I am writing this post in English, for the first since I started this Blog. Both because I am writing on my friend’s computer with English keyboard, but mainly because I want to send a message to the world. to my friends from all over, and not just the Israeli or Hebrew speakers.

I am writing from Goa, India. staying next to the beach. with my family. having a privileged tourist life, while my country is in turmoil.

I came here to relax. not the regular chill vacation one might think, although it is quite similar. But rather to relax my overthinking and news addicted mind, relaxing my aching body from hearing fighter jets flying over my head, and relaxing my heart from the pain and agony of being in this – brutal yet quite routine daily life – war zone. War zone we got so used too, that even missiles flying not far away, people evacuated from their homes and one of the most horrifying massacres happening as we speak can hardly move people from their routine.

I can’t blame anyone. I don’t want to either. each one has his own obligations and values. I myself felt like I have to leave for a while, so I can MAYBE see straight, feel straight, find out what is the next move for me. I left my work in a private kindergarten where I had just started to work, saying goodbye to all the families and the team I was working with, some of them serving as reserve in the army, fighting the “war on home” while I am “running away”.

But I don’t go on blaming myself either. Although it is very easy these days. especially for jews 🙂 I did what I had to do for now. We shall see, hopefully, what comes next…

words are not enough yet must be said

What words are fit in this situation? When the pain is so great? When the blindness of violence is so vast? When all the old stories don’t have an answer? When the despair is so big and the hope seems so hopeless?

Everything changed since October 7. Many people got “sober” as they say. One way or the other. And this in a way is something I hoped for. Though what we see now, and what we will continue to see in the near future is very ugly and very scary.

To some extent I feel that what was before October 7 was worse. since it allowed the continuation of an illusion of a “sane” life, while millions of people are imprisoned in an open air prison, while the world keeps on going. And it is not just the millions of Gazans and Palestinians. It is also the millions of Israelis living surrounded by walls of fear and armed with mass weapon giving them (us?) the false sense of security.

Naomi Klein, writes in her new book “Doppleganger“, released a month before October 7:

” Israelis are certainly not the only people on this brutally divided planet trying to lead carefree lives without having to think about the unmarked graves, stolen land, packed prisons, and spectral presences that make their nation possible. It is not the only nation trying to achieve “security” by penning other
people in and pointing guns at them. It is hardly the only nation with Shadow Lands that refuse to stay in the shadows. Yet in the crowding of these two, twinned peoples onto this tiny sliver of territory—the wrenching intimacy of the home invasions and demolitions, the ritualistic regularity of the pummeling of
Gaza, the spectacle of once-stateless refugees exiling other people into the sea of statelessness—we see in hyper-concentrated form the dead end of this project that dared to call itself “civilization.”

and it does feel like we are at a dead end.

The matrix of violence

I live in the world with this weird feeling. Like something is very wrong. Luckily I found many others who feel the same.

As Naomi Klein writes, It is not just Israelis. It is our entire civilization.

It is the millions of children spending most of their days in institutions that look more and more like prisons, than a place to grow and learn (though this places are also full with caring and big hearted meaning well people, and there is also an alternative movement of creating more child oriented spaces of learning).

It is the industrial farms filled with animals and plants being put to cages, filled with hormones and exposed to artificial light, to increase reproduction to the maximum, while their spirit is overlooked or crushed.

I see it with the women of this world being imprisoned by husbands, fathers and brothers, patriarchal traditions, and capitalist burdens. Women and Men actually, since the prisoner is sometimes more imprisoned than the prisoner.

I see it in The lack of sexual freedom, of showing love and affection.

I believe that it is the normalization of violence and the obscurity of sexuality and the human body that withdraws us further and further from our true divine and natural essence into manipulated and controlled technological beings, always in a survivor / consumer / worker mode.

true safety comes with freedom

On the new year’s eve I went to dance with my friend at one of the beach restaurants here. I was watching the mix of foreigners and Indian people, all dressed up, trying to get into the groove, supported by alcohol and weed. I myself was also intoxicated and quite happy.

I enjoyed seeing more and more people starting to smile and dance. And I told my friend – “I wish that as the night goes on, and the alcohol kicks in, That still all people and especially women feel safe”. my friend hugged me, she was touched. She then added – “yes. and. I wish that still everyone feels free to express themselves fully”.

I think this is a micro cosmos of our reality. That real safety can’t come on the expanse of real freedom. We need to have both, or there will be no real safety, nor real freedom. How can they both co-exist? How can my freedom not hurt your safety, and the other way around?

