Leeat Granek who is also a friend (Beer Sheva), as are the friends of mine you have heard from on this page in Gaza Jordan Egypt etc etc. has bravely appeared on this page to describe the fear that Israelis are feeling as they shelter from bombs. I ask you to try to listen in different way than you may be used to. The issue about why it is worth having her...along with the other voices of our friends around the region...is to get PAST the usual tit-for-that blaming and escalation to try just for human empathy. Listening does not mean agreeing as Susan Cain teaches us (my friend who does mediation). Many on this page cant see Israelis apart from as monsters or sadists without understanding what Leeat is trying from her own open heart to share -- whether you agree with her or not -- she is just saying people there are scared. She is not claiming a political outcome or rightness -- she is just saying they are scared. I have been in those Israeli bomb shelters as a child and it is scary. Why is this important to process? It gives context to HOW a whole country can be persuaded to do anything to stop that fear. And many in Israel also ask, why does Hamas send missiles at civilians? This is a fair question. To me if civilians are precious they are all precious whatever the geopolitical arguments and though I have heard Palestinians explain this as a response to illegal occupation, the fact is that civilians are scared on both sides though there is no equivalency of course in my opinion on the greater suffering right now. So they have that in common -- fear and lack of understanding WHY the other is targeting civilians. Again I stress I am not making an equivalency. Just exploring the role of fear and next to fear is always trauma. You dont have to have a high detah count from those missiles you shelter from in the North to be afraid of them. Fear changes peoples brain wiring over time whether they are injured or not. It moves cognition to the amygdala (reflexes, emotions) and makes it harder to reason (prefrontal cortex). Which goes right to the terrible images we have been dealing with. So can we just take a deep breath and hear that Leeat is describing fear? Just because you may really disagree with Leeats countrya administration right now or for the last 60 years does not mean that people there are not scared...whcih is often a separate issue, which the administration exploits (everywhere)....which is the gist of what she is reporting. Can we open our hearts and just listen? Doesnt mean less empathy for the massacre we see before us There is enough empathy for all.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 14:03:47 +0000
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