Israeli-Palestinian Blog “Summit”

September 4, 2007 - 4:00 PM by

Yehuda is a kippa (“skullcap”) wearing Jewish blogger living in Israel. Ramzi is a Christian Palestinian blogger living on the outskirts of Bethlehem.

The two met yesterday along with a handful of other fellow Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian bloggers to chat and exchange ideas and views.

Yehuda wrote about it here in his entry “Fraternizing with the Enemy: Israeli and Palestinian Bloggers Meet”.

Perhaps almost as interesting as the get-together is the description of obstacles to physically hooking up.

It was to be our first meeting. As such things go, we ran into a few difficulties.

Of course, anyone outside of the country wasn’t going to be able to make it. We couldn’t meet in Israel proper, because the Palestinians couldn’t go there. There were many places in the PA that we couldn’t meet, due to legal and safety concerns.

A meeting in or on the outskirts of Ramallah was suggested, but I refused to meet there, as I am still terrified of what happened to the two Israeli soldiers who were mutilated several years ago. This is despite the fact that I know some Israelis go into and out of Ramallah every day without much difficulty.

Instead, we decided to meet in a location near Har Gilo. But here the Palestinians were terrified to meet me if I was wearing a kippah, which I always wear, for fear of a) being in the crossfire if some crazed fanatic decides to kill me, or b) being assumed to be a collaborator. After some deliberation, I decided to wear a baseball cap. It irks me to have to hide that I’m Jewish. But a small amount of compromise on certain issues is doable.

And Yehuda’s matter-of-fact after-the-meeting commentary resonates:

I don’t believe in hope. I think hope is the cause of our suffering. So long as people hope that they can achieve victory, there will be no surrender to peace. I want more hopelessness and willingness to compromise. Instead of useless politics, I believe in getting to work. I can’t make peace with every Muslim, but I can continue to treat well and courteously everyone who treats me with respect. I can’t trust absolutely – one never knows when the friend you make will come into the hands of someone who threatens to kill his entire family unless he goes out and kills a Jew. But I don’t have to let that possibility make me indifferent to the humanity that exists on the other side.

Goodon alluvyou

Tags: • Category: A New Reality, Blogging, Politics 

Comments

5 Comments on Israeli-Palestinian Blog “Summit”

  1. Aviv on Tue, Sep 4th 2007 7:16 PM

    2. Link is broken.

  2. Maya Norton on Wed, Sep 5th 2007 12:02 AM

    3. Thank you for adding The New Jew: Blogging Jewish Philanthropy to your blog roll (www.TheNewJew.wordpress.com).

    I’m glad to have found this post as Palestinian and Israeli blogging (and relationships) are a subject near to my heart and one I’m trying to explore further. I’ll look for more posts on this subject and hope to be writing one of my own in the near future.

    Hag sameach,

    Maya

  3. David-Joe on Wed, Sep 5th 2007 3:07 AM

    4. Yehuda is definitely on the correct track Hope is ineffective and is useless air. Yehuda recognizes reality as it is – it is objective and exists independently. It is our responsibility to recognize it. Then to use reason to arrive at a solution.

    For the Arabs to change – and for me there is no difference between the so-called Palestinians, the Jordanians and any other – they have to begin by considering their own lives as being the most important.

    They have to begin to consider the lives of their children to be important.

    This is possible but only if they want it. Then, and only then will they be prepared to make a proper peace with Israel.

    Which is why for the evil Arabian campaign against Sderot, the Arab forces must be hit to the point that they will flee and understand that Arab children will not be spared while they, the Arabs, attempt to carry on the work of Adolf Hitler.

    I do not know how Olmert even looks at himself in the shaving mirror in the morning.

    And while I am at it – the 13 Israeli reservists, sacrificed during the clearing out of Jenin a few years ago, must never be forgotten. They died needlessly in an effort to reserve the lives of the enemy when effective measures not risking Israeli lives could have been utilized.

  4. David-Joe on Wed, Sep 5th 2007 3:10 AM

    5. PS: the sight of the Israeli flag above ‘mixing’ with the flag of the evil Paletinian Authority is just so offensive and unjust.

    That flag is soaked in the blood of Jewish people.

  5. sophia on Fri, Sep 7th 2007 6:42 PM

    6. to david joe , i am an arab muslim who lives in the UK. I yearn for peace in izrael and palestine, and have arab and jewish friends alike, who I love dearly. Your comment about the two flags mixing together to me was the most ignorant and biased thing i have ever heard. Im sorry but your comment is “offensive and unjust to me.” You’re just blinded by utter stupidity and patriosm that helps no one whatsoever. Oh and by the way your rascism disgusts me!

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