Last weekend I read in the New York Times a quote by a Palestinian. He was commenting on the "kidnapping" of the Israeli soldier in Gaza, and he said "We are either going to live together in peace or we are going to live together in fear." I'm paraphrasing. How accurate. Some people will argue this on and on, but when you have lived in the horrid conditions in which the Palestinians live and have lived for the past decades, you start to think at a different level. How easy it is to be detached from the situation and judge. And how is a soldier "kidnapped" but Israelis go in and take people from their homes in the middle of the night as "prisoners"?
I'm worried about the situation there escalating, but it's mainly because Israeli action is unchecked- there is nobody to make sure they do not lose control. They do not listen to the UN (have ignored UN resolutions condemning their actions for years). They do not get seriously threatened in any way for their actions. They are allowed to run free, bomb the hell out of places and claim it's in their defense. Sound familiar?
It kills me to see the newspapers. In the New York Times, they had an article about the situation- last weekend there were 8 Palestinians and 1 Israeli killed. And the picture they had was of the Israeli side mourning the death of the Israeli. Shouldn't the 8 win out there? How much sympathy can you rally for the ones who are winning? How shameless. And then in the Express there was a picture of 2 Palestinian men on the doorstep of a morgue awaiting the funeral of their relative (aha, you may think, it is unbiased), but then there was an armed militant in the picture, mentioned in the caption, masked, rifled, and all. Now don't tell me that was there by accident. How dare they portray the Palestinians as these militant people who mourn their dead relatives with guns in the air while the Israelis are the innocent victims. Shameless, shameless, shameless.
I can't sleep, but this time it's because of my 12 hour long sleep last night- I'm pretty saturated with sleep. It feels good- it's been a while since I felt this awake. Those poor Palestinians.
