined the flotilla), the worry from Israel is that there are chemicals on board that will enable Hamas to make harmful weapons and bombs that will endanger Israeli citizens. However, activists state that all that is on board are medical supplies, as well as food and other needed items.
As you can imagine, there is a lot of debate around the flotilla. If you recall, in the last attempt at a flotilla to Gaza on May 31, 2010, Israeli forces boarded the Turkish flotilla, MV Mavi Marmara, and shot and killed nine activists, injuring many more. Israel says the activists came at them with metal pipes and clubs, yet witnesses say the activists were peacefully resisting.
In my work thus far on this conflict, I hear a lot of words and phrases thrown around: resistance, Zionist, hater, besieged, occupation, land rights, terrorist, humanitarian, human rights, security, peace, suffering, and oppression. As I shared in my SoF piece Am I Anti-Semitic?, when I was in Hebron, I witnessed Palestinian and Israeli children, maybe ten feet away from each other with a concrete barrier being the only thing separating them, hurling insults at each other in Arabic and Hebrew. They may not have understood what the other was saying, but they certainly understood the intent and more, felt the hatred.
My witness leaves me not with a lack of hope for a region that experiences violence every single day, but instead, I am left with great frustration for what seems to be an impossible situation sometimes. As I stood on top of a hill in Sderot with award winning filmmaker Laura Bialis and viewed the Gaza strip in 2009, I thought, Really? All those people living in that tiny strip of land? Simply stated (and there’s a lot of politics involved, obviously), Israel says they cut off Gaza from the rest of the world because Hamas was voted into power by Gazans and Hamas has vowed to kill all Jews, so therefore their blockade is protecting Israeli citizens. Gazans voted Hamas into power because they believe that Hamas can help Gazans achieve some basic human rights and improve their living conditions.
Roy Hanania, an award winning columnist and Palestinian activist states about the flotilla stand off and the conflict itself, “THIS STAND-OFF isn’t about peace. It’s not about security. It’s not about easing suffering. This is about selfish, extremist politics, Israeli and Palestinian.” (Read Roy Hanania’s piece here.)
All of this leaves me wondering how people in this region will ever find some semblance of peace, when there are so many players—government, activists, artists, teachers, men, women, NGO’s, and most importantly, children. How do we stop name-calling and labeling? How do we stop hating? How do we start understanding? Is this about peace or is it about recognition of the other’s humanity? I have a difficult time believing that the suicide bomber, or the settler that beats Palestinian children on their way to school near the village of At Tuwani, recognize their own humanity, let alone the humanity of the people they are hurting. How could anyone recognize the humanity of someone when they are raised to label? To curse? To hate? Do they even understand what it means to see the other as a human being and not as an enemy?
I get frustrated when I start to write about this subject. In fact, I just stopped and without even realizing it, let out a long, deep sigh and looked out my window. I don’t even live there, but I am invested. Why? Because I am tired of hearing, reading and seeing government officials and so many others speak and act, yet nothing changes. There were peace talks not even two months ago—it was all over the news, until it came to an opinionated, screeching halt when President Obama said that the 1967 borders should be recognized in the peace process. (Click here to read what President Obama Said.) Everyone had an opinion on that statement, most not really understanding what those borders were, how they were set, and what they mean to the people living there. Yet, in the process of all that arguing, those kids that I witnessed in Hebron—they are still calling each other names in two different languages; they are still scared of each other; they are still separated by a concrete barrier; they still hate each other. That is what matters.
I will be forty-five in two weeks. I have heard about this conflict since I can remember and I don’t live in it. Imagine if you did. Imagine what it must be like to be Israeli and fear that you could be blown up by a suicide bomber as you sit on a bus. Imagine what it must be like to fear that every day when your child goes to school, they could be hurt my a settler. Imagine what it must be like to go into labor, and because you are stuck at a checkpoint, your baby dies because you can’t get to the hospital. Imagine what it must be like to have had your grandparents die in the Holocaust and there’s a prominent political movement claiming they want to wipe all Jews off the planet, again.
I do wonder how this conflict can end. I respect and admire activists such as those on the flotilla that can’t and won’t just stand idly by, and I struggle with those that do nothing but offer lip service to the situation. I don’t claim to have the answers, I just claim that as a fellow human being, I care.
Do we dare have the audacity to hope for change in our very conflicted world? To create change? To make change? To expect change? To allow change? Yes, I believe we do. In fact, I have the audacity to hope that within my lifetime, I will witness peace in the Middle East. Here’s to hoping…