Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Israeli Voices for Peace
Israel’s assault on Gaza, by air, sea and now land, has killed (at the time of this writing) more than 600 Palestinians, with more than 2,700 injured. Ten Israelis have been killed, three of them Israeli soldiers killed by friendly fire. Beyond the deaths and injuries, the people of Gaza are suffering a dire humanitarian crisis that is dismissed by the Israeli government. There is, however, Israeli opposition to the military assault.
Israeli professor Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel, the region most impacted by the Hamas rockets.
Speaking over the phone from Beersheba, Gordon said: “We just had a rocket about an hour ago not far from our house. My two children have been sleeping in a bomb shelter for the past week. And yet, I think what Israel is doing is outrageous. ... The problem is that most Israelis say Israel left the Gaza Strip three years ago and Hamas is still shooting rockets at us. They forget the details. The detail is that Israel maintains sovereignty. The detail is that the Palestinians live in a cage. The detail is that they don’t get basic foodstuff, that they don’t get electricity, that they don’t get water. And when you forget those kinds of details, all you say is, ‘Why are they still shooting at us?’ That’s what the media here has been pumping them with, then you think this war is rational. If you look at what’s been going on in the Gaza Strip in the past three years and you see what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians, you would think that the Palestinian resistance is rational. And that’s what’s missing in the mainstream media here.”
Gordon attended a large peace march last weekend in Tel Aviv with more than 10,000 other Israelis. Longtime Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery was there. He called the invasion “a criminal war, because, on top of everything else it is openly and shamelessly part of Ehud Barak’s and Tzipi Livni’s election campaign. I accuse Ehud Barak of exploiting the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers in order to get more Knesset seats. I accuse Tzipi Livni of advocating mutual slaughter in order to become prime minister.” Israel’s elections will be in February.
The assault strengthens right-wing Likud Party leader and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a foremost hawk and leading candidate for prime minister. While Netanyahu fully supports the attack on Gaza, his nephew, Jonathan Ben-Artzi, is an Israeli conscientious objector who was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year and a half. He spoke to me from Providence, R.I., where he is a student at Brown University.
“I’m speaking ... not as anyone’s nephew but ... as an Israeli, trying to speak out to Americans to tell them you don’t have to support Israel blindly. Not everything that Israel does is holy ... sometimes you have to speak firmly to Israel and tell us, tell our government, stop doing this.”
Gideon Levy is a Jewish journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He told me: “I think that Israel had this legitimacy to protect its citizens in the southern part of Israel ... but this doing something does not mean this brutal and violent operation. ... I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed. Immediately to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs—just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this.”
But it is. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in Gaza opened up schools to provide shelter, since Gazans, trapped in this narrow strip of land, have no place to flee. Christopher Gunness of UNRWA told me that the agency provided the coordinates of the schools to the Israeli military. Nevertheless, at least two schools have been hit by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours. Three people were killed at the Asma elementary school. More than 30 are reported dead and more than 55 injured at the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.
While Israeli planes drop pamphlets urging Palestinians to leave, the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, perhaps the most densely populated place on Earth, have no place to run, no place to hide. Calls for an immediate cease-fire are ignored by Israel and blocked by the U.S. government. It is not clear what the Obama administration will do—but the people of Gaza can’t wait until the inauguration. There must be a cease-fire now. And that’s just the beginning.Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column which appeared first on TruthDig.com.
- Posted in
39 Comments so far
Show AllSome other Israeli voices for peace:
Activists:
Neve Gordon:
http://www.zmag.org/zspace/nevegordon
Uri Avnery:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
Journalists:
Amira Hass:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053428.html
Gideon Levy:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051317.html
Refusenik Soldiers:
http://avners.blogspot.com
http://www.yeshgvul.org/index_e.asp
http://www.seruv.org.il/English
http://www.combatantsforpeace.org
actually:thanks. Many I didn't know. Helpful to have.
Don't just speak. Take action. I went out there and fought for employment and even saving my family from financial ruin despite losing both my legs and an arm in Vietnam although I admit it wasn't easy at first. March forward peaceful soldiers !
