Palestinian Love Quotes

Amal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.

...We never set eyes on Fatima or our dog or the city we had known ever again. Like a body prematurely buried, unmourned withpot coffin or ceremony, our hasty untidy exit from Jerusalem was no way to have said goodbye to our home, our country and all that we knew and loved.

I tell my story as well to let the Israeli people know that there is hope. If I, the son of a terrorist organization dedicated to the extinction of Israel, can reach a point where I not only learned to love the Jewish people but risked my life for them, there is a light of hope.

I grieved three thousand times. Then I grieved for myself, a lonely woman without the honor given to the wives of the fallen. The reverence for their loss, for their children's loss. It was eloquent and grand. So moving and charged with solidarity...On September eleventh, I faced the last moments of your father's life. I saw him in every person who tried to jump and every body they pulled from the rubble. And I saw myself as I was never allowed to be, consoled, understood, and loved.

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don’t have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel’s response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you.

The sun began to set behind Bethlehem and the beams were breaking through some white and gray clouds. There was a slight and beautiful chill from the autumn air. I gave thanks for that beautiful day and for the fact that the sun does not know Palestinian from Israeli, Christian from Muslim or Jew, and Asian from American or African, and I asked myself: If the sun shines on all of us as one, how much more does the sun's Creator see and love us all as one?

Laughter sends a powerful message: We’re still alive, we’re still laughing, and we love life.

He looked on in silence at the proof of what Israelis already know, that their history is contrived from the bones and traditions of Palestinians. The Europeans who came knew neither hummus nor falafel but later proclaimed them authentic Jewish cuisine." They claimed the villas of Qatamon as "old Jewish homes. They had no old photographs or ancient drawings of their ancestry living on the land, loving it, and planting it. They arrived from foreign nations and uncovered coins in Palestines earth from the Canaanites, the Romans, the ottomans, then sold them as their own "ancient Jewish artifacts." They came to Jaffa and found oranges the size of watermelons and said, "Behold! The Jews are known for their oranges." But those oranges were the culmination of centuries of Palestinian farmers perfecting the art of citrus growing.

Forgotten, as if you never were. Like a bird’s violent death like an abandoned church you’ll be forgotten, like a passing love and a rose in the night . . . forgotten I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps preceded mine those whose vision dictated mine. There are those who scattered speech on their accord to enter the story or to illuminate to others who will follow them a lyrical trace . . . and a speculation Forgotten, as if you never were a person, or a text . . . forgotten I walk guided by insight, I might give the story a biographical narrative. Vocabulary governs me and I govern it. I am its shape and it is the free transfiguration. But what I’d say has already been said. A passing tomorrow precedes me. I am the king of echo. My only throne is the margin. And the road is the way. Perhaps the forefathers forgot to describe something, I might nudge in it a memory and a sense Forgotten, as if you never were news, or a trace . . . forgotten I am for the road . . . There are those whose footsteps walk upon mine, those who will follow me to my vision. Those who will recite eulogies to the gardens of exile, in front of the house, free of worshipping yesterday, free of my metonymy and my language, and only then will I testify that I’m alive and free when I’m forgotten! ~ tr. Fady Joudah

My father, a Palestinian, and my mother, an Israeli, met in a bar in New York. Their encounter was a blue shift. An anomaly. A collision. In the end, I understand, it is only for this we live. All I ever wanted was to love.

I never carried a rifle on my shoulder, Nor did I pull a trigger. All I have is a flute’s melody. A brush to paint my dreams, A bottle of ink. All I have is unshakeable faith, And an infinite love for my people in pain. Mahmoud Darwish

Existence has taught me that a man can live on love and fresh water, on crumbs and promises, but he can never survive insults. And insults are all I've known since I came into the world. Every morning. Every evening. That's all I've seen for my whole life.

In the end both people realized something so utterly simple and yet horrifyingly distant- by removing the ‘otherness’ from their respective identification, they can embrace a land that animates their historical sense of purpose and direction. They can embrace fate by embracing each other as joint caretakers of a historical location that witnessed rivers of blood and the silent weeping of those who dream of a New Jerusalem.

Susan Abdallah, a Palestinian, knows the recipe for making a terrorist: Deprive him of food and water. Surround his home with the machinery of war. Attack him with all means at all times, especially at night. Demolish is home, uproot his farmland, kill his loved ones. Congratulations: you have created an army of suicide bombers.

I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him, and by the way, Tal, I believe the Palestinians should have their own state.

In this world hypocrisy killing innocent people more than any disease pandemic and hunger combined.

Normal people apply butter on bread to feed their child, and most news anchor and reporter apply genocide victims' blood on bread to feed their children

Religious practice in the Land of the Bible tends to encourage exclusivity and discrimination rather than love and magnanimity. There is no place like the Holy Land to make one cynical about religion.

You want to prove that the Bible is right? It is not done by self-fulfilling prophecies or by pointing to world events as prophecy fulfillment. That is not how you prove that the Bible is right. We prove that the Bible is right by radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus and by validating that Jesus' teachings actually do work and can make our world better. Let us love our enemies, forgive those who sin against us, feed the poor, care for the needy and oppressed, walk the extra mile, be inclusive not exclusive, turn the other cheek, and maybe then the world will start taking us seriously and believe our Bible!

But if we are all God’s children, why does God spend so much time in history ordering one branch of his universal family to wipe out another branch? Why did his love for his Jewish children have to be expressed by the extermination of his Palestinian children? Why did he later abandon his Jewish children in favour of his Christian children and encourage his new favourites to torment their older siblings? Why did he order his Muslim children who worship him as One to persecute his pagan children who worship him as Many? Why is there so much violence in religious history, all done by groups who claim God is on their side? Unless you are prepared to believe that God actually plays favourites like some kind of demented tyrant, then there are only two ways out of this dilemma. The obvious one is to decide that there is no God. What is called God is a human invention used, among other things, to justify humankind’s love of violence and hatred of strangers. Getting rid of God won’t solve the problem of human violence but it will remove one of its pretexts.

