A note about unfairness,,,

There's a great deal of misunderstanding of the 100 years old Israeli Palestinian conflict. There's a great deal of disinformation about it in iPeace today. And there's a great deal of manipulation end exploitation of the situation, some of it very cynical.

Here's part of a message I and 45 others received yesterday:

"Israel is the attacker since centuries ago - Jews dont have a land and thats a fact. and they have made protocols and through them have prepared Everything until this very day for this to happen. it doesn't happen because of a dead Israeli or a few bombs... its a plan!!! to destroy Palestinians once and for all... its been carried out in steps and they are very clear to those following the news correctly (so not from TV) and who know... this is pure denocide and it has to stop NOW."

"no one should worry about Jews! they are wealthy and free and happy - and rich and fat with their big cars and small hearts...be assured they are taken care of.

now - can we go back to poor Palestinians who are tortured and squeezed like rats in one small hole and now killed in hundreds.... evey day! thank YOU"

Needless to say that the sender is no longer with us, but there are more like her, and they influence those who don't know.

The reason that I am writing this to you is what I read on the comment wall of Noa's blog: "a letter to my Palestinian brothers in Gaza"

If I have any credibility with you, I will tell you this: There are very few fiercer and more determined peace warriors than Noa. Not Annie Lennox, not Bono and not Yoko Ono. Period. They are just more famous than her.

Noa has dedicated her life to peace activism. She is constantly taking risks to fulfill her dream of a peaceful Middle East. Many in her country think her a traitor for that. You can read about it HERE

Even a peace warrior may speak his mind. That's all what she did, in a sensitive and compassionate fashion. She said what she believes is the truth. She said what many Arab leaders say publicly.

And she got showered with comments that she does not deserve. I think that this is not the way we should treat someone who should be our hero.

She wrote you a comment in response:

"i have read some of your comments and all make me very sad, even the compassionate ones, as they are full of sorrow. sorry i share.

to those of you who claim i do not know history, i will say, unfortunately i do. i know it well. i know israel's part in establishing organizations like hamas to counter other organizations she found to be negative, i also know that things that start one way often end another. sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

as i have said, i am a well known critic of my country. i think she has acted stupidly on countless accounts.

but i also know this: israel wants peace. israel does not want gaza. israel pulled out of gaza at great expense and dismantled its settlements there. israel wants to exist. deserves to exist.

our situation is complicated, so complicated.

once, israelis could be imprisoned for talking to the PLO. Abie Natan, founder of 'the voice of peace' radio station that we loved so much, was such a victim.

today, the PLO are as accepted as the Likud. today, everyone knows a Palestinian state will exist, it is only a matter of finalizing the deal, and all this, with MANY players with BIG interests, oil, water, power, weapons, control, religion, all the cholera you can imagine.

in the midst of all this, people die.

no, i am not comparing traumatized children to dead ones, what warped mind would assume that (chris..?)

no, i do not wish Hamas dead, i just want them to stop terrorizing gaza and israel. from my point of view, they could all go sit on the beach somewhere and have a couple of tequilas. i just want them far away from me and all peace lovers on both sides of the fence, UNLESS they choose dialogue over violence.

but most of all, MOST of all, i want us all to just STOP this madness!!

stop the killing on BOTH sides!! stop the propaganda! stop the hatred! PLEASE!!!!!!!

please...."

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Comment by De Jongh Willy on January 7, 2009 at 4:26am: I had a dream, and at the end of 2008 it has become true, 45.000 young people and many young at heart people came together in Brussels to a "pilgrimage of trust on earth" they came from over the whole world, far east, middle-east, Europe, Africa, The States, you name it they where there, in peace, singing, praying, eating talking together, in peace!!!!!!! for 5 day's under the impulse of les than 400 monks from Taizé in France.
So what i try to explain is the folowing :"yes we can!!!!!!!!! whe may not think "this is hopeless" I ask to all of you, do not stop with raising up your voice's, until the last gun has stopped!
Willy

Comment by marymi on January 7, 2009 at 4:04am: I am not really deep "in" this horrible conflict - to be honest I couldn't even discuss and share some intelligent arguments for pro and contra and so on.

but what I'm "in" is my soulside of view. I never had the feeling that any (political) part involved in that war really really wants to have peace. I felt this in any hard conflict situation the last years and so do I today.

