Hey guys! Guess what? This is my new blog.
I was just brainstorming about what I wanted my first post to be about. Too much has happened in the past month, I don't even know where I could possibly begin. So maybe this first time I won't even go into details about my day to day life.
What I really want to write about is an experience I had a week ago. My roommate Jonah invited me to an event that was going on across Israel and was organized by the same movement that has been planning massive protests here. The same two questions were discussed at 8:30 pm. The responses were sent immediately to a think tank in Tel Aviv and then forwarded to the Israeli government. The two questions were:
1) If you could change two things about Israel, what would they be?
2) What can we as individuals do to bring about these changes?
Jonah's uncle invited a few of his friends from a nearby Arab village to the discussion, and I was sitting at their table. When the first question went around, an Arab man named Abed said something along the lines of "I want people in this country to treat each other better. Instead of looking down and walking forward, we must keep our heads up to see how we can help". In essence, we all are here together so forget the conflict, let's do what we can to live a better life.
I feel really lucky to have sat at that table. Usually the tone seems to be Arabs and Israelis against each other instead of with each other. But I was so glad to hear these feelings because it solidifies my belief that things aren't as two-dimensional as they seem. Obviously there are still issues to work out and too much hate in the Middle East for anyone's good, but steps like these can only help.
So I'll leave you guys with this: What can each of us do as individuals to make the world a better place?
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