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan! No, Erdogan, you’re not welcome in Algeria. We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion—you’re a member of it—you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader. Islamism is your livelihood Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your “Sublime Door.” You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands. But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your “Muslim Brothers” in this country, who used to show us God’s Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other. No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or principles; you do not defend the right of peoples to self-determination. You know only how to subject the Kurds to the fires of death; you know only how to subject your opponents to your dictatorship. You cry with the victims in the Middle East, yet sign contracts with their executioners. You do not dream of a dignified future for us, but of a caliphate for yourself. We are aware of your institutionalized persecution, your list of Turks to track down, your sinister prisons filled with the innocent, your dictatorial justice palaces, your insolence and boastful nature. You do not dream of a humanity that shares common values and principles, but are interested only in the remaking of the Ottoman Empire and its bloodthirsty warlords. Islam, for you, is a footstool; God is a business sign; modernity is an enemy; Palestine is a showcase; and local Islamists are your stunned courtesans. Humanity will not remember you with good deeds Humanity will remember you for your machinations, your secret coups d’état, and your manhunts. History will remember you for your bombings, your vengeful wars, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue with others. The UN vote for Al-Quds is only an instrument in your service. Let us laugh at this with the Palestinians. We know that the Palestinian issue is your political capital, as it is for many others. You know well how to make a political fortune by exploiting others’ emotions. In Algeria, we suffered, and still suffer, from those who pretend to be God and act as takers and givers of life. They applaud your coming, but not us. You are the idol of Algerian Islamists and Populists, those who are unable to imagine a political structure beyond a caliphate for Muslim-majority societies. We aspire to become a country of freedom and dignity. This is not your ambition, nor your virtue. You are an illusion You have made beautiful Turkey an open prison and a bazaar for your business and loved ones. I hope that this beautiful nation rises above your ambitions. I hope that justice will be restored and flourish there once again, at least for those who have been imprisoned, tortured, bombed, and killed. You are an illusion, Erdogan—you know it and we know it. You play on the history of our humiliation, on our emotions, on our beliefs, and introduce yourself as a savior. However, you are a gravedigger, both for your own country and for your neighbors. Turkey is a political miracle, but it owes you nothing. The best thing you can do

It is mind-boggling to me how people who say they love Palestinians so much and dedicate their lives for preserving Palestinian identity and culture, don’t even entertain the thought of studying this culture. They know Kant, they know Nietzsche, they know Sartre, they know Aristotle, but they know no Quran, no Hadith, and no Arabic.

By what twisted sophistication of argument do you harry people with violence off your land and then think yourself entitled to make high-minded stipulations as to where they may go now you are rid of them and how they may provide for their future welfare? I am an Englishman who loves England, but do you suppose that it too is not a racist country? Do you know of any country whose recent history is not blackened by prejudice and hate against somebody? So what empowers racists in their own right to sniff out racism in others? Only from a world from which Jews believe they have nothing to fear will they consent to learn lessons in humanity. Until then, the Jewish state’s offer of safety to Jews the world over yes, Jews first – while it might not be equitable cannot sanely be constructed as racist. I can understand why a Palestinian might say it feels racist to him, though he too inherits a history of disdain for people of other persuasions to himself, but not you, madam, since you present yourself as a bleeding-heart, conscience-pricked representative of the very Gentile world from which Jews, through no fault of their own, have been fleeing for centuries...

ref·u·gee noun: a person who flees for refuge or safety We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from burning buildings into the arms of loving families. When we flee from floods and earthquakes to sleep on blue mats in community centres. We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from abusive relationships, and shooters in cinemas and shopping centres. Sometimes it takes only a day for our countries to persecute us because of our creed, race, or sexual orientation. Sometimes it takes only a minute for the missiles to rain down and leave our towns in ruin and destitution. We are, each of us, refugees longing for that amniotic tranquillity dreaming of freedom and safety when fences and barbed wires spring into walled gardens. Lebanese, Sudanese, Libyan and Syrian, Yemeni, Somali, Palestinian, and Ethiopian, like our brothers and sisters, we are, each of us, refugees. The bombs fell in their cafés and squares where once poetry, dancing, and laughter prevailed. Only their olive trees remember music and merriment now as their cities wail for departed children without a funeral. We are, each of us, refugees. Don’t let stamped paper tell you differently. We’ve been fleeing for centuries because to stay means getting bullets in our heads because to stay means being hanged by our necks because to stay means being jailed, raped and left for dead. But we can, each of us, serve as one another’s refuge so we don't board dinghies when we can’t swim so we don’t climb walls with snipers aimed at our chest so we don’t choose to remain and die instead. When home turns into hell, you, too, will run with tears in your eyes screaming rescue me! and then you’ll know for certain: you've always been a refugee.

... the gods will feast on the smoke of rams and ewes that all these lovely people will offer them, on the Temple Mount three times promised, there where the heads of Palestinian suicide bombers take off for the skies, corks of divine champagne, during the celebration of the end of days, the last fireworks, prefigured by the explosions of war, and it’s no doubt only a question of patience before the universe decides to become infinitesimal again and sucks all these burning memories into nothingness…

Jesus' answer to violent reasonableness is an unreasonable love. It is not reasonable to counter imperial violence with a Cross-shaped love. It is not reasonable to say, with Dr. Cornel West, that every child's life is worth the same--that a brown child's life is as precious as a white child's to a Palestinian child's life is as precious as an Israeli child's. It isn't reasonable to ground a society on such a vision, because there has never been a human order grounded on such a vision. It isn't reasonable, but it's right.

If you cared about the thousands of children suffering today in Gaza, as much you care about the birth of one middle eastern child two thousand years ago, perhaps then, you could've understood the true meaning of Christmas. As of now, Christmas is just a festival of hypocrisy - and that too, in the name of a man who gave his life to lift up the fallen. My question is, if you cannot be Christlike in your deeds, what's the point of all these festivities, which are supposed to be rooted in goodwill towards all, not mindless self-obsession!

Norenzayan distinguishes between private and communal religiosity in surveying support for suicide bombers among Palestinians.17 In a refutation of “Islam = terrorism” idiocy, people’s personal religiosity (as assessed by how often they prayed) didn’t predict support for terrorism. However, frequently attending services at a mosque did. The author then polled Indian Hindus, Russian Orthodox adherents, Israeli Jews, Indonesian Muslims, British Protestants, and Mexican Catholics as to whether they’d die for their religion and whether people of other religions caused the world’s troubles. In all cases frequent attendance of religious services, but not frequent prayer, predicted those views. It’s not religiosity that stokes intergroup hostility; it’s being surrounded by coreligionists who affirm parochial identity, commitment, and shared loves and hatreds. This is hugely important.

When Ghada, the beautiful 78 year old Palestinian woman, offered me the bread she had just conjured up on the makeshift and primitive cast iron lid balanced upon a rocky fire outside of her sparse UNRWA tent in 2015 it was precisely then that I decided that my life had to change. No longer could I justify vulgar material possessions and unnecessary finances. I returned home, sold my house,moved into a modest but adequate abode and gave a lot of time and funds to helping those with nothing. Some of us aren't destined to feel rapturous love...find deep faith...have a sense of belonging in this world but thanks to Ghada and the many like her, both young and old,that I encountered in Gaza and the West Bank I finally realized and truly understood what it meant to be a human being and what the real purpose of this life is....to help,to give,to speak out,to speak up,to right the many wrongs...to do all of those things without ever once expecting a single thing in return. After all, it is neither heroic or special to do what is just.

