Or just tired thoughts projected on to the screen of my laptop?
There is a dull hum around the apartment as I write.
I was thinking yesterday during Jefferys Peulah about the situation in Gaza and Israel at the moment. When we first arrive on Shnat were all in our own groups, with people were meant to feel comfortable with. We flock together and stick together because of a basic understanding, a shared culture or an equally long and painful plane ride. We group ourselves to feel safe. We form our own community within a larger community for fear of being left behind.
Sivan once told me, just before we left for Shnat, that there would be this divide. Either I didn't believe her, or I just didn't understand how that could be possible but here I am, a month down the line, over analysing everything and she was right.
Lily and I are the only South Africans doing Shnat Netzer. We spend more time together than we ever did back home in SA because we are each others security blanket in this new, scary place. We arrived on Netzer Sem, to a room filled with Australians. They had all known each other for years before. They had all already established these bonds, and friendships. Just like Lily and I, they were each others security blankets.
Then the northerners arrived. Imediatly, and only after knowing each other for 8 days as the Southerners we were forced to bond together and for a new kind of security blanket. It was no longer the Aussies and the Saffas, but a unified group of Southerners. Being thrown into a completely new group with all their dynamics and group drama isn't an easy feat. Its like going to a new school and being forced to make friends with the popular girls.
So, just like that, we were united through the fear of having no one.
I imagine its the same for the Machon people. They're thrown into many larger groups of already established safety circles and so they have to bond together to become Netzer. Unfortunately, and I think it may be a flaw in the Etgar program, we have to find different ways to bond our group. That's the most challenging part, and probably, although sub-consciously why we choose to do Etgar.
So, my solution for the problem in the middle east, which will probably sound ridiculous when I read this again without the haze of sleep deprivation, is: For the super powers of the world, in politics, to rage a collective war on both Palestine and Israel, forcing them to come together and unite as one country, one nation, one people fighting for the Holy Land in any-which-way they want it to remain. Thereby forcing the people to come together in a just cause to save themselves and their neighbours. It would have to be the most strategically planned and well thought out, but I'm pretty sure that in an ideal world it would work out.
Those are my thoughts on war for now.