JWVerez:Hi. I left you a hello on the article "thread" about single-payer. I like your spirit (which people often say to me. I don't know what it means,chuckle). I have done art in protest, on the weekend, and a small piece of writing, made copies and are sending out as can. I am pleased you have mentioned your being disabled. I like reminding people that FDR was a wheelchair user. In order to exit home, I use a wheelchair. I am not Israeli. I am a NYC Jew. And,four decades ago, I was on the street in NYC (and Washington DC, and before that, New Orleans) protesting, peacefully, against the war in Vietnam.
Hi, thanks. Btw, Happy New Year again in case I missed anyone. I don't like being disabled and have overcome the feeling. The lesson I learned from the fallout was that yes, there is a second chance and that yes, we can make do. And I'll bet that once Global Peak Oil sets in, all those advanced technological military weaponry will be rendered useless unless they successfully exploit hempseed oil to keep it going or successfully make enough renewable petroleum from algae and let's hope neither of those happen. Israel needs a timeout and needs to be grounded for very bad behavior. The citizens will certainly benefit from no more warfare.
JWVerez:I like this comment. It is so totally different in kind of wording from another you posted on single-payer article "thread" of comments. Must have been your "twin". I refuse to use the word "evil" with "twin". Yeah, being disabled is rotten. I live with it, around it, inspite of it. Here's a really interesting website: www.notdeadyet.org It's about people who want to "help us out of the world" before we want to go, as severely disabled people. It is run,written by disabled people.
How many times do people say "Max Cleland" to you? I was shocked when I learned (via a disabled pal who was online before me, and until he died, got me articles)that Cleland had to pay to make his office in the US Senate wheelchair accessible out of his office funds (which only would apply in use to a wheelchair user. I complained to the capitol dept. of something or other, that it should be in line with the ADA,((I think they except themselves from the law!!))in re wheelchair access.)
Ok, I do apologize for letting another mood swing get the best of me. I forgot that Romney was the one who screwed things up there. I didn't see any hint of MA coming close to single payer. I am more into being Green on a lot of issues and especially when they relate to the environment plus I'm also a quasi-Libertarian where the Green and Libertarian can actually agree such as HEMP for Fuel, grass fed instead of corporate corn fed, etc ...
I can never forget Max Cleland. While I was disappointed in his support of Bush's tax cuts and voting yes on giving Bush carte blanche on Iraq, I was further disgusted by the way the GOP completely smeared Cleland and further outraged that the voters would fall for it. Then again, my state was facing a similar situation of voters still prefering a white guy John Cornyn over a Afro, Ron Kirk.
here are some more links
AIC is a Palestinian-Israeli organization http://www.alternativenews.org
a feminist peace organization of Israeli women http://www.batshalom.org
help Palestinian farmers harassed by Israeli settlers http://www.taayush.org
Israeli women Jewish and Palestinian oppose the occupation http://www.newprofile.org/english
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
White Rose:thanks. There are some that are new to me. I like your "gentler" comment side, which I see here.
Amy Goodman is a true hero and the most certain proof that what we are facing isn't a Jewish problem as vile anti Semites would claim but rather an Israelis government problem exacerbated by the insane religious beliefs of settlers calling for a "greater Israel."
>>While Israeli planes drop pamphlets urging Palestinians to leave, the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, perhaps the most densely populated place on Earth, have no place to run, no place to hide.
Goodness. When the Palestinians last packed up to leave lands because they were under attack and being threatened by Israeli terrorists, Israel claimed that they had abandoned their rights to the lands they had fled from.
Even IF Palestinians had somehwere else to go , Israel would simply claim that their having fled Gaza meant they surrendered their title to the lands.
This is a cleansing operation. It is a war crime.
good point..................
Yes, good point.
Great article, Amy! Thank you posters for the great links. Protests in the US include Jews and Arabs. Many of the best progressives and peacemakers are Jews. The problem in TelAviv and Washington is the governments, military-industrial complexes, and so on. Hopefully, prayerfully, on Jan. 20th in Washington, that will change.