Not everybody can simply wake up one morning, brush his teeth, drink a cup of coffee and kill a god! To murder a deity you need to even stronger than the god as well as infinitely malicious and evil. Whoever murdered Jesus, a warm-hearted deity radiating love, he must have been stronger than he and also shrewd and abominable. Those accursed god-killers were only able to kill god on condition that they really possessed monstrous resources of strength and wickedness. And so that is indeed what the jews possess in the deepest recesses of the Jews-hater's imagination. We are all Judas. Even eighty generations later we are still Judas. But the truth, my young friend, the real truth, we can behold before our very eyes here in the land of Israel: the modern Jew who has sprung up here, just like his ancient predecessor, is neither strong nor malicious, but hedonistic, with an ostentatious of wisdom, boisterous, confused and consumed by suspicions and fear. Yes indeed. Chaim Weizmann once said, in a moment of despair, that there can never be such a thing as a Jewish state, because it contains an inbuilt contradiction: if it is a state it will not be Jewish, and if it is Jewish it will certainly not be a state.

The imperialist found it useful to incorporate the credible and seemingly unimpeachable wisdom of science to create a racial classification to be used in the appropriation and organization of lesser cultures. The works of Carolus Linnaeus, Georges Buffon, and Georges Cuvier, organized races in terms of a civilized us and a paradigmatic other. The other was uncivilized, barbaric, and wholly lower than the advanced races of Europe. This paradigm of imaginatively constructing a world predicated upon race was grounded in science, and expressed as philosophical axioms by John Locke and David Hume, offered compelling justification that Europe always ought to rule non-Europeans. This doctrine of cultural superiority had a direct bearing on Zionist practice and vision in Palestine. A civilized man, it was believed, could cultivate the land because it meant something to him; on it, accordingly, he produced useful arts and crafts, he created, he accomplished, he built. For uncivilized people, land was either farmed badly or it was left to rot. This was imperialism as theory and colonialism was the practice of changing the uselessly unoccupied territories of the world into useful new versions of Europe. It was this epistemic framework that shaped and informed Zionist attitudes towards the Arab Palestinian natives. This is the intellectual background that Zionism emerged from. Zionism saw Palestine through the same prism as the European did, as an empty territory paradoxically filled with ignoble or, better yet, dispensable natives. It allied itself, as Chaim Weizmann said, with the imperial powers in carrying out its plans for establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The so-called natives did not take well to the idea of Jewish colonizers in Palestine. As the Zionist historians, Yehoshua Porath and Neville Mandel, have empirically shown, the ideas of Jewish colonizers in Palestine, this was well before World War I, were always met with resistance, not because the natives thought Jews were evil, but because most natives do not take kindly to having their territory settled by foreigners. Zionism not only accepted the unflattering and generic concepts of European culture, it also banked on the fact that Palestine was actually populated not by an advanced civilization, but by a backward people, over which it ought to be dominated. Zionism, therefore, developed with a unique consciousness of itself, but with little or nothing left over for the unfortunate natives. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if Palestine had been occupied by one of the well-established industrialized nations that ruled the world, then the problem of displacing German, French, or English inhabitants and introducing a new, nationally coherent element into the middle of their homeland would have been in the forefront of the consciousness of even the most ignorant and destitute Zionists. In short, all the constitutive energies of Zionism were premised on the excluded presence, that is, the functional absence of native people in Palestine; institutions were built deliberately shutting out the natives, laws were drafted when Israel came into being that made sure the natives would remain in their non-place, Jews in theirs, and so on. It is no wonder that today the one issue that electrifies Israel as a society is the problem of the Palestinians, whose negation is the consistent thread running through Zionism. And it is this perhaps unfortunate aspect of Zionism that ties it ineluctably to imperialism- at least so far as the Palestinian is concerned. In conclusion, I cannot affirm that Zionism is colonialism, but I can tell you the process by which Zionism flourished; the dialectic under which it became a reality was heavily influenced by the imperialist mindset of Europe. Thank you. -Fictional debate between Edward Said and Abba Eban.

The history revealed by even a cursory examination of the press, memoirs, and similar sources generated by Palestinians flies in the face of the popular mythology of the conflict, which is premised on their nonexistence or lack of a collective consciousness. In fact, Palestinian identity and nationalism are all too often seen to be no more than recent expressions of an unreasoning (if not fanatical) opposition to Jewish national self-determination. But Palestinian identity, much like Zionism, emerged in response to many stimuli, and at almost exactly the same time as did modern political Zionism. The threat of Zionism was only one of these stimuli, just as anti-Semitism was only one of the factors fueling Zionism. As newspapers like Filastin and al-Karmil reveal, this identity included love of country, a desire to improve society, religious attachment to Palestine, and opposition to European control. After the war, the focus on Palestine as a central locus of identity drew strength from widespread frustration at the blocking of Arab aspirations in Syria and elsewhere as the Middle East became suffocatingly dominated by the European colonial powers. This identity is thus comparable to the other Arab nation-state identities that emerged around the same time in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

My identity as Jewish cannot be reduced to a religious affiliation. Professor Said quoted Gramsci, an author that I’m familiar with, that, and I quote, ‘to know thyself is to understand that we are a product of the historical process to date which has deposited an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory’. Let’s apply this pithy observation to Jewish identity. While it is tempting to equate Judaism with Jewishness, I submit to you that my identity as someone who is Jewish is far more complex than my religious affiliation. The collective inventory of the Jewish people rests on my shoulders. This inventory shapes and defines my understanding of what it means to be Jewish. The narrative of my people is a story of extraordinary achievement as well as unimaginable horror. For millennia, the Jewish people have left their fate in the hands of others. Our history is filled with extraordinary achievements as well as unimaginable violence. Our centuries-long Diaspora defined our existential identity in ways that cannot be reduced to simple labels. It was the portability of our religion that bound us together as a people, but it was our struggle to fit in; to be accepted that identified us as unique. Despite the fact that we excelled academically, professionally, industrially, we were never looked upon as anything other than Jewish. Professor Said in his book, Orientalism, examined how Europe looked upon the Orient as a dehumanized sea of amorphous otherness. If we accept this point of view, then my question is: How do you explain Western attitudes towards the Jews? We have always been a convenient object of hatred and violent retribution whenever it became convenient. If Europe reduced the Orient to an essentialist other, to borrow Professor Said’s eloquent language, then how do we explain the dehumanizing treatment of Jews who lived in the heart of Europe? We did not live in a distant, exotic land where the West had discursive power over us. We thought of ourselves as assimilated. We studied Western philosophy, literature, music, and internalized the same culture as our dominant Christian brethren. Despite our contribution to every conceivable field of human endeavor, we were never fully accepted as equals. On the contrary, we were always the first to be blamed for the ills of Western Europe. Two hundred thousand Jews were forcibly removed from Spain in 1492 and thousands more were forcibly converted to Christianity in Portugal four years later. By the time we get to the Holocaust, our worst fears were realized. Jewish history and consciousness will be dominated by the traumatic memories of this unspeakable event. No people in history have undergone an experience of such violence and depth. Israel’s obsession with physical security; the sharp Jewish reaction to movements of discrimination and prejudice; an intoxicated awareness of life, not as something to be taken for granted but as a treasure to be fostered and nourished with eager vitality, a residual distrust of what lies beyond the Jewish wall, a mystical belief in the undying forces of Jewish history, which ensure survival when all appears lost; all these, together with the intimacy of more personal pains and agonies, are the legacy which the Holocaust transmits to the generation of Jews who have grown up under its shadow. -Fictional debate between Edward Said and Abba Eban.

