My Friends On Gaza and Israel: the Tragic Mistake

I am deeply disturbed by posts that some of my FB friends, some with education and significant influence on those around them.  In these posts they are deeply critical of Israel in a manner I think to be damaging to everyone – especially Palestinian civilians.

To these friends, I’d like to raise two issues:

A) it’s not 2 players, but 4: 1) Israeli civilians, 2) Palestinian civilians, 3) Israeli government, and 4) Hamas.  All of the civilized world agrees that civilian death is tragic and should be avoided as much as possible.  In addressing the ongoing conflict, it is important not to conflate Palestinian civilians with Hamas.  Israel does not target Palestinian civilians and every civilian death is a tragedy.  Hamas targets Israeli civilians and, if they had the means, would destroy as many as they can.  Worse yet, they seek to kill their own civilian population for PR purposes. If you watch nothing else, watch this video of Hamas placing children next to a rocket launcher.  Per Huffington Post – it is time for moral clarity.

Email Snippet: Self-Centered in Israel

From an email I am about to send:

We went to the dead sea today.  Feels incredible: silky smooth skin, I feel translucent.  This is a pretty amazing place if you need a new sense of perspective…  Although, intuitively, I feel like I am so impressed with Tel Aviv that something’s gotta give – there will be some new piece of information that will bring me down from the cloud 9 I found myself on.  Perhaps it is already happening as I am starting to realize my own shallowness and my insecurities start to push out the mental pores as I observe people from this little cafe (all cafes have complementary WiFi, btw).  This makes me angry, confused.  i feel like this is a bit like sitting in a sauna with the toxin-loaded sweat being laboriously forced from the body.  Perhaps it’s just hormones and standard ups and downs, perhaps it’s the want of sex and intimacy that swells uncontrollably (oh, nice trashy porn word in there) being in this city where everybody is between 20 and 40 and whom I see as beautiful unique people, or perhaps it’s just the consequence of forced reflection, or all of the above.  Regardless, as unpleasant as this is, as soon as I get angry, I begin to enjoy this state.  An edge.  A sort of desperation at the silently pounding clock releasing me from common convention.

Like eyes adjusting in the dark, I begin to see…  the sincerity runs only so far before layers and complexity begin, a facade upon people, behind which I can see the gears’ friction generating heat to push enough dust out the ears to produce a dark cloud over their head.  Dry, rainless.

I want to take bad photography because it is far more interesting to me than proper alignment.

Mmm…  I like what I wrote.  Tomorrow I will find it narcissistic and shallow, but today I like it. So I shall post it on my blog so that I can tell people to fuck off when they judge me.

Bing! I am coming to London, Israel

Bing pleasantly surprised me today – was able to get a ticket to London for the 18th of December for 500 bucks.  The lowest fair of all I’ve seen so far online.

So, it looks like I will be in London 19th and 20th, on the 21st or so I am planning on flying to Israel and spending a little over a week there and then back to US.  If anybody is there, ping me – would be nice to meet up, catch up, cause some trouble 🙂

Haven’t gotten myself a ticket for London-Tel Aviv.  Got a recommendation to go EasyJet.  And then there is the coming back to US bit, which looks like it might cost an arm, a leg, a first-born child and God only knows what else. (seriously dude, what’s up with fluctuating prices?)

Anyway.  Not sure what to expect.  Looking forward to seeing Cyn, meeting Matty, driving on the wrong side of the road without a license if they let me, etc.