The mass rapes committed by Hamas fighters (or Terrorist, depends who writes about them), along with the cruel killings and kidnapping of men, women, children and elders, Is a break-point for many who believed that peace and negotiation is possible with them. for the Israeli mind, and I guess not only, there can never be peace with people who committed this rapes and acts.

Just as for the Palestinian mind and many others, there can never be peace with a nation that for decades is imprisoning, injuring, humiliating and murdering their people.

For me the acts of Hamas were not surprising, although it is shocking and devastating. As someone who served in the military during the second Intifada, being aware to the bombings of buses and citizens in general, and also being apart of the cruel and violent oppression of the Palestinians during this time, I felt like this is a very predictable escalation.

I followed the escalation happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and the futility of the Israeli government, army and public to address this issue beside in militaristic terms. I encountered Palestinians just trying to live their lives, hopeless to bring change, and too afraid to try to resist (even non-violently) the occupation, knowing that they, their families and community will pay a very heavy price.

I watched for many years, and grieved. My own attempts to create a different reality, also failed in a way. And the matrix of violence and military power prevails.

The feeling of horror that accompanies these recent events and the reaction of the Israeli army, the reaction we are seeing today, of mass killing of people and utter destruction of Gaza strip. This black hole of despair, this living hell, becoming even more hellish then ever, one of the most horrific places on earth right now.

In my perception of the Israeli mindset, this is justified, because we were being attacked, and still are, by a group of terrorist who wants to eliminate us. We are in a war for home, and we are trying to bring back the hostages, and to eliminate Hamas.

There is a lot of blindness to the suffering of Palestinians, Some intent, and some just to be able to go on with our lives. As there is blindness of supporters of Palestine to the fear and suffering of Israeli people – grieving, evacuated from their homes, living under threats of missiles, injured and afraid.

We are all part of this Matrix of violence. Some more immerse in it than others. Some are trying to find a way out. lets help each other to find that way.

The sacred Matrix

I have begun reading the book “The Sacred Matrix” by Dieter Duhm, one of the founders of the Peace Research Village in Tamera, Portugal.

He quotes there a letter by a Spanish doctor, who writes about the war in Kosovo, as a war within himself. Here is a part of this letter:

It is strange to read a book written in 2000, before the 9/11 events and the rest of the wars that happened since. Yet it speaks some larger truth, that lies under the surface of all this violence. It speaks of another reality that is still possible.

BACK TO THE SOURCE

Meanwhile writing this post, I came back to “The Holy Land”. Sitting in the small bubble I created in my rural rented house, surrounded by nature, with my lovely house-mates and neighbors (including 7 adults and 6 children!!).

The political aspect of life here is so intense that even the name of the country itself is charged. Israel, Palestine. so I use here “the Holy Land”. But what is holy about it? why is it so important and so looked at by all the world?

As a non-religious person it is hard for me to say.

Charles Eisenstein, Who I follow by listening and reading for many years now, looks at this land as a focal point. An energetic center that affects the entire world. If peace can be here, then it can be anywhere. And on the other side of the coin, I war is still happening here, then It will continue one way or the other all over.

I fear the option that this is true, because my rational mind can not see any peace here in the coming years or even generations. The collective trauma is so big, and so active, that it needs a miracle and a lot of hope, patience and commitment to try to bring real and true peace here.

What is true peace even? A feminist political activist I once interviewed for my seminar paper in the university said to me – “peace is not two old men in suits shaking hands and signing a paper”. And I agree.

Peace for me is the feeling of safety, of partnership, of love. That I can really be connected to all the people and other beings around me.

And it starts from within as the cliche says. It starts by seeing all the “bad” people and wrong-doers, not just from the “other side”, but also the ones close to me, and the ones with the power who are controlling the political – military- financial – media complex. See them and trying to ask – How is it to be you?
To really ask it and be curious about it.

During my earlier trip from Israel, in the beginning of the war, I got to Crete, where I spent a night in a canyon. There, under the bright starlight sky, hiding behind a boulder from the blowing wind, and seating next to warming fire, I had a conversation with prime minister Bibi Netanyahu. (strange choice of company, yet this is what came up).

He told me that he is doing what he has to do. That if he will not be around to take all the hard decisions, and take all the blame, anger and hatred of people, then we would throw it on each other. Which we are already doing. I kind of believed him.

I don’t know what is the way out of this nightmare that we are living. How to bring back the hostages held by Hamas, and bring security to the Israelis, Nor how to free the Palestinians. How to stop the war and create hope here. But as the witch from “The Fifth Sacred Thing” book said when encountered a dead-end – “The only way out is in”.

May we find new ways to look at ourselves and the world that maybe can bring hope to the generations to come.

May peace be upon us.

if we will…