war filtration..

to the far left you see a church spire and then a bit to its right a mosque's minaret.. synagogues don't have tall features normally so you cant see the synagogues around them.. but they coexist.. this is yaffo.. gaza used to be like this.. my friends parents used to go there for cheap grocery shopping and to enjoy the beach.. the hatred was not always there..

many (not all) of my arab friends.. specifically muslims - not my middle eastern christian friends (some by the way refuse to be called arab and insist that they are Israeli christians) are now fully recruited into the hatescape.. this has resulted in a defriending process which is nothing short of a broad separation of forces.. people who had built bridges of hope with me since the lebanon war in 2006.. people I had never met.. people I had met regularly.. people I had only scarcely known.. people I had been introduced to and formed connections with online.. people i had camped with in the desert.. people i had broken bread with on the shores of the deadsea on crispy winter nights overlooking the hill top lights of Jordan.. people i had harmoniously beaten drums of friendship with around campfires.. people i hosted in my house and who had invited me to theirs.. people who for years had fully known my opinions and i theirs..

as I said - those who really love peace have not moved an inch.. they don't engage in war related antagonism but rather accept that each of us has his or her own pain and lets the other be..

the war is reaching a certain crescendo and especially now that an israeli soldier appears to actually have been abducted by hamas and we (as a nation) are preparing for another collective scar.. a wound that will remain ajar for years and ultimately only be healed by Israel releasing hundreds of hamas murderers such that the bleeding wont really ever end.. on the one hand I think we are sick of this.. we hear that the army has identified most of the tunnels and has been avidly working to destroy them (cant help but think of all that wasted money effort and soul).. and yet today despite initial hopes for a quiet weekend at 6am a very long siren was sounded over telaviv and again my wife and i shuffled half shut eyed to our safe room trying not to wake the girls and hugged it out before heading back to bed..

in theory unless a real ceasefire is reached this could go on forever.. hamas could continue raining this safety nuisance upon us and the world including ban ki moon and our best friend's president mr Obama (did I mention that I haven't liked him for a long time?) will point their heavy fingers at us staring at us in blame..

i mean for goodness' sake.. a foreign journalist watches rockets being shot at us from a hospital and while reporting it - urges for us not to use her report for our own purposes.. what is up with that.. the world needs to know.. but even if it did whod care..

anyway hamas is now fighting in reverse.. it knows we are sick of this and want it over and so its threatening us as it walks backwards that if the ceasefire isn't bilateral it wont be honoured.. like it ever was..

gazans - rise up and end this mess - get rid of your murderous and treacherous leaders who are using you as cannon fodder while they buy fancy houses around the world and watch you starve.. they are billionaires and you are dying of hunger even though the UN has given you billions..

filter them out..