Many of my friends around the world express surprise at the Palestinian attachment to place of origin and concerns for family ties. Some even scoff at it and contrast it with their own open-armed acceptance of adventure, discovery, a nomadic lifestyle and residence in places that they choose and change according to their fancy, without the slightest regret at leaving family or even homeland behind. They remind me that the world is wider and more beautiful than 'our villages' and 'our families'. I understand this beautiful sense of the vastness of the world. Like them, I love movement, journeys, and living in new places. What these friends forget is that it is they who choose to distance themselves. They are the ones who take the decision and make the plans and then present their passports (recognized everywhere) and get on planes and trains and cars and motorcycles and go to places where three conditions that the Palestinian cannot meet are fulfilled: first, that it is their preference and choice to go to specifically these places; second, that these places always welcome them; and third and most important, that it is in their power to return to their home country whenever they desire and decide. The Palestinian forced to become a refugee, to migrate, and to go into exile from his homeland in the sixty years since the Nakba of 1948, or the forty since the June 1967 War, suffers miseries trying to obtain a document by which he will be recognized at borders. He suffers miseries trying to obtain a passport from another state because he is stateless and has to go through Kafkaesque interrogations before being granted entry visa to any place in the world, even the Arab states. The Palestinian is forbidden to enter his own country by land, sea, or air, even in a coffin. It is not a matter of romantic attachment to a place but of eternal exclusion from it. The Palestinian stripped of an original identity is a palm tree broken in the middle. My foreign friends have control over the details of their lives but a single Israeli solder can control the details of the life of any Palestinian. This is the difference. This is the story.

Loyalty to the Jewish people is, for Judaism, a religious act. That’s why religious Zionists never hesitated to partner with secular Zionists, who love and protect their people. For religious Jews, strengthening the Jewish people contributes to its ability to function as a Divine messenger in the world.

Richard Halverson, former chaplain to the U.S. Senate 1981–1984, was known for his humorous take on how Christianity has lost focus on “the main thing.” Halverson’s brief history recounted that Christianity began on Palestinian soil as a relationship with a person. When it moved to Greece, it became a philosophy. When it moved to Rome, it became an institution; when it moved to Britain (or Europe), it became a culture; and when it arrived in America, it became an enterprise.

How Good Deeds Conquered an Empire Humanly speaking, no one would have thought it possible to bring the nations to the worship of God through simple good deeds. How on earth could “good deeds” change a realm as mighty as the Roman Empire, let alone the whole world? As unlikely as it may have sounded at the time, Jesus’ call to be the light of the world was taken seriously by his disciples. They devoted themselves to quite heroic acts of godliness. They loved their enemies, prayed for their persecutors and cared for the poor wherever they found them. We know that the Jerusalem church set up a large daily food roster for the destitute among them—no fewer than seven Christian leaders were assigned to the management of the program (Acts 6:1—7). The apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest missionary/evangelist ever, was utterly devoted to these kinds of good deeds. In response to a famine that ravaged Palestine between AD 46—48 Paul conducted his own decade-long international aid program earmarked for poverty-stricken Palestinians. Wherever he went, he asked the Gentile churches to contribute whatever they could to the poor in Jerusalem.23 Christian “good deeds” continued long after the New Testament era. We know, for instance, that by AD 250 the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1,500 destitute people every day.24 All around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages. These were available to believers and unbelievers alike. This was an innovation. Historians often point to ancient Israel as the first society to introduce a comprehensive welfare system that cared for the poor and marginalised within the community. Christians

I also testify that charity is essential for our spiritual well-being. It is essential not only because it is a commandment from God to love others but also because letting go of anger and hate is liberating… [My friend asked] How can you deal with this injustice and not get angry?” I told her that if I let myself get angry each time something like this happened, I would be angry all my life. As I have learned to love my enemies, I have also realized that at some point in your life, you have to learn to let go. Being angry and hateful toward others only hurts you. My faith and feelings of peace intensified by learning to love and forgive as exemplified by our Savior Jesus Christ.

My contentment and joy in life are not dependent on chains, walls, fences, or checkpoints. As long as I know that I have a Father in Heaven that loves me and cares about me, all is well. In His sight, I am precious. There is no reason to care about what others think of me. As long as I know that I am walking in His paths and obeying His commandments, I know that my Heavenly Father will be there to lift me and help me. This knowledge that I have gained about my true identity has been life changing to me. However, this knowledge came later in my life. Before I came to understand this, before discovering my true identity, I was engulfed in misery.

The contemptuous person is likely to experience feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, and shame. In a March 2019 New York Times opinion piece entitled Our Culture of Contempt, Arthur C. Brooks writes: “political scientists have found that our nation is more polarized than it has been at any time since the civil war. One in six Americans has stopped talking to a family member or close friend because of the 2016 election. Millions of people organized their social lives and their news exposure along with ideological lines to avoid people with opposing viewpoints.” What's our problem? A 2014 article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on motive attribution asymmetry, the assumption that your ideology is based in love while your opponent’s is based in hate suggests an answer. The researchers found that the average republican and the average democrat today suffer from a level of motive attribution asymmetry that is comparable with that of Palestinians and Israelis. Each side thinks it's driven by a benevolence while the other side is evil and motivated by hatred, and is therefore an enemy with whom one cannot negotiate or compromise. People often say that our problem in America today is incivility or intolerance. This is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse – contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust, and not just contempt for other people's ideas but also for other people. In the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.” Brooks goes on to say contempt makes political compromise and progress impossible. It also makes us unhappy as people. According to the American Psychological Association, “the feelings of rejection so often experienced after being treated with contempt increases anxiety, depression, and sadness. It also damages the contemptuous person by stimulating two stress hormones -- cortisol and adrenaline -- in ways both public and personal. Contempt causes us deep harm.

Like the Quran says, martyrs are not dead. They’re alive with God. Mustafa will always be alive because he lives on in all of our hearts and in the hearts of everyone here who loves him.

