Alchemy

ALCHEMY --- over the Atlantic ocean January 4 2009 , 5769


My visa is up and war is breaking out all around me . The strip, Gaza the most populated place on earth has been bombarded with the full force of the Israeli air-force for one day , three days, six days straight and as I leave for the airport the ground troops are making their way in. The ground troops. Have you seen them? Avi and Natan and Ophir. They are kids who sling their guns over their shoulders and walk like they have big back pack on their shoulders and don't want to go to class cause they didn't do their homework. FUCK. DO you understand this?

They should be going to school -in America they would be in class - they are 19 20 21 22. and I don't' have to ask if you have seen the other pictures of Gaza bloody bloody war torn bombed out ash ridden bleeding bleeding Gaza. Plastered in the news and on the radio in every language. Suffering, beyond our daily struggles, beyond the fear, the struggles, the personal despair we transform on a daily basis and yes, it is faster now and we need more support, more love ,more community.

People are gathering all over the world at embassy's and standing outside in London and Egypt and Berkely and declaring things. But what are they declaring?- because they are different things.

Hamas has been launching rockets into Israel into Sderot for the past eight years. In these villages they they make games out of protecting themselves from rocket fire and getting into bomb shelters so the children will not be afraid. It does not really work. The number of dead people have been primarily Hamas police men. Israel bombed tunnels from Egypt that have been running weapons into Gaza. Israeli soldiers DO NOT aim to kill civilians , women and children and are fighting and enemy that uses their own people as shields. It is true.

Hamas has not been launching rockets into Israel for the past eight years this is part of the propaganda that Israel wants you to believe so that Israel can go in and do what they have wanted to do and wipe out the civilian population; they are not targeting Hamas, they are preventing humanitarian aid any aid including the tunnels from Egypt that have been running in medicine and supplies to the desperate people.. It is true.

Solidarity with Gaza- but what the fuck does that mean?Solidarity with Israel – what thre fuck are we talking about !!?? Fractured land and we go along in Tel Aviv like nothing is wrong except on Shabbat with the occasional friend who has come to stay because they had a rocket hit their block in the next town over , 40 minutes to the south and she is happy and alive but shell-shocked and we will never be the same, war at home is not the same as war on tv. and war on one side of the green line is not the same as war on the other. Our massive denial of an alcoholic father can only reach such levels before it all comes crashing in.

Starhawk says it time to atone for what Israel is doing wrong , for our sins , for our story – for our error and oppression atone atone atone. say I am human I a scared I am sorry. but I am human human human and I do not know how to release that fear to go there because I love something and do not know any other way to describe it except that my roots go down in that land so deep and that is my home and it is my homeland and if there are people who want to kill me - and there are, and for it - then for that land I will put my life on the land. atone atone atone. this is true. this is not true. I am only human human human there are walls walls walls and we have been fractured.

When you say you stand in solidarity with Gaza what do you mean? do you mean you stand in solidarity with hamas who launches rockets onto people living their lives going to school eating sleeping trying to do the best you can. I do not. And when I say I love Israel. what do I mean. do I mean I stand in solidarity with the IDF bombing the people in Gaza with their undeniable force putting me closer, all of us closer, our earth mama bleeding with more death and destruction I do not.

Here is freedom- Both are true - No one has an answer. no ONE has an answer. No man behind a curtain. We each have little pieces of a solution and we can raise the sparks little by little to heal the world. simple- perhaps. Gaza is right. Israel is right. Israel is wrong. Gaza is wrong. Both are right and both are wrong. The question of right are wrong is so completely irrelevant it is a joke! and in this irrelevancy lies freedom and the space to move forward. Feel that – let it go and realize the freedom ---- there are spaces that open up when we let ideas of right and wrong fall away. I PROMISE YOU THIS There is space to move forward- there is hope…. As long as there is Love
xoxo