Lisa Marie Fernandez

Please read the powerful words of Rachel Goldberg, mother of one of the Israeli hostages - “When you only get outraged when one side’s babies are killed then your moral compass is broken and your humanity is broken. And therefore in your quiet moments alone, all of us on planet earth need to really ask ourselves “Do I aspire to be human? Or am I swept up in the enticing and delicious world of hatred? This is not a phenomenon unique to Israel or Gaza. This is everywhere on the planet. I understand that hatred of the other, whoever we decide that other is, is seductive, sensuous and most importantly it is easy. Hatred is easy. But hatred is not helpful. Nor is it constructive.... War and conflict always ends up hurting the innocent. Which is why war is so brutal and devastating. In a competition of pain- there is never a winner. One thing gave me a whisper of hope on October 7th because one of the witnesses with whom I spoke told me that when the rocket fire began and when all those hippies went running into the bomb shelter there was a Bedouin man who was a guard at the kibbutz across the street and he ran into that same shelter and as Hamas closed in on the bomb shelter, the man said, stay quiet let me go talk to them and went outside and said in Arabic I am a Muslim Everyone inside is my family . They are Muslim. You don’t have to search in there. He tried to save them. He could have said I am a Muslim and just saved himself but he tried to do the right thing even though it was terrifying and even though it required unimaginable courage – he was brutally beaten and the witnesses do not know what his fate was but I take comfort for a fleeting moment that there was someone trying to do the right thing when everything in the universe had been turned upside down. We human beings have been blessed with the gifts of intellect creativity insight and perception. Why are we not using to  solve global conflicts all over the world? Because doing this is hard and takes fortitude and imagination, grit, risk and hope. So instead we opt for hatred because hatred is so comfortable and so very, very easy.