The only Hitler of Germany was one who adopted the way of atrocities and cruelties for a limited period; he was evil-minded, whereas every leader of Israel was and is characteristically similar to Hitler for several decades of victimising; despite that, they are not evil characters. The Western states eliminated Hitler, but those countries supported and perpetuated the leaders of Israel, and still, they remain on such distinctive policies; it is the worst hypocrisy in human history. Virtually, it will be a self-suicidal move of the Muslim world, especially the Arab States, as religiously, politically, morally, and principally, to recognize Israel, ignoring the Palestinians, in the presence of the United Nations resolutions. Indeed, Israel exists; however, it is an unreal reality as the concept and context of the real validity of Palestinians. Factually, recognition of Israel by the Muslim States and Arab dictators means a license of hegemony, allowing Israel to dominate the Muslim world. The Muslims of the world absolutely will never agree with it and dismiss such a move of Arab dictators. The tiny democracy of the world, Israel seems as an authority upon the United Nations since it does what it wants. Israel is not afraid nor frightened; its state is just the warmonger and the hate-sponsor within humanity. Israel is the creation of the West, supported by the West, and licensed to kill by the West; the Muslim rulers expect a fruitful solution from them; I realize it is an endless stupidity. Spirit of Palestine *** If you do not understand The international law that You constituted yourself If you do not obey and respect Your laws and resolutions We have the right to defend our land By our way, by all means, Whether you call it terrorism Or something else For us, It is the fight for freedom You cannot accept the truth We cannot accept the lies Truth always prevails We will never surrender Nor yield to the evil And genocide forces We are the spirit of Palestine Long live Palestine, Long live Palestine At every cost. Palestine Never Disappears *** They stole Palestine Our land and then our homes They threw us out At gunpoint For our determination And rights We throw the stones They trigger bullets The champions of human rights Watch that, Clapping and cheering As like it is a football match And the football referee is Israel However, Palestine will never disappear Never; never; never We will fight without fear Until we recover and have that Palestine is Crying *** Under the flames of the guns Palestine is crying The Arab world is cowardly silent, West and the rest of the world, Deliberately ignoring justice Even also they are criminally denying Whereas Palestinians are dying If there are no weapons: There will be neither terrible wars Nor criminal deaths, nor tensions Manufacture oxygen of life expectations It is a beautiful destination For all destinations I wish I could fragrance peace and love In the minds and hearts of two Generations of two real brothers. Day Of Mourning, Not Mother’s Day *** A lot of Mothers of Palestine are crying And burying their children, who became The victim of Israel’s cruelty Those mothers have no children To celebrate their Mother’s Day It is a Day of Mourning for those mothers Not Mother’s Day Oh, Palestine, cry, cry, not on Israel But on Muslims who are dead sleeping. Ahed Tamimi Of Palestine The Voice Of Freedom *** You can trigger bullets Upon those, Who stay determined You can shoot Or place under house arrest Hundreds of thousands As such Ahed Tamimi However, You cannot stop The voices, for the freedom And Self-determination You will hear In every second, minute Every hour, every day Until you understand And realize, Voices of the human rights

The question is: How large does Israel need to be in order to be a viable state? All other questions are not matters of life and death. It is not a prerequisite that Arabs and Muslims love Israel for it to prosper. As for Palestinian Arabs, they can live happy full lives in a Jewish state if they accept that they live in a Jewish state. They can resettle and live happy full lives in any one of a number of states with Arab and Muslim majorities. They can also live happy full lives in a new state that can be created for them from within the other Arab states. The Jews of Israel, on the other hand, have nowhere else to go: It is the only state in which Jews are the majority, and so, Israel must be viable.

...I have a strong gut feeling that God won’t be giving us peace any time soon; we’re going to have to make an effort to achieve it on our own. And if we succeed, neither we nor the Palestinians will receive it free of charge. Peace, by definition, is compromise between sides, and in that kind of compromise, each side has to pay a genuine, heavy price, not just in territories or money but also in a true change of worldview. That’s why the first step might be to stop using the debilitating word “peace,” which has long since taken on transcendental and messianic meanings in both the political left and right wings, and replace it immediately with the word “compromise.” It might be a less rousing word, but at least it reminds us that the solution we are so eager for can’t be found in our prayers to God but in our insistence on a grueling, not always perfect dialogue with the other side. True, it’s more difficult to write songs about compromise, especially the kind my son and other kids can sing in their angelic voices. And it doesn’t have the same cool look on T-shirts. But in contrast to the lovely word that demands nothing of the person saying it, the word “compromise” insists on the same preconditions from all those who use it: They must first agree to concessions, maybe even more — they must be willing to accept the assumption that beyond the just and absolute truth they believe in, another truth may exist. And in the racist and violent part of the world I live in, that’s nothing to scoff at.

In this sense, it is not much different from early American settlement activity, which came to see itself existing only in opposition to the native population, first undertaking policies to wipe them all out, then creating a society in which they were essentially non-persons, or even worse, a "nuisance." In fact, on the 2010 Census form, the term "Native American" is not even used. It instead uses "American Indian," a term that is inaccurate, and most importantly, does not connote that these people in fact had a preexisting tie to the land we all live on today. This kind of talk might disturb and confuse most Americans, and, frankly, ruin the myths we have been taught. In fact, I would love to go to the next major Republican gathering and ask all the Native Americans to identify themselves. I think Sarah Palin might raise her hand.

When my turn came to speak, I said that the man I follow, a Palestinian Jew from the first century, had also been involved in a culture war. He went up against a rigid religious establishment and a pagan empire. The two powers, often at odds, conspired together to eliminate him. His response? Not to fight, but to give his life for these his enemies, and to point to that gift as proof of his love. Among the last words he spoke before death were these: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” After the panel, a television celebrity came up to me whose name every reader would recognize. “I’ve got to tell you, what you said stabbed me right in the heart,” he said. “I was prepared to dislike you because I dislike all right-wing Christians and I assumed you were one. You can’t imagine the mail I get from right-wingers. I don’t follow Jesus—I’m a Jew. But when you told about Jesus forgiving his enemies, I realized how far from that spirit I am. I fight my enemies, especially the right-wingers. I don’t forgive them. I have much to learn from the spirit of Jesus.

It doesn’t take a genius to know why the world “loves” only certain Palestinians. I don’t want to think about it.

Ultimately, though, neither refocusing on the Holocaust nor reenergizing Tikkun Olam could dilute the lure of the melting pot. Assimilation, according to surveys, soared, with as many as 70 percent of all non-Orthodox Jews marrying outside the faith. The younger the Jews, statistics showed, the shallower their religious roots. The supreme question asked by post–World War II Jewish writers such as Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, “How can I reconcile being Jewish and American?” was no longer even intelligible to young American Jews. None would feel the need to begin a book, as Saul Bellow did in The Adventures of Augie March, with “I am an American, Chicago born.” Bred on that literature, I saw no contradiction between love for America and loyalty to my people and its nation-state. But that was not the case of the Jewish twenty-somethings, members of a liberal congregation I visited in Washington, who declined to discuss issues, such as intermarriage and peoplehood, that they considered borderline racist. Israel was virtually taboo. For Israel had also changed. From the spunky, intrepid frontier state that once exhilarated American Jews, Israel was increasingly portrayed by the press as a warlike and intolerant state. That discomfiting image, however skewed, could not camouflage the fact that Israel ruled over more than two million Palestinians and settled what virtually the entire world regarded as their land. The country that was supposed to normalize Jews and instill them with pride was making many American Jews feel more isolated and embarrassed. I shared their discomfort and even their pain. Yet I also wrestled with the inability of those same American Jews to understand Israel’s existential quandary, that creating a Palestinian state that refused to make genuine peace with us and was likely to devolve into a terrorist chaos was at least as dangerous as not creating one. I was frustrated by their lack of anguish in demanding Israel’s withdrawal from land sacred to their forebears for nearly four millennia. “Disagree with the settlers,” I wanted to tell them, “denounce them if you must, but do not disown them, for they—like you—are part of our people.

