By: Emily Contreras
I am tired. I am sick. I am disappointed.
I am tired of reading the countless stories of terror and attacks in Israel.
It makes me sick when I think about the mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters being murdered.
I am disappointed in humanity for allowing this to happen.
This conflict is no longer about who has the rights to Israel. No– it’s become so much more than that. Palestinians and Israelis are killing one another in cold blood. How can anyone say this is still simply a land dispute? This isn’t about a loss of identity.
People shouldn’t have to live in fear of going outside, to leave their homes and go about their daily business because they fear for their lives. In fact, I read this post, written by a friend living in Israel, on Facebook the other day:
“Within the last few hours two terrorists attacked the #78 bus line several minutes from my apartment in Armon HaNatziv. This is my bus line. I take it every day. I know all the bus drivers, like the female red headed bus driver who always reminds me of a badass feminist because she never takes shit from no one and drives like a stuntman from Furious 5. Today, these two terrorists stopped the bus and climbed on. One had a gun and one had knife. And on my people, on my neighbors, these monsters opened fire. An Israeli was murdered. Many more injured. I wonder if it was that bus driver, with the red hair, who was driving today. I wonder if it could have been me on that bus.
And if only you could understand the feeling, that sinking in your gut, as suddenly sirens drown out your Hebrew teacher mid sentence. And you all look around and understand. There are no words. Something has happened again. Your phone begins to buzz with messages from family. “Are you ok?” And you have to answer “Yes. I am,” even though you are not ok.
The #78 is how kids get to school and people go to work.
The most tragic thing is that this was not the only attack today. It was one of 4 and only within this morning.
How much longer must we endure this?”
There is a fine line between what is right and what is wrong, between life and death. Unfortunately, in this conflict that line has become so blurred that I often question if we’ll ever be able to define it again. When did it become justified to inflict pain and violence on people? I say people because in the end we are all the same. We are all humans. I think many of the Palestinians and Israelis are lost on this notion. They’re moving towards becoming beyond humans to a point that some can’t even see each other as human. The only way I can reason this is to think that this dehumanization is what makes all this horror a reality. If we stop looking at each other as the enemy and start looking to each other as allies and fellow humans I don’t think it would be so easy to discriminate and dispense brutality.
And as much as I love Israel, don’t get me wrong, the Israelis are no more innocent than the Palestinian people. Mistakes have been made and lives have been lost on both ends of the spectrum. The worst part is, there are people out there who don’t know the whole story and as they read the news they begin to form opinions that are usually based on biased news and absolute truths/lies.
“All Palestinians want to kill Israelis and take back their land…”
“All Israelis hate Palestinians and they will kill whoever it takes to keep their land…”
These opinions represent such a small number percentage of people and it hurts me to think about the uninformed public who will read these statements and think: truth.
As I’m sure these attacks will continue in the coming weeks I will continue to wonder: how many people will have their lives stolen from them before this chaos ends? I have faith in Israel, and I hope to regain my faith in humanity.