as long as questions of guilty and victims and perpetrator are in the foreground (or utilized to seemingly solve the problems) nothing will change. I understand that the situation seems to be complicated. in fact it is not. it is very easy and clear. if we can just see it with the eyes of humanity, honesty, love and a little bit of wisdom.

as the rulers don't seem to be able to see it from this perspective (they never were before) I count on the people who are living there and experience this mis-situation. and relating to that I do not differ between israelian or palastanian people. we are all just humans living here on earth in different areas with different pasts. we are first and foremost humans-inclusive-deep-soul and as those we ALL have the same worth.

miriam

Comment by Pat Barrow on January 7, 2009 at 4:04am: Everyone has an opinion and perspective, we see through a lense that is slanted because of the condition of the heart. Greed, hate and ignorance is the cause of murder. There is no right side when one has taken the life of another period. The land belongs to no one yet everyone. We will never truly learn from our past because man is naturally evil inspite of his attempts to be "good", there is none good but God and only He can change the heart, not your way but His way. Yet...we really do not want to hear that either do we.? So, war, murder, greed, hate, racism, division, "skin color idol worship, child molestation, disease, will continue and prevail among all of us, why? because we just refuse to listen to God, to submit to His law, love, mercy and grace. So whatever your opinion, your so called rightousness is as a filthy rag in the face of God who is the only way, truth and life, that can bring us true peace not manufactured by man.

Comment by Georgios K. on January 7, 2009 at 3:19am: GAZA CITY, Gaza – France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. At least 30 Palestinians died, staining streets with blood.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner released no details of the cease-fire plan, saying at the U.N. Security Council that the presidents of his country and Egypt were awaiting a response from Israel.
Israeli officials in Jerusalem declined immediate comment on the announcement, which came amid diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and other nations to resolve a conflict between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas that has seen 600 people killed in 11 days.
President-elect Barack Obama broke his silence on the crisis Tuesday, saying that "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me." He declined to go further, reiterating his stance that the U.S. has only one president at a time.
Israel's military said its shelling at the school — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment — was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover.
Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. At the hospital, he said, many children were among the dead.
"I saw women and men — parents — slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said. "In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn't enough space for the wounded."
He said there appeared to be marks on the pavement of five separate explosions in area of the school.
An Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said it appeared the military used 120-mm shells, among the largest mortar rounds.
U.N. officials demanded an investigation of the shelling. The carnage, which included 55 wounded, added to a surging civilian toll and drew mounting international pressure for Israel to end the offensive against Hamas.
At U.N. headquarters, Kouchner said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had proposed a plan for ending the fighting. He said it would bring together the main parties, including the Palestinian Authority, to take "all measures" to end the conflict, including the key issues of protecting Gaza's borders and reopening all crossings.
"We are awaiting the Israeli response and we harbor hope that it will be a positive one," Kouchner said.
Asked about Kouchner's statement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, told AP: "We are holding off comments on that for the time being."
Israeli officials have said that any cease-fire agreement must prevent further rocket attacks by Gaza militants and put in place measures to prevent the smuggling of missile and other weapons into the small Palestinian territory.
Earlier at the U.N., Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli bombardment of the group's facilities in Gaza "totally unacceptable." Israel's shells have fallen around three schools, including the girls school hit Tuesday, and a health center for Palestinian refugees.
Ban added that it was "equally unacceptable" for militants to take actions that endanger Palestinian civilians.
Some 15,000 Palestinians have packed the U.N.'s 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed or to flee the violence. The U.N. provided the Israeli military with GPS coordinates for all of them.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss ideas of stopping the fighting. Arab nations were floating a proposed U.N. resolution calling for an immediate end to all military action and deployment of an international observer force to monitor a cease-fire and protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
In the wake of the criticism ove civilian casualties, Israel agreed to set up a "humanitarian corridor" to ship vital supplies into the Gaza Strip, an idea that had been raised by the U.N. Security Council. Under the plan, Israel would suspend attacks in certain areas to allow people to get supplies.
The three mortar shells that crashed down on the perimeter of the U.N. school struck at mid-afternoon, when many people in the densely populated camp were outside getting some fresh air, thinking an area around a school was safe.
Images recorded by a cameraman from AP Television News showed crowds fleeing the scene, pavements smeared with blood and battered bodies of the dead being carried off by medics and horrified bystanders. A youth who limped away from the scene was helped along by several others. Sandals were scattered on the pavement by a pock-marked wall.
Gaza's main hospital has been overwhelmed with wounded innocents. Mortar fire, in particular, is far less accurate than the laser-guided aerial bombs that Israel has used throughout the campaign.
The U.N. agency that runs the school along with other programs for Palestinian refugees said two other U.N. schools were struck by Israeli fire since Monday night. In the first incident, an airstrike on the Asma Elementary School in Gaza City killed three men who were among more than 400 people taking refuge in the building. In the other, an artillery shell landed inside an empty boys school in Jebaliya.
"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
No comment!

