Well I'm back in the West Bank. Leaving India was hard, it's going to be quite different the next time I go. My trip went fairly well, I talked to this interesting guy from Germany who had been doing a year long program on Leprosy education. We talked about Germany and how he always feels sort of ashamed saying where he's from because of history. He also said that a lot of Germans feel sympathetic towards the Palestinians but can't be seen as being anti-Israel in any way. He was reading Shantaram.
On the flight from Mumbai to Istanbul I was lucky to see two empty seats so I changed seats and slept for most of the 7hr flight. In the airport I bought a few more pretty coasters and then went to wait at the gate. There was a group of students doing study abroad who had been in Cairo recently but had to leave because of everything that's going on there. I talked to a few of them about their program, they were all very nice and it was sort of nice to talk to some Americans my own age doing similar things.
When I arrived in Tel Aviv luckily the line at Immigration wasn't long but I'm still on a tourist visa and will have to leave and come back in three months. My taxi plans got a bit mixed up so I waited in the airport for an hour so he could come get me and then I was finally one my way. The sky was beautiful as always. cloudy with patches of light shining through. My apartment looks the same. Today is a day to rest and then it's back to the grind tomorrow.
4 comments:
"He also said that a lot of Germans feel sympathetic towards the Palestinians but can't be seen as being anti-Israel in any way."
This makes me sad. It brings to mind a quote I once heard in a movie. There's a point in the film, Kingdom of Heaven, in which the hero, Balian, addresses the people of Jerusalem. He says:
"No Muslim of the great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost. We fight over an offense we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended."
I understand that the Holocaust is a tragic and unforgivable offense, but when fear of its memory keeps people from expressing themselves, is it helping or hurting us? The German people today are not responsible for the sins of their forefathers, are they?
People may accuse me of simply not having a sense of history... To those people, I remind that holding a grudge isn't the same as truly remembering...
No the German people are definitely not responsible for the sins of their forefathers. And that's a good point about truly remembering although I don't think "holding a grudge" is quite the way I'd word it...
Holding a grudge sounds harsh, harsher than I meant it to come off as. I'm not always delicate with my wording.
Despite my clumsy words, I hope my point came across.
The German people circa the Holocaust weren't horrible people, for the most part. Obviously there were some truly evil people at the top orchestrating it all, but many were just broke, discouraged, and looking for anything to bring their country out of ruin. When Hitler presented a scapegoat (the Jews), the German people fell into line. Was it something inherently wrong with the Germans to make them treat the Jews like they did? I don't think so. That same weakness is in all of us. The right circumstances can bring out that kind