Silent

Two and a bit weeks ago, Hamas entered Israel and carried out a brutal attack on civilians, taking some of them hostage. And Israel responded with cutting off necessities (electricity, water, aid) to Gaza and, well, here we are.

As many of you know, Dave is Jewish, and what many of you may not know (or remember) is that I worked with a Christian based, human rights observation group in Israel-Palestine for about a year and a half in 1999-2000. We were based in the West Bank city of Hebron and worked with Palestinian families and Israeli human rights groups. So, as you can imagine, we've had quite the conversations going on around here for the past two and a half weeks.

Additionally, Dave is on the board of the synagogue and we don't have a rabbi right now, so the board is responsible for responding as the voice of the synagogue to everything which has been going on, so Dave has been involved in a lot of meetings to draft statements and respond to the congregation's concerns. Even the public school board (where I work) has had to make statements and announcements to our communities, because of this current conflict.

If the conversations which Dave and I have been having are any indication, if the conversations the board of the synagogue has been having are any indication, if the conversations going on in my Instagram feed are any indication, heck -- if the conversations happening within the EU are any indication, there is a lack of unity about how to respond to the whole situation in the Middle East.

If I support Israel, then to some, I'm a white supremacist and upholding apartheid. If I support Palestinians, then to some, I am antisemitic and support terrorist actions. You can't win, no matter who you support, and supposedly you also can't win, if you don't take a side.

I heard a quote when I worked in Israel-Palestine and it went something like this:

"You visit for a week, and you can write a book on the situation.
You visit for a month, and you can write an article.
You visit for a year and you can't write anything."

(I lived there for a year and a half.)

I worked for an organization a few years ago and they talked about the concept of "both/and." When there is a conflict -- between two people, two groups, two countries -- it is often seen as an "either/or" situation. In this case, you either support Israel and Jews or you support Palestinians. But, to get past conflict, you have to adopt a "both/and" mindset. I feel like most of the things I've seen (in my emails, from my various faith communities, in the news, on Instagram,etc) don't make space for the "both/and" concept. (Read President Obama's full statement from Instagram last night to see what I think is an excellent example of "both/and" thinking.)

 So I've chosen to just be silent.

I will be returning to "regular blogging" as of tomorrow, but I didn't want to jump back in without explaining my silence for the past two weeks, and sharing some of my thoughts.