Saturday, October 30, 2010

The Conflict and I...we are united...

I have my story...I wrote down on a piece of paper on the plane on my way back home from Amman...

It is a story related to the conflict...but I decided not to publish it...

For many reasons...but it made me think...

Is it me who is always chasing the conflict or is it the conflict who is always chasing me?

What is it that I am looking for?

What is the conflict trying to teach me?

After all, I am living my life in all its details...I go to work, I produce, I joke, I laugh, I get angry, I go out, I drink, I love, I fantasize, I dream, I remember, I plan...

However, when I read...I go back to the past...

Does it have any significance?

It does have a significance...it is union...

I am trying to link the past to the present on my way to the future...

Uniting is the most sacred act...bringing people close to each other is what is life about...

When I was reading the book on Jerusalem, one of the information that I could not forget was that when David entered to Jerusalem he married a Jebusite (who were the inhabitants of Jerusalem)...and the offspring  of that mixed marriage was Solomon who was to build the Temple...

My interpretation and I might be very mistaken but it is what I understood from the whole story is that Solomon was the result of a union of two different people which made him eligible to construct the house of God...

Men and women are meant to unite to be able to create and keep the world going forward...

It is when you unite you get something new...

In the nineties, after years of division, the world was getting closer to each other and we were talking about the global village... We were close to unity...we were innovative...

What happened? Ben Laden decided to separate the people...and now we are back to square one...far away from each other...and nothing beautiful is happening...

Beauty comes only from unity...

So you see what I am looking for in the midst of this conflict? I am looking for signs of unity...

and the conflict is showing me the signs of division...

But despite that, the conflict and I are forming a union...which is creating all these beautiful writings on this blog...

No matter how you turn it in your head... Unity, union and derivatives of that word lead to beauty in creation, in inspiration, in thoughts, in actions and reactions...

This is the result of my trip to Amman...

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Amman...Moses and...I

May 2008...I got on a plane to Amman...

It was not an ordinary trip...I was on a mission...

Few months before that date...I was on an ordinary trip to the Dead Sea...I had few hours to kill...I decided to ascend to Mount Nebo...I had no clue where I was going...

At the door, a guide offered his services...I accepted...and he started explaining and explaining...

Suddenly I discovered how ignorant I was...

I had no clue what Mount Nebo meant and that was not my first visit to the Dead Sea...

However, the only thing that was glued in my memory was a sentence that the guide pronounced and continued walking not caring much what effect it had on me...

He pointed to the clouds in front of us and said... That is Jerusalem...it is only in May that you can clearly see Jerusalem from here...and he continued walking...

I could not control myself...I had already planned by next visit in May to Mount Nebo...

Back to May 2008...

Even though it takes 40 minutes from Beirut to Amman, I felt the flight took longer than usual...and I still had to travel from Amman to the Dead Sea...another hour and so...

I arrived to the Dead Sea...I could not sleep the whole night...My binoculars in hand I kept looking from my balcony at the hotel to Jerusalem...to the lights in front ...waiting for the morning to climb to Mount Nebo...

I arrived to Mount Nebo... I did not need a guide this time... I knew my way...I knew the importance of the site...I knew what I came to do...

My binoculars in my hand...I headed directly to the spot...to the highest point where I would stand to look at the Promised Land and never enter it...

Yes...at that moment I could not but think of Moses...

He stood there thousand years ago...staring at the Promised Land...

 Thousand years later...there were still people ascending to the Mount...staring at the Promised Land and knowing they will not enter it...

I came down from Mount Nebo...with a memory full of the walls of Jerusalem...

On Monday, I am going again to Amman...this time I am staying in Amman...

But it is always the same feeling while I am flying into Amman... I feel I am half way to...another destination...

Being in Amman gives me the contradictory feeling of how close and yet how far I am to Jerusalem...

It has never been an easy trip...

Friday, October 15, 2010

Is Ahmadi Najad Persian or Muslim?

I do not have alot to say about Mahmoud Ahmadi Najad's visit to Lebanon...

He landed...did his show...and took off...

I do however wish to remind everybody that after the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BC, the Jews were expelled to Babylon and they came back from  Exile thanks to the Persians and their leader Cyrus who decided that the Jews can go back to Jerusalem and build their temple again.
 
And in other instances in History, Persians helped the Jews to settle in Jerusalem.

Ahmadi Najad warned the Israelis yesterday that their end is near in the Middle East and they should leave the Holy Land and go back to their countries of origin...

That is an Islamic rhetoric more than Persian...
 
Iran has long been an Islamic republic with hardliners and it forgot its long history as a Persian civilization.

Maybe if Ahmadi Najad went back to be a Persian more than a Muslim, his speech in Bent Jbeil could have changed...

However, the show must go on...

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

from past...to present...to future...through your eyes...

I am done with the book "Jerusalem"...it feels like emerging from the past...

As soon as i was back to the present... I looked around...I couldn't find you...

I went back to the past...to antiquity...to the shores of the Mediterranean...

I thought swimming in the Med-Sea could clear my thoughts and my views...and make me see things differently...and deep down I was looking for you...

I couldn't find you...

I came back to the surface...to the present...

I decided to stay longer in the present...I picked up a book from the shelves of the bookstore...

A recent book by Ziyad Clot... a French Palestinian lawyer who worked for a year at the Negotiations Support Unit in Ramallah on the refugees portfolio...

I just finished reading it this morning ( it took me two days to read it)...it brought me back to the harsh realities of the present...and took me to the future...

Clot was extremely intelligent in his approach...

He was able to criticize the Palestinian Negotiating Team, especially Saeb Ereikat at the same time he was careful in depicting the difficult situation the politicians were faced with...
 
This is the first book I read which is really blunt about the on-going, hidden complicity between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and negotiators...

Clot was shocked at the beginning to discover the inner world of negotiations...but then...

This complicity made him realize that the future unites both Israelis and Palestinians...

They can only live in one STATE...

There... History is interrelated... They are stuck with each other...like it or not...

There is no point in creating a new state that will crawl back to its creator as soon as it is left alone...(this is my interpretation)...

This vision of the future is tempting...I see no point in dividing people and especially in this part of the world...

Our holy land is standing still to unite all the people of the world so why do we want to unite the whole world and separate our own people from each other?

That does not make sense...

What does a border mean to you?

Does it mean the end of the road?

Or...

It means a new beginning?

When you have the answer that suits you... you will know where you belong...

Either to a divided future or a united future....

I know where I stand...and I can see you now...but you are standing far away...I think I wont be able to reach you today...again...

So...I decided to sink in the past again to Ancient Roman Time...

I know you wont be there...but at least I will live with the hope that I might catch up with you in one of my trips to the present...knowing that for sure I will meet up with you in the future over the hill...and we both be looking down to the past that was once the present....

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

And you wait for the miracle to happen

I am almost done with the book "Jerusalem"... I tried this morning to finish reading the last few remaining pages but I couldn't...

It was time to go to work...

I am at work now...

I am sitting on my chair...sending and receiving emails...

But...

My soul is not where my body is...

I am looking around...I see people...I hear them talk...

But...

I feel so "not with them"...

My soul is somewhere else...

The feeling of loneliness...longing to be..."not here"...

It makes your day...not a very pleasant day...

And you wait for the miracle to happen...

And you look around for signals...

And...