Comment by michele on January 7, 2009 at 2:49am: the hardest thing to do in a time of conflict is to speak out in a way that might differ from those you love and who are close to you. be it intimate friends, family, larger community or country. it is a deep bravery to reach out to those on the other side of the conflict. to stand and speak your truth publicly, loudly. Noa, you are a brave and loving woman- thank you again for sharing your words and your hope.

focusing issues on "who started it" reduces the argument to the school playground. wholely inappropriate considering the devastation and desperation that has occurred on both sides.

the only way peace will be achieved is if the different factions stop holding up their individual wounds with accusation- but rather, despite these wounds, in spite of everything- they CHOOSE to live in peace. next to each other, intertwined with each other.

it's such a small patch of ground that's being fought over. so much blood has watered this earth over so many thousands of years....what does it matter who spilled the first drop? it ultimately only really matters to those who more than anything for the last grain of sand/last bit of dirt to be stained so deep red, that nothing will every grow again. enough.

my heart bleeds for those on both sides who suffer. would that i could, i would stanch your wounds and heal you with the love that fills my soul. all i can do is send you love and light and pray that the flickering light of hope will survive and we will live to see peace from the river to the sea...

Comment by Mirian Fares Farah on January 7, 2009 at 2:44am: I really apriciate this forum. But I can´t accept justifications for inocent peaple die in both side: jews or palestians.Who can stop death know??What I Know is that the result of the death: is ungry and rate. And forgiveness may happen if three generation of the same family can leave in peace...so for me stop the war is the first step. What I know is since humanity exist they put the reason of the bad actions(war, death) in religion. The questions is: who wins with this war??? Palestians e jews will cry their death.... Both sides will loose.HUmanity will loose. Just, politicians and war industry wins with that. Mistakens are maden since the begining of this conflit in both sides. The question more important for me is not to justify war, is to justify peace. And peace for me is : conditions for work, education, condition for life, human rights respected....love, charity. How peace can be made? How we together can stop death?

Comment by Paris E. Tompkins on January 7, 2009 at 1:46am: I pray for enlightenment soon for all those involved. Paris.

Comment by Paris E. Tompkins on January 7, 2009 at 1:41am: I agree with Lynda. The choice is "do we move forward" or "do we continue to stay in the same place"...fighting, killing and dying. Each creation on Earth has the choice, to live in peace or die in war. As death is an inevitable eventuality, why not try to live in peace? It sounds simple, but every person has been given free will and within that will is the choice for peace and life. If the leaders cannot make the decision for the masses, the masses must make the decision for themselves. In 100 years or less, everyone who is alive today will be gone, so why live out the limited time we all have in war? As parents, we should teach our children to love and share. I pray for enlightenment for all those involved. Paris..

Comment by krisaya on January 7, 2009 at 1:17am: Thank you David for this blog and Thank you Noa to be who you are, to be here and to say of what many of between us let us think. All, us are sad and let us tired to see these horrors of the war. All want us that it stop. We have the power to say YES in the Peace, YES WE CAN IF WE CHANGE THE MENTALITIES and FORGIVE...yes, we can HERE AND NOW!
Love and Light
Shalom

Comment by Emrah Aras on January 7, 2009 at 12:46am: The letter reminded me a provocation of some kind that deep state networks usually do, just to stir up things... Or an amateur agent provocateur... Usually I think twice when I read letters like that, that doesn't help her/him and the group she/he supports... Who can call that letter a support or a protest? So, why write something like that? Attacking? Here are some answers about the author: a) watching you b) not clever c) angry and not clever d) angry and does not like Israel.
Is it easy to beleive the last three choices?
Best Regards.
Emrah Aras.