Sioux Rose
Well, it's good to know there are voices of sanity working for peace on the inside of Israel. What strikes me about this article is the sense that militarism itself is the enemy of all people. Sure, it's sold to folks who have grievances with others, dressed up in films that romanticize the "hero," wrapped in lies about security, democracy, freedom and prosperity... but in the final analysis, any nation that chooses the military answer for its problems, will, as the saying go, die on its own sword.
The nature of the weapons at play is such as to make all sane people recognize that EVERY possible contrivance, act, incentive, attempt, initiative and what not be foremost used as a reason NOT to go to war, NOT to use these unspeakable devices that not only destroy and dismember persons in the present, but lead to legacies of vengeance that sometimes take generations to heal.
If the wounds of the "holy land" could be left to mend, if reasoned persons could come to the "bargaining table," then the rifts that are tearing our world asunder would have a chance to heal. Mankind cannot live much longer with its antiquated antipathies, and has little choice but to LEARN to get along. The price of contempt is our lives and this incredible planet...
"little choice but to LEARN to get along."...ugh. I know you've got glistening gold (Big Sur, your forest and personal posterity, etc.) to share instead of this tarnished tin. It's a struggle I'm currently wrestling with professionally/personally: do we coax somehow the Bird of Peace to fly from her nest sitting high upon Alter Peak of the Central Mountain, or do we climb up and capture her and sell peace feather by feather?...well, looking back at the question I pretty much know the answer, but "ugh", how to open the heart so much? Will the blood and tears really be too much? But what's the alternative, death by the drip, drip, drip of an enduring Cheney torture chamber?...fly, birdie birdie birdie...fly...
Sioux Rose
PUCK: Mankind's history, as recorded, is etched in MUCH blood shed. These final acts of the Piscean Age demonstrate what happens when belief systems collide, when resources are NOT properly funneled throughout societies, and when the worst among us through ego, aggression and manipulation seize the controls of governing bodies. The pain is real, of course, and perhaps it pays it short shrift to point out that every one of us reading this today has likely suffered at the hands of some oppressor. That is to say, we are spirits entering the temporal experience of bodies, and in our totality trying to move the entire human race, like some vast organic wave, forward. EVERY wave slips under itself, which is to say reflects what seems like regressive activity in order to acquire the momentum to move forward.
What is happening in the Middle East, in Congo, in Afghanistan, in India is tragic. Like some great bonfire of the vanities of aggression and malice, the light produced could cause mass catharsis, the realization that mankind has come too far in its technological development to still see war and fighting as a viable option. Ciizens are intimated because the governing bodies have such huge disposals of arsenals at their command, and the ruse of terrorism has granted these same governmetns the "right" to spy on their citizens. Note they target the most conscious: peace groups, environmentalists, socialists, etc.
The fabric of life itself has been upset by such atrocities as the blasting off of mountain tops in once pristine West VA, in the cultivation of yet more egregious weapon systems, in the engineering of fiscal systems that encourage wealth to aggregate upwards and leave so many starving. We see this too in the misuse of words to indicate what they hardly intend. Just about every program introduced by the anti-Chrst-like Bush suits this description.
Since I believe in a Divine Order, it seems clear to me that now, as the center most certainly cannot hold, the glue of love proving insubstantial to hold it together in the forms it has assumed, we are going to see varied forms of collpase that will encourage and challenge many of us to begin to design what is next. Another World Is Possible (and necessary!) style. Perhaps this explanation helps.
Yes, it helps tremendously. Thank you, especially for the imagery of the wave slipping under itself to gain momentum, this will help in understanding and functioning with retrogrades like Mercury's, and for the regressions that happen in human organic learning.
I also relish the reference to the targeting of consciousness. This is one of the details I was attempting to emphasis in working with this article and commentary. It may seem like a small inconsequential "thing", perhaps appearing within a cookie bake sale for peace presented by 4 or 5 people, or in the conversation here between JWVerez and NYCARTIST, but "that" consciousness is a small detail that, if focused on and revered and recognized for the potential it contains, can provide the space for an expanded peace and the pleasure of greater human recognition and pleasure.
It is of course good to recognize that there are many Jews, Israeli and American, who work to end this on-going war crime known as the Israeli Occupation.
Unfortunately, here's how much they've accomplished:
This is not the first time Israel has dropped leaflets warning the civilian population below that they were about to bomb them. This slight of hand covers the barbarity which will follow for their apologists, who will tell us this act demonstrates how humane the Israelis are. In opposition, of course, to the people they will bomb.
The poster child of Worldwide Jews ,Israel has committed war crimes which have been supported and paid for by "we the people" of the USA.
Amy Goodman is a Jewish voice for reason and has gone as far as "allowed" in MSM & hopefully Jews will believe what she says and supporters of peace and justice for the suffering Palestinians are grateful for any "crumbs from the table".
Nowhere do we hear about the last few years in Gaza where Israel has maintained its siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease .
Some Palestinians in Gaza have been reduced to eating grass to survive !!!
Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/09/for_american_readers_the_great/
I was challenged once on CD for saying every Jewish voice of protest was worth thousands of gentile voices. I humbly stand by that. What if a quarter of a million Jews in Israel marched and demonstrated as one? They could change policy.
My best wishes and most respect to every Jew who decries Israeli aggression. Your voices mean so much more.
Azjoe I agree. It takes courage to break away from one's own community and face the threat of isolation and ostracism by some. I applaud the brave Jews who have spoken out for peace. I know many who have personally. Thank you. Thank you. We stand by you.
I also appreciate the Jews and gentiles who are supporting J-street the alternative to AIPAC. Keep up the good work!
Jeff Halper, American Israeli and Founder of ICAHD told me in October 2006:
“It has been said that the Israeli’s do not love this land, they just want to possess it. There have been three stages to make this occupation permanent. The first was to establish the facts on the ground; the settlements. There are ½ million Israeli’s and four million Palestinians here. They have been forced into Bantustan; truncated mini states; prison states.
“It is apartheid and Bush and Hillary are both willing collaborators. In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible.
“The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs.
“This is just like South Africa! The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable.
“The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives.
“Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism.
“It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side.”
-Excerpted from “Memoirs of a Nice Irish-American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory” by eileen fleming
PS-I had lunch with Amy Goodman end of April 2007 and gave her a copy of that book. I also informed her that her interview with Vanunu was major testimony against him in FREEDOM OF SPEECH TRIAL. Amy didn’t bother to do a follow up call until July 2007 AFTER Vanunu was sentenced to 6 months in jail. V would not talk with her or any media then.
But he has spoken since:
“13 Minutes with Vanunu” taped 2008 freely streaming VANUNU ARCHIVES:
http://www.wearewideawake.org
Eileen Fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
"While Israeli planes drop pamphlets urging Palestinians to leave..."
The nerve. Wow. Who was there first? From time immemorial my ass.
Call me naive, but I think Amy Goodman represents a silent majority of Jewry. Zionism will eventually destroy them too, and I think most of them know that.
As an Afrikaner who went into exile in the early 1980s in protest against Apartheid, and refused to further serve in its conscript army, I am heartened by the fact that there are Israelis who oppose the actions of the Israeli government. It is partly from this opposition that the solution to the problems between Israelis and Palestinians will come. It is absolutely important for the international community to recognise this opposition and to nuture it.
David van Wyk:I applaud your courage in leaving your country in protest. Did you go back? Would you?
I returned to South Africa and participated in the reconstruction of the country after Apartheid. I am again disillusioned because the leadership of the liberation movements have quickly been bought of by the powerful owners of the mines and capital. We are sitting in a neo-liberal mess where the gap between the rich and poor is the widest on the planet, and our fantastic mineral wealth is not being deployed to swolve the critical problems facing the majority of our people. What is worse is that there are no parties to the left ofr the ANC... an organisation that has sold its soul to George Bush and Tony Blair, our elections have become meaningless.
10,000 demonstrating for peace in Israel is proportional to over 400,000 protesting in the US. That is significant. I am surprised and gratified.
Could this be a beginning of a time when sensible people will be taking back Israel from the corrupt militarists who have been ruining Palestinian and Israeli lives for decades?
Joe
"They forget the details. The detail is that Israel maintains sovereignty. The detail is that the Palestinians live in a cage. The detail is..." (Neve Gordon)
The details are our continual tripping point. An example is OPLEUBOY's statement "Unfortunately, here's how much they've accomplished: (void) ". OPLEUBOY trips on the detail expressed in the dialogue between JWVEREZ and NYCARTIST - that's a most dignified and decent human conversation, full of human vulnerability and pain, but vulnerability and pain transmuted, and articulated with voice no less, into hope and accomplishment - this tiny morsel is an example of the greatest of human endeavor on any and all levels being cultured right now.
So I ask, is it more fruitful to hold up the body of a dead Palestinian child and label "it" as a symbol of "Israel being a terrorist state", for Tariq Aziz to quote Shakespeare as a vow to fight to a bitter end, or can we transmute "strange fruit" into sweet fruit by recognizing and articulating the bitter part now? This is the body of Lama Hamand - nothing more, nothing nothing less - get the detail?
And of course the detail of now is that it isn't all bitter. I see the body of Lama Hamand. A human child - is there anything sweeter to the human senses? How will we harvest this fruit? How will we compost the future, only with bitterness? I would love it if the likes of SIOUX ROSE would articulate not just the no's of the seven deadly sins, but also the yes' of the 7 virtues. It's an obscure reference for most here, but I have to ask SIOUX ROSE that when Cassandra turns on to ZZ Hopper, does she only see an iron fist of Mars, or does she vision the hand of Zeus enmeshed with a mithral textured glove of Venus? What does Cassandra see, hear and feel, how does Cassandra dance as "that hand" opens and closes in cosmic pulsation? What are those sweet details?
Yes, I want a vision of all "those" details. No, this is not the projection of petulant little boy impotence, but a request for help. An acknowledgement of vulnerability and pain, and also a recognition of the talents, powers, and longings in my human siblings. Of course to present such details would mean exposing vulnerability and invites pain and sorrow. But it also invites and invokes the greatest of human expression and the greatest human power, greater than any other creature on earth - transmutation - all of which is expressed in the details of JWVEREZ and NYCARTIST's conversation. All of which can beat in all of our hearts, course within all of our brains, can be fired then cooled in all of our bellies to reap the eventual harvest of the greatest expression yet known - PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TOWARD HUMAN KIND.
Please, feel free to add details.
Sioux Rose
PUCK: I know I am often seen as being abstruse, but I find your references difficult to follow? Many times I have offered the "witness of the circle" as heaven's plan for democracy, a model that makes room for the 12 quintessential perspectives (or bases for motivation) at the grand, proverbial "table."
Mars is out of hand. How do we diminish its influence? By not feeding the monster... and in my mind, feeding it is seen in the way the military trumps everything else (like health care, much discussed in our forum these days) when it comes to who gets a shot at the available monies in our state treasury. Feeding it is seen in the obscenity of a continued trafficking in arms among nations, the US prominent in that organized crime (to my way of thinking) arrangement. Feeding Mars is seen in the glory of films about war, and how often do these contain a sub-plot where the male "hero" gets the gorgeous girl who saves herself just for him, as reward for his prowess? These myths are very influential in human acts, beliefs and behaviors.
The circle asks us to counterbalance the disproportionate focus on Mars with the other EQUALLY DIVINE, and indeed designed-for counterbalancing measures archetypes. Investments in Venus would mean providing arts programs to children whose parents work past 5 PM, the interim between school hours and when they can be safely picked up. Investment in Venus supports community gardens. Those who grow together, probably won't have much cause to fight.
Investments in Mercury favor broadening media so that it doesn't just honor those voices that reinforce Mars or Mammon (advertising, consumerism, product-frenzy, you are what you own, etc.)
The list goes on. I'd like to say that by both the US and Israel's examples of naked aggression that citizens everywhere would wake up to what Winston Churchill intoned, in the famous words, "Never to go to war again." Right now violence is feeding violence, planting the seeds of vengeance to ensure yet more calamitous outcomes. The only way to stop the cycle is to rise above it, and EVERY genuine spiritual master has provided the means: forgiveness, empathy, compassion, walking in the other's moccasins, realizing SELF in other, that we ARE all one. And the circle is a most magnificent symbol for depicting HOW THE MANY become the ONE without losing their fundamental essences!
Now here's a little glistening, thanks. Especially for the start of detailing Venus and feminine aspects in dance with the masculine, and for reinforcing the circle over the linier graph charts that never fail to crumble. But to be a good Puck, and to see if the moments mark is twain or other, I of course have to prick around your "necessary!" below. What's the energy like when issuing such a statement? To me it's absolutist and lends itself to stiffening Mars' currently iron grip; therefore missing opportunities for further elucidating Venus...and, most important from my vantage point, keeping good Puck from some of his most cherished gold.
Puck, you are either kidding around or you need to take your meds.
Saphne, instead of "or" it's and. Invoking Puck and Twain is quite a clue that that the Fool is afoot, and, look at the scintillating "meds" I received from the good Dr. Sioux Rose.
Israelis for peace must be wrentching their hearts out. I think is more than I can imagine. For the reasons described in the article above.
We who are not israeli felt a phycological jolt of such brutality, continue day after day caused by strategic need to win an election, stop rockets which could have been stopped with negotiations. This we have to suffer every year since they had a country.
We have to think of these atrocities every where we are informed of this war. At work, at home. I want to sue Isrelies for phycological pains inflected on us year after year.
How much longer should we suffer under the bullies of humanity. This applies to all conflict between humans.
toophat for you!
Jeevee
Grievously, wanting to possess more and more seems to be part of all humans' lower nature: ago, greed attachment. If we don't all strive to go 180 degrees toward PEACE for all, the environmental catastrophe will undoubtedly accelerate and the end of the human species will loom ever closer.
There are no easy solutions. We must all struggle to live in LOVE. Step one might well be to learn to LISTEN to others' convictions and RESPECT their right to disagree with us.
"LIVE IN LOVE: LOVE IS GOD."
Who has further ideas (or disagreements) re. this?
Thanks for sharing your grievousness. Myss says that in her observations the biggest sticking point is when one starts to move from the "lower nature" of the "lower" chakras to the consciousness (Godliness) of the "higher" chakras they get stopped by wanting to take all their social circles with them at the same time. She councils that tribal/societal growth is always much much slower then the "growth" an individual can achieve. Going on in this vein, and with the playing with more of your words, I wouldn't call for all of us to strive toward peace, but I would attempt move in peace toward all I encounter.
There's a popular chant that goes up into the air at protests and demonstrations (so sorry that there are no true vigils going on): No Justice, NO Peace. If one studies the Weber-Fechner, as well as the thermodynamic, laws of physics, in addition to any or all of the world's scriptural books, the truth is that without the composure the state of peace cultures, the answers as to what justice is in any given moment cannot arise. So I guarantee that if you focus on your own peace, and doing your best to return to peace, you'll be much happier for it regardless of the world situation, and, you'll be able to bring much more happiness to that world situation regardless of how fast or slow it moves.
God is in our earth and universe, which are gifts that have everything needed to sustain life. God is also in our ability to act with intelligence and love to understand and protect the physical world and the life in it.
Even though I have food and shelter and am fairly safe, I still have to fight against my own anger, impatience and laziness. I try to speak my mind, work for what I think is right and yet remain gentle and listen to others. It is a nice idea but also a big struggle to live in LOVE.
I got physically ill just looking at the pictures posted by gracefulswan on another thread at this site:
http://portail.islamboutique.fr/gaza2008/
I do not know how the Palestinians can live like that and still have any love left in their hearts. The Israelis also have a big mental task to break away from the violent arrogance of their leaders and get back in touch with elemental goodness.
Joe