In these acts of love Jesus created a scandal for devout, religious Palestinian Jews. The absolutely unpardonable thing was not his concern for the sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed . . . nor even his partisanship for the poor, humble people. The real trouble was that he got involved with moral failures, with obviously irreligious and immoral people: people morally and politically suspect, so many dubious, obscure, abandoned, hopeless types existing as an eradicable evil on the fringe of every society. This was the real scandal. Did he really have to go so far? . . . What kind of naive and dangerous love is this, which does not know its limits: the frontiers between fellow countrymen and foreigners, party members and non-members, between neighbors and distant people, between honorable and dishonorable callings, between moral and immoral, good and bad people? As if dissociation were not absolutely necessary here. As if we ought not to judge in these cases. As if we could always forgive in these circumstances.[4] Because the shining sun and the falling rain are given both to those who love God and to those who reject God, the compassion of the Son embraces those who are still living in sin. The pharisee lurking within all of us shuns sinners. Jesus turns toward them with gracious kindness. He sustains His attention throughout their lives for the sake of their conversion, “which is always possible to the very last moment.”[5]

I ask her the most important question anybody has ever asked here or ever will: Did you ever fall in love with an Israeli man? “No. I couldn’t.” Why not? “I am a Palestinian. It is the same as a Jew falling in love with a German Nazi officer.

I ask her the most important question anybody has ever asked here or ever will: Did you ever fall in love with an Israeli man? “No. I couldn’t.” Why not? “I am a Palestinian. It is the same as a Jew falling in love with a German Nazi officer.” Would you like for Palestinians and Israelis to solve their conflict by dividing the land into two states, Palestine and Israel? “No. Zionism is racism. As simple as stealing my country, my land, and daring to find excuses for it, trying their best to erase me. Israel has stolen my mother’s dress; they call this dress ‘Israeli.’ They have stolen my food; they call my food ‘Israeli.

When President Bush correctly and courageously declared a war on terrorism, he drew a line in the sand that ultimately pitted America against Islam. His administration worked long and hard to differentiate between peaceful Muslims and hostile Muslims. He even talked about how Muslim extremist terrorists had hijacked the religion. I believe he is absolutely right. Sure, the Koran glorifies persecution of Jews and Christians. But most Muslims don't have any intention of fulfilling that call or of becoming terrorists. Most are no different from Americans who want to raise their children in peace, feed them well, and provide them with a good education. The majority of Muslims are truly peace-loving. Yet the leadership of the typical mosque continuously calls Allah's followers to join the battle and get in step with jihad so Islam can eventually take over the world. The messages are nonstop. To radical Muslims, our war on terrorism is only a convenient excuse for America to keep Islam from spreading around the globe. It also is perceived as an excuse for us to unconditionally support Israel and its fight against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

January 25 A Wee Little Man Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.—Luke 19:1-4 Zacchaeus was a short man, but his encounter with Jesus Christ was powerful. The applications for us can be the same regardless of our stature or position in life. Jesus was traveling about, teaching and healing. He entered Jericho, a city important in terms of location and economic position. Trading activities had led to its becoming one of the Palestinian tax centers. And where there are taxes, there are tax collectors. Zacchaeus was not only a tax collector but the Chief tax Collector, and he was wealthy. Interesting! Were all tax collectors wealthy? If we assume his wealth came from his occupation, is it fair to also assume he was neither well-liked nor trusted? So why did this short, chief tax collector want to see Jesus? Was he just going along with the crowd? Was this the in place to be? It surely was more than curiosity because Zacchaeus was energetic and creative in his efforts—he climbed a tree. Was he reaching for the love of God? How much do we want to see Jesus? Do we just go along with others? Are we wishing for a word from him, a touch, and assurance that he loves us? Do you pray that God will touch you with his love? Would you climb a tree for Jesus? Dear God, help us to see that You are always there. Give us the desire and the willingness to do whatever it takes, even to climb a tree.

It used to be a universally accepted axiom that the Palestinian Israeli conflict is an intractable and immovable impasse of epic proportion. Its Sisyphean nature cemented its reputation as an insoluble focal point of hatred and endless violence. Such universal truths, of course, derive their power and resonance from within the constraints of geography, ideology, and the construction of the imagination that is always trapped under the feeble nature of temporal movement. One can certainly say that Jewish history is filled with the grotesquery of blind hatred; that Jews were singularly reduced to an alienated other. Their disjointed and fractured identity was preserved only by the portability of a religion that would help them survive the darkest hours.

Palestinians and Israelis were connected by a fatalistic dialectic, whose movement was punctuated by violence and directed towards an apocalyptic conclusion. One might argue that this dialectic enveloped a land, mythical and actual, spiritual yet earth-bound, ancient yet very much poised towards unfolding actualities.

Peace is not determined by the signage of treaties or the wishes of leaders. Peace is not a discrete event; rather it is a renewable proposition, filled with affirmations designed to mitigate against the collective distrust of two people who knew little beyond hatred, suspicion, blame and counter blame, intellectual gamesmanship, fear, paranoia, historical necessity, retribution, and a host of other deeply engrained emotional projections that are constantly lurking beneath the surface.

Attribution bias explains, at least in part, how long-held divisions in politics continue to propagate. It states that rival groups, whether Democrats and Republicans, or Israelis and Palestinians, or so on and so forth, attribute the actions of their adversaries to hate while justifying their own as coming from a place of love.

Where is Abu Fadi,” she wailed. “Who will bring me my loved one?” —The New York Times, 9/20/1982 I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the red dirt not quite covering all of the arms and legs Nor do I wish to speak about the nightlong screams that reached the observation posts where soldiers lounged about Nor do I wish to speak about the woman who shoved her baby into the stranger’s hands before she was led away Nor do I wish to speak about the father whose sons were shot through the head while they slit his own throat before the eyes of his wife Nor do I wish to speak about the army that lit continuous flares into the darkness so that the others could see the backs of their victims lined against the wall Nor do I wish to speak about the piled up bodies and the stench that will not float Nor do I wish to speak about the nurse again and again raped before they murdered her on the hospital floor Nor do I wish to speak about the rattling bullets that did not halt on that keening trajectory Nor do I wish to speak about the pounding on the doors and the breaking of windows and the hauling of families into the world of the dead I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the red dirt not quite covering all of the arms and legs because I do not wish to speak about unspeakable events that must follow from those who dare “to purify” a people those who dare “to exterminate” a people those who dare to describe human beings as “beasts with two legs” those who dare “to mop up” “to tighten the noose” “to step up the military pressure” “to ring around” civilian streets with tanks those who dare to close the universities to abolish the press to kill the elected representatives of the people who refuse to be purified those are the ones from whom we must redeem the words of our beginning because I need to speak about home I need to speak about living room where the land is not bullied and beaten to a tombstone I need to speak about living room where the talk will take place in my language I need to speak about living room where my children will grow without horror I need to speak about living room where the men of my family between the ages of six and sixty-five are not marched into a roundup that leads to the grave I need to talk about living room where I can sit without grief without wailing aloud for my loved ones where I must not ask where is Abu Fadi because he will be there beside me I need to talk about living room because I need to talk about home I was born a Black woman and now I am become a Palestinian against the relentless laughter of evil there is less and less living room and where are my loved ones? It is time to make our way home.

