Was this really my day?

Some days pass without a glitch, but also without anything memorable. Not today. I woke up without a headache (a first these days), the sun was shining, the mountains visible and work quite pleasant. A regular day indeed, until I received a message that Noa (Achinoam Nini) and Mira Awad are going to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest.

I started to cry because this is momentous. It is significant not because an Israeli singer respresents her country, but because it's a Israeli-Palestinian Duo that will be on stage. Mira Awad and Noa have sung together at a few concerts. The Beatles song "We can work it out" beautifully covered by them both. But to share a stage for 100s of million people across Europe at a time when a war is raging between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, is a powerful and significant act.

The Contest will be in May, the aftermath of the war in Gaza will not over and forgotten then. Will the TV audience vote politically, vote emotionally or vote because these are two very, very good singers? I hope that the world is ready and open enough to fully receive and accept this act of peace and love through music. One can't sing with hate in one's heart, try to sing when you're sad or angry, you won't be able to.

There will be two women on stage who have moved beyond anger, beyond hate, beyond the capability to rage war. I'm praying that their voices will not be silenced before they can be heard and I am praying for all of us to have the courage to speak up and choose to walk and talk peace, to start peace from our heart, to love without prejudice, to accept others for who they are.

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Comment by Stephanie on January 14, 2009 at 6:35pm: The longer I live, the more I realize that there are fewer people who really really care. and when you meet them, it is such a special thing. but they seem so few.... there is so much to do, there is so much a person wants for themselves...hardly time to think of the next person.
We all need a pat on the back, and we should give them when people are putting out their effort to really care.
It is easy to just walk away and expect the next person to do so....which he just may not.

Comment by Lidewy on January 14, 2009 at 3:02pm: I'm not sure Linda, I have known Noa for quite some time now and she has never, ever, justified a war as a means to make peace. It might be good if you'd read her revised letter, in which she explains her point of view. And please watch the video embedded in a comment to this thread. You'd understand it better. At the same time I, someone who tries to avoid even a verbal fight, won't know how I would react from the gut if my loved ones were under fire, no matter what the source was. I think my primary, instinctive reaction would be to protect and defend my loved ones. I guess I could at that moment have written a similar reaction as Noa's initial one, after a rocket hit very close to her long-time artistical partner Gil Dor's home. Noa slept over it, absorbed all the reactions and revised her letter. A much more balanced one.

The thing is in war there never is right, just wrong, the one blames the other and v.v., a vicious circle that is hard to break. It is very easy for me to have strong opinions of what is good and what is wrong, because I'm sitting in a comfy office and where I live there is nothing to go to war for. All my opinions stem from this foundation of security. I find it very easy to talk about peace instead of war from behind this secure veil, I find it very easy to share my opinion, to join peace movements. But I also know that this is also acts of comforting myself, to ease my guilt, my compassion without proof.
Behind each word, each sentence, there is a deeper feeling, a person, it is up to each reader to move beyond these words and understand the motivation and the feelings of the person who has written is.