Illogical Paradox

I wasn’t going to post on here about the details of what I’m doing in Israel, but this was an experience I did want to put out there.

Last Friday we visited the security barrier that separates the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It was a profound moment, as this picture I took attests:

“We will never forget”, an extremely powerful Jewish slogan, right next to “Free Palestine”, an equally strong Palestinian one.

So I was standing there looking at the line that divides my homeland in half, and thinking about that. Sometimes I don’t understand how anybody in Israel can be there and yet want to fight. Like the Hezbollah forces camped out on the mountain we saw a few weeks ago. How they can look down over such beauty and fire rockets at it will forever remain a mystery to me. Or the Palestinians with the bulldozers on King David Street in Jerusalem. To be surrounded by buildings and streets thousands of years old, palm trees and flowers everywhere, and yet go into an angry rampage and maul civilians on the street until you’re shot dead.

Or Haifa, bombed during the Lebanon War two years ago. Anybody who’s been there–for instance, me–can easily attest that it’s a breath-taking place. To me, it’s holy. There’s the Bahai Shrine on the mountainside, with its huge gardens stretching out above and below it. There’s the Technion campus and Mount Carmel National Park on the mountaintop. The streets Adar and Herzl, full past capacity of people, shops, and things being sold. The Neve Sha’anan district right above my grandma’s neighborhood, with its high-rise apartments in blue and white buildings, and wide boulevards with flower beds going down the middle.

Somebody looked at those places and bombed them. And will again, believe me. That’s realism, and for those of us brought up to believe there’s any decency in the world, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I’ve been listening to a song by One Republic called “Come Home”. It has a verse that basically summarizes that…

I get lost in the beauty of everything I see
The world ain’t half as bad
As they paint it to be.
If all the sons, all the daughters
Stopped to take it in,
Well, hopefully the hate subsides
And love can begin.
It might start now,
Or maybe I’m just dreaming out loud
Until then.

So…pray for peace.