Some years ago I was in a Palestinian refugee camp called al-Wahdat, in Jordan, where people live worse than the average cockroach. No foreign government was helping them in any way, no NGOs around, and the Jordanian government was doing its best to make the life of these people a bit less intolerable. It doesn’t take a genius to know why the world “loves” only certain Palestinians. I don’t want to think about it.

Note: Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump becomes president of the USA, there will be changes; nothing nor the world will be able to enjoy peace and human rights. However, one change will be definite if Kamala takes the black presidential oath in the White House atmosphere. A man of accusations, Trump should enjoy the retirement of life with beauties. An open letter, which Ehsan Sehgal wrote to him, is republished in Medium to realize his political character and role.  Dear President of the USA, Donald Trump  Your Excellency,  Equality, justice, harmony, and love, within the concept and context of security and respect, are for the entire humanity, not only for the USA and its people. Global peace lies in a step that pulls out your troops from the Muslim States and stops interfering with its systems and way of life; all terrorists will disappear, and peace shall prevail.  One should realize the atrocities of Israel against Palestinians’ determination and India against Kashmiris that the United Nations and its Security Council failed to resolve and solve those disputes under the umbrella of the USA. Consequently, each one of us faces the consequences.  You, as a leader of a great nation, ought to be great and noble. It is possible if you change your distinctive thoughts and policies, you may change human history, becoming the historical leader of the entire humanity that suffers from injustice, hunger, and death.  As far as I know, the Pakistan Armed Forces have devotedly and significantly sacrificed along with the Armed Forces of the USA for global peace, so never degrade your national pride by ignoring, denying, and forgetting the sacrifice of Pakistani men and women, which they are still paying. You should cooperate instead of becoming influenced by the opposing third party to accuse Pakistan. They are a peaceful nation and are determined to stand along with the US forces to eliminate all sorts of terrorists for world peace. God bless you.  Ehsan Sehgal

My cooking is influenced by the culinary depth of my own British Indian heritage, the cuisine of my husband’s Anglo-Persian heritage, and by the rich array of foods I’ve enjoyed through my love of travel. Everything is freshly made in my restaurant. And it’s all about comfort food - my own family favourites based on Persian, Indian, Israeli and Palestinian cuisine.

The pulse of history beats in every family. All of our lives are engraved with epics of love and death. What my family gained and lost in the twentieth century, though extreme, was not unique. War has touched all of us. Fate and chance and character make and break every generation. The Shoah was not the only genocide. America is not the first land of opportunity nor will it be the last. Warring peoples have fought over the Holy Land for thousands of years, all of them claiming to have God on their side. In a family history written by Palestinian Arabs, Chaim and Sonia and their fellow Zionists would be oppressors; the Koran, not the Torah, would be the holy book; Jerusalem would be a besieged, stolen city. Open the book of your family and you will be amazed, as I was, at what you find.

Dear Mr. President of the USA, Donald Trump Your Excellency, Equality, justice, harmony, and love, within the concept and context of security, and respect, are for the entire humanity, not only for the USA and its people. Global peace lies in a step that; pull out your troops from the Muslim States and stop interfering with its systems and way of life; all terrorists will disappear, and peace shall prevail. One should realize the atrocities of the Isreal, against Palestinians’ determination and India, against Kashmiris that the United Nations and its Security Council fail to resolve and solve those disputes under the umbrella of the USA. Consequently, each one of us faces the consequences. You, as a leader of the great nation, ought to be great and noble; it is possible if you change your distinctive thoughts and policies; you may change human history, becoming the historical leader of the entire humanity that suffers from injustice and hunger and death. As I know that Pakistan Armed forces have devotedly and significantly sacrificed along with the Armed Forces of the USA for global peace, so never degrade your national pride, ignoring, denying, and forgetting that the sacrifice of our men and women, which we are still paying. You should cooperate, instead of becoming influenced by the opposing third party, to accuse Pakistan. We are a peaceful nation and determined to stand along with the USA forces, to eliminate all sorts of terrorists, for world peace. God bless you. - Ehsan Sehgal

Carlo Ginzburg proposed the notion that shame for one’s country, not love of it, may be the true mark of belonging to it.154 A supreme example of such shame occurred back in 2014 when hundreds of Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors bought an ad in the New York Times condemning what they referred to as “the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.”155 The statement read: “We are alarmed by the extreme, racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, which has reached a fever-pitch.” Hopefully today, more Israelis will gather the courage to feel shame apropos the politics enacted by leaders such as Netanyahu and Trump on their behalf—not, of course, shame for being Jewish but, on the contrary, shame for what Israel’s policies in the West Bank are doing to the most precious legacy of Judaism itself.

Sometimes I have gotten a little help from a first-century Palestinian rabbi who expanded the famous Shema prayer to include a second biblical instruction. When asked by a biblical scholar to name the most important command of Scripture, Jesus, like any good Jew, responded with an embellishment of the Shema, the colloquial title for the prayer, which is taken from its first word, the Hebrew word for "heart": "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." Then he added that a second command is "like it": "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The Palestine laboratory can only thrive if enough nations believe in its underlying premise. It’s unsurprising that repressive regimes want to mimic Israeli repression, using Israeli technology to oppress their own unwanted or restive populations, but the Jewish state craves Western approval to fully realize its diplomatic and military potential. Aside from the US, Germany is arguably the greatest prize of all. Israel helped Germany rehabilitate its shattered image after World War II, while Berlin grants legitimacy to a country that brutally occupies the Palestinians (a nonpeople in the eyes of successive German governments). Germany purchasing increasing amounts of Israeli defense equipment is just one way it can atone for its historical guilt. When Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas visited Germany in August 2022 and spoke alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he accused Israel of committing “fifty Holocausts” against his people. The German establishment expressed outrage over the comment but the hypocrisy was clear; the Palestinians are under endless occupation but it’s only they who have to apologize. Germany has taken its love affair with Israel to dangerous, even absurd heights. The Deutsche Welle media organization updated its code of conduct in 2022 and insisted that all employees, when speaking on behalf of the organization or even in a personal capacity, must “support the right of Israel to exist” or face punishment, likely dismissal.40 After the Israeli military shot dead Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank city of Jenin in May 2022, German police banned a peaceful public vigil in Berlin because of what German authorities called an “immediate risk” of violence and anti-Semitic messaging. When protestors ignored this request and took to the streets to both commemorate Abu Akleh and Nakba Day, police arrested 170 people for expressing solidarity with Palestine. A Palestinian in Germany, Majed Abusalama, tweeted that he had been assaulted by the police. “I just left the hospital an hour ago with an arm sling to hold my shoulder after the German racist police almost dislocated my shoulder with their violent actions to us wearing Palestine Kuffiyas,” he wrote. “This is the new wave of anti-Palestinian everything in Berlin. Insane, right?” This followed years of anti-Palestinian incitement by the German political elite, from the German Parliament designating the BDS movement as anti-Semitic in 2019 to pressuring German institutions to refuse any space for pro-Palestinian voices, Jewish or Palestinian.41 The Palestinian intellectual Tariq Baconi gave a powerful speech in Berlin in May 2022 at a conference titled “Hijacking Memory: The Holocaust and the New Right.” He noted that “states like Germany have once again accepted Palestinians as collateral. Their oppression and colonization is a fair price to pay to allow Germany to atone for its past crimes.

