I wish this wasn't what I was posting about.
I wish more people were like the new gardener our building has hired to take care of the garden.
I see a man sitting down outside my apartment, eating his lunch and I ask him if everything's okay, not knowing who he is. He says yes. Introduces himself, says his name is Yitzhak. I find it kind of weird, that he has a Hebrew name, considering that his accent and clothing style are Arab. I ask him if he'd like something to drink. He says yes and asks for tea. I make him some and invite him for more if he'd like that. A few hours later he knocks on my apartment door, asks for more tea and whether he can come in. I say of course. He sits in my kitchen while I prepare him some tea. We have a nice, long conversation. He's lost his wife a year ago. He has three kids. Six generations ago, a Jewish man from Turkey came to Israel and fell in love with a Muslim woman. In order to marry her, he has to convert to Islam. He did. That man's name was Yitzhak and now so is the name of the man sitting across for me. We both wish for peace. He tells me the situation for East Jerusalem Arabs is much better now than it was during the Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967. I tell him that's good. He says he was surprised, but he took a liking to Israelis right away. I said people are people and we were all created in the image of God. He says he'll come by again at the end of the day to say goodbye.
I just wanna know why it can't all be like that, and I feel incredibly naive for wanting to know that, like I haven't lived in this area all my life, like I don't know the reasons perfectly well.
I wish I could turn off the news. I think it's been 48 hours straight now that I haven't been able to shut off my TV set. I keep wandering around trying to take it all in.
I wish it was as clear to everyone as it is to me that Israel had no murderous intentions towards the people on board the "peace" flotilla. I wish people knew how ironic it is that if anything led to the bloodshed being so severe, it's the fact that the IDF for some reason believed those activists really were "peaceful" (and other scenarios were considered, but this one was thought to be more likely: that the activists will shout at the soldiers, curse, shove, spit, but not that they'd brutally attack them with these weapons), leading to the attack of the soldiers being criminally easy and their reaction necessarily being more forceful than if they had not been attacked, because it wouldn't have been made possible in the first place.
(those discs, by the way, are saw blades, in case that isn't clear)
I wish the IDF's assumption that at 4:30 in the morning people would be asleep on the flotilla would have turned out to be true. I wish the Marmara's top deck would have remained as empty as it was a few minutes before the soldiers started sliding down the ropes onto it.
I wish I didn't have to read people making these statements: On the Turkish Humanitarian flotilla Ship, Egyptian Expert on International Law says to Al-Jazeera: "Countries Should Use Aid Convoys to Transfer Weapons to Gaza".
I wish I didn't have to see this video and be utterly shocked by how much we've risked the lives of our own soldiers, people who we've sent into a dangerous situation in order to ensure our safety and to whom we are more indebted than to anyone else in this miserable situation, much as we do have a certain responsibility towards the activists as well.
I wish they would have taken the Israeli offer to pass the humanitarian aid to Gaza through the usual means, which Israel allows after inspecting them (or after the Egyptians do). I wish they were actual peace activists, who were just as concerned for the well being of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hammas in Gaza for years now in inhumane conditions. I wish they had agreed to the offer made by the Shalit family to make sure they'll be able to get to Gaza uninterrupted if only they pass some aid packages to Gilad.
I wish we told the world beforehand that we were well informed that known terrorists are among the people boarding these ships in Turkey.
I wish Turkey had acted in a responsible manner and wouldn't have allowed the ships to leave from its harbors, just as Israel wouldn't let its civilians go into any situation that will inevidently end up in a confrontation.
I wish I could stop thinking about the fact that we are surely seen as brutal sadists when I have no doubt that the soldiers on those ships were as restrained as one possibly can be under those circumstances.
I wish I thought the people we're dealing with can be trusted to not supply the material needed for re-building the Hammas' terror facilities in Gaza, so there would have been no need for this damn blockade.
I wish I didn't know that this is a rather hopeless situation and that the blockade is a means to try and keep our soldiers out of Gaza, to not to have to send them back into that damn strip and risk their lives even more by doing so. I wish it didn't seem like the world is going to try and force us to stop the blockade, so that eventually, we would have to send them back in and more innocent people will end up dead. On both sides.
