31 Sides to Every Story

I created this slide show as a condensed overview of my time spent in Israel and Palestine this summer. They are pictures from events that happened in several cities and villages throughout Israel and the West Bank. They are pictures of people I know and people I don't know. They record pain and joy, triumph and heartbreak. They show people living their daily lives in the shadow of uncertainty.

When you look at a situation from more than one point of view, your convictions may weaken. Your feelings of indignation, fear, or even hatred toward others may seem less founded. And the more points of view you visit, it will become more and more difficult to pass judgment on anyone. Until eventually you realize that you are the same as everyone else. That when you hurt another person, you are hurting yourself.

The things you don't like about the world, you can think of as cancer. You may want to kill that cancer so that you can live. But it came from you. It is you. And you can only hurt it so much before you kill yourself.

For the full posts of each photo included above, visit these links:

The Holocaust as Political Platform

Hebron: Land of Guard Towers and Minarets

Palestinian Dignity: Contraband Under Occupation

Cease Fire Still Cooking Despite Attacks

Checkpoint Soldiers Given Grudges, Guns

IDF Run by Angry 3-year-old

First, there was when the IDF closed a mall in Nablus, along with a girls school and a medical center. Then, I went to Hebron and saw for myself the government-sanctioned segregation and economic strangulation.

Now this.

Closing....an orphanage?? Really?

There's a line somewhere back there. See it? It's so tiny. BECAUSE IT'S SO FAR AWAY.

The Guardian interviewed an aid worker at this orphanage, Rasheed:

"I believe that the soldiers who raided the sewing workshop and threw the equipment in the city dump are not truly Jewish. We in ICS know the difference between Zionism and Judaism.

The rest of the article is worth reading, too. But not very easy on the stomach. The Guardian's Seth Freedman also writes:

Appeals by EU politicians, UN representatives, activists in Israel, and even Israeli judges have all fallen on deaf ears, leaving the residents of Hebron under no illusions about the type of opponent with which they are dealing. If all proper channels of intervention turn out to be culs-de-sac, then it's little wonder that the locals turn to the only groups offering to defend their honour, namely the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Does nobody have the hindsight to see that this approach does not work? It's not even a matter of right or wrong. They are going to destroy their own country before they kill or expel the last Palestinian.

Israel Raids, Closes West Bank Charities

Wow.

In a move that cheapens Israel's efforts toward a cease fire, IDF forces have raided a mall and several other organizations in the West Bank city of Nablus today.

Haaretz says Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, signed an order directing the IDF to shut down 5 businesses reported to be in some way associated with Hamas, such as a mall, a medical society, and two charitable organizations that aid refugee camps. 36 other organizations worldwide were banned from Israel and Palestinian territories.

Haaretz says:

Over the last few years, Hamas has built an "organizational system that, if necessary, could serve as the basis for a state," a senior IDF official told Haaretz.

So, they negotiate a cease fire with Hamas that applies only to Gaza, but then step up their efforts to destroy West Bank infrastructure. It seems like Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas are all oblivious to the fact that they are dependent on each other. If the PA and Hamas were to treat each other like rival political parties and not rival nations, the destruction of this infrastructure might slow and eventually stop. And if Israel were to acknowledge each as such, they might turn their attention away from hating Israel for just a minute.

The main difference between a terrorist organization and a political party is acknowledgment. Imagine if Israel were to do the unthinkable and actually acknowledge all Palestinian factions.

Then they would become each others' problem.

Further news from Haaretz:

The IDF raided the Nablus mall and the five charities early Tuesday and left notices to the owners regarding the closure order, residents said. It said the mall will be closed for five years starting the middle of August, while the charities will be closed for two years. The army seized computers and files from the places.