Dear Lord, Please, forgive their visions, and let them hear the vulture's apology to its prey. Lay in their hearts a blue morning star, to show them the course of laughs in the wind of sea. Adorn their dreams with the meaning of life, so they know that You are the Creator of beauty, too. Sprinkle their roads with diamonds of Your words, so they break the walls in their souls, and fly to You washed like air in the rain. Dear Lord, At the beat of sins, in a valley only eminent from rapture by an illusion, I stand, empty of all hate, flooding with love. The honey of Your grace drips over me, and creatures smile. Like Your power taught me, I forgive sinners in routs of ignorance and roads of knowledge. I look under my feet lest I block the way of ants. I look up at Your sky to thank You for a star that embraced my heart with illumination. I kneel before You, for You taught me how to fill the chalice of love, and pour it in the grieving river, turning its stream into a rhythm, and its water, into a mother's touch on the head of a lonely orphan. Dear Lord, I know Your wisdom in creating pain. They don't.

You may have opinions about everything, but that may not be what the other person needs. What the other person needs is your understanding, your love, and your insight—not as ideas but as a living reality.

Religion was formed to promote humanity.. Humans killed billions of people in the name of religion. Bigotry is pride. Hypocrisy is moral; human character is in its own deep abyss.

Nobody imagined what was really in store, but already in the 1920s almost everyone knew deep down that there was no future for the Jews either with Stalin or in Poland or anywhere in Eastern Europe, and so the pull of Palestine became stronger and stronger. Not with everyone, naturally. The religious Jews were very much against it, and so were the Bundists, the Yiddishists, the Communists, and the assimilated Jews who thought they were already more Polish than Paderewski or Wojciechowski. But many ordinary Jews in Rovno in the 1920s were keen that their children should learn Hebrew and go to Tarbuth. Those who had enough money sent their children to study in Haifa, at the Technion, or at the Tel Aviv gymnasium, or the agricultural colleges in Palestine, and the echoes that came back to us from the Land were simply wonderful—the young people were just waiting, when would your turn come? Meanwhile everyone read newspapers in Hebrew, argued, sang songs from the Land of Israel, recited Bialik and Tchernikhowsky, split up into rival factions and parties, ran up uniforms and banners, there was a kind of tremendous excitement about everything national. It was very similar to what you see here today with the Palestinians, only without their penchant for bloodshed. Among us Jews you hardly see such nationalism nowadays.

The biggest reason for innocent people's genocide is... The world is Hypocrite.. People are moral

Six months before Israel’s birth, the United Nations had decided by a two-thirds majority that the only just solution to the British departure from Palestine would be the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state side by side. The undeniable fact remains: The Jews accepted that compromise; the Arabs rejected it. With a vengeance. On the day the British pulled down their flag, Israel was invaded by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq—650,000 Jews against 40 million Arabs. Israel prevailed, another miracle. But at a very high cost—not just to the Palestinians displaced as a result of a war designed to extinguish Israel at birth, but also to the Israelis, whose war losses were staggering: 6,373 dead. One percent of the population. In American terms, it would take 35 Vietnam memorials to encompass such a monumental loss of life. You rarely hear about Israel’s terrible suffering in that 1948–49 war. You hear only the Palestinian side. Today, in the same vein, you hear that Israeli settlements and checkpoints and occupation are the continuing root causes of terrorism and instability in the region.

On the day the Arabs—and the Palestinians in particular—make a collective decision to accept the Jewish state, there will be peace, as Israel proved with its treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

At thirteen years old, I knew our whole story, but how do you take someone, especially a middle school kid, down a path of military occupation to explain why he's never heard of your country? How do you tell an eighth grader that the reason he never read about your homeland in the school's history books is because your people's land was stolen in a war in 1948, the year your father was born, the same year Israel declared independence and expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, barring them from returning?

Peace is not only the absence of war, but it is the absence of dire poverty and hunger. Peace is freedom from sickness and disease. It is employment and health. Peace is based on a deep sense of human equality and basic justice. Peace is when we have no fear to assemble, to worship, to work, to speak and publish the truth, even to the powerful. Peace is hope for our future and the future of all God's children and all God's world. Peace is salaam, well-being for all, equality and respect for human rights. Peace is when everybody feels at home and is accepted, without barriers based on age, class, sex, race, religion, or nationality. Peace is that fragile harmony that carries with it the experience of struggle, the endurance of suffering, and the strength of love. There is so much that is gathered into the word peace. Peace is costly and must not be misunderstood to mean a patchwork solution to the conflicts of the world. Peace is not submission, nor is it silent acceptance of what goes on around us. Peace is not only the peace of governments, their plans and initiatives, which we have been hearing about for so long.

Children in war zones play out the violence they see around them; they’re impulsive and cannot access critical thinking skills because they’re in the “fight or flight” mode, too busy fending off their fears and anxieties. These results made me wonder if my work at the RFS was futile. Perhaps what these children needed more than anything else was to receive psychotherapy treatments to help them recover from these traumas, and the end of the Occupation, two things I obviously had no control over. In my readings I came across only one hopeful aspect—the most important resiliency factor predicting psychological adjustment in traumatized children is a loving and present mother or father. I could tell how much the children at the Ramallah Friends School were loved by their parents. The children were held and kissed with obvious affection; they went on vacations with their parents; they were well fed, dressed nicely, and had toys. I was not surprised to read about the importance of a constant loving figure in a child’s life, since responsive mothering is at the core of attachment theory. When you know you can count on your mother or father’s presence and unconditional love, you grow up able to function in the world with a sense of confidence and security. Despite the Israeli Occupation, Palestinian children will grow up to become confident adults because their parents love them. I think of my own mother, of how much she had suffered and lost but how much she has infused me with her love, courage, self-reliance, and trust. I am who I am today because she was capable of transcending her own trauma to create a stable, loving, and responsive home for me. My father, too, gave me his unconditional love and modeled a poised and assured demeanor in the world.

As I stand here I understand why the Quakers advised me not to come here. They love the image they have created of themselves, that of a caring people. But do they care? They won’t lift a finger to help their poor, dying neighbors. But they deeply care, of course, about “Palestinians.” English has a word for this: it’s called hypocrisy.

You know what always inspires me? The spirit of Palestinians. How after every loss, you only find us stronger and trying even harder to live and love life.