I see a man sitting down outside my apartment, eating his lunch and I ask him if everything's okay, not knowing who he is. He says yes. Introduces himself, says his name is Yitzhak. I find it kind of weird, that he has a Hebrew name, considering that his accent and clothing style are Arab. I ask him if he'd like something to drink. He says yes and asks for tea. I make him some and invite him for more if he'd like that. A few hours later he knocks on my apartment door, asks for more tea and whether he can come in. I say of course. He sits in my kitchen while I prepare him some tea. We have a nice, long conversation. He's lost his wife a year ago. He has three kids. Six generations ago, a Jewish man from Turkey came to Israel and fell in love with a Muslim woman. In order to marry her, he has to convert to Islam. He did. That man's name was Yitzhak and now so is the name of the man sitting across for me. We both wish for peace. He tells me the situation for East Jerusalem Arabs is much better now than it was during the Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967. I tell him that's good. He says he was surprised, but he took a liking to Israelis right away. I said people are people and we were all created in the image of God. He says he'll come by again at the end of the day to say goodbye.
I just wanna know why it can't all be like that, and I feel incredibly naive for wanting to know that, like I haven't lived in this area all my life, like I don't know the reasons perfectly well.
I wish I could turn off the news. I think it's been 48 hours straight now that I haven't been able to shut off my TV set. I keep wandering around trying to take it all in.
I wish it was as clear to everyone as it is to me that Israel had no murderous intentions towards the people on board the "peace" flotilla. I wish people knew how ironic it is that if anything led to the bloodshed being so severe, it's the fact that the IDF for some reason believed those activists really were "peaceful" (and other scenarios were considered, but this one was thought to be more likely: that the activists will shout at the soldiers, curse, shove, spit, but not that they'd brutally attack them with these weapons), leading to the attack of the soldiers being criminally easy and their reaction necessarily being more forceful than if they had not been attacked, because it wouldn't have been made possible in the first place.
(those discs, by the way, are saw blades, in case that isn't clear)
I wish the IDF's assumption that at 4:30 in the morning people would be asleep on the flotilla would have turned out to be true. I wish the Marmara's top deck would have remained as empty as it was a few minutes before the soldiers started sliding down the ropes onto it.
I wish I didn't have to read people making these statements: On the Turkish Humanitarian flotilla Ship, Egyptian Expert on International Law says to Al-Jazeera: "Countries Should Use Aid Convoys to Transfer Weapons to Gaza".
I wish I didn't have to see this video and be utterly shocked by how much we've risked the lives of our own soldiers, people who we've sent into a dangerous situation in order to ensure our safety and to whom we are more indebted than to anyone else in this miserable situation, much as we do have a certain responsibility towards the activists as well.
Click to viewI wish they would have taken the Israeli offer to pass the humanitarian aid to Gaza through the usual means, which Israel allows after inspecting them (or after the Egyptians do). I wish they were actual peace activists, who were just as concerned for the well being of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hammas in Gaza for years now in inhumane conditions. I wish they had agreed to the offer made by the Shalit family to make sure they'll be able to get to Gaza uninterrupted if only they pass some aid packages to Gilad.
I wish we told the world beforehand that we were well informed that known terrorists are among the people boarding these ships in Turkey.
I wish Turkey had acted in a responsible manner and wouldn't have allowed the ships to leave from its harbors, just as Israel wouldn't let its civilians go into any situation that will inevidently end up in a confrontation.
I wish I could stop thinking about the fact that we are surely seen as brutal sadists when I have no doubt that the soldiers on those ships were as restrained as one possibly can be under those circumstances.
I wish I thought the people we're dealing with can be trusted to not supply the material needed for re-building the Hammas' terror facilities in Gaza, so there would have been no need for this damn blockade.
I wish I didn't know that this is a rather hopeless situation and that the blockade is a means to try and keep our soldiers out of Gaza, to not to have to send them back into that damn strip and risk their lives even more by doing so. I wish it didn't seem like the world is going to try and force us to stop the blockade, so that eventually, we would have to send them back in and more innocent people will end up dead. On both sides.