It’s not really a question of right or wrong
Uncertainty is a part of life there’s no getting away from. But it’s difficult to live with it staring you in the face all the time. The belief or hope that your children and grandchildren will have lives that are not living nightmares is helpful in keeping you from going mad.

The fear of a repetition of the horrifying not so distant past has been hounding me since the final collapse of Oslo in September 2000. (I know a lot of people are fed up of the “H” word, well, f**k them). I know it's not just me who feels this way.

Some here still stubbornly clutch on to the belief that an end to occupation will magically solve all. Some are just as adamant that we have a divine right to all of the historical land of Israel and that this right is holier than living peacefully with the people we share this land with.

Most are somewhere in the middle, awoken from false hopes of easy solutions, but realistic enough to understand the need for painful compromise to make a future possible here.

This fear of what the future holds in store for me and my descendants in this accursed part of the world is, I think, stronger and deeper than the everyday fear of terrorist attacks. I look at other Israelis around me and try to see how they are affected. Some have hardened their hearts and others have become remarkably compassionate for the other side. Compassionate to a degree that causes them to belittle and disregard the dangers we face.

The other side seems to sense our fear and they also seem to observe our compassion with puzzlement. In their eyes we are weak, easy prey. They see us as European colonialists. But we’re not European. Not really. Not even that percentage of us whose forefathers spent the last ten or twenty centuries there, never accepted, never wanted, sometimes tolerated.

They don’t seem to understand that we can’t “go back to where we came from”. We came from nowhere and we’ve nowhere to go.

This is it. This is our chance for a little corner to call our own. And we have no choice but to fight for it.




Phew!
I feel quite cathartic after writing all that emotional, self-pitying prattle.

Bish says I think too much and worry way too much and should just concentrate on living each day as it comes, grateful for what I have. I know he’s right.

I used to meditate everyday until the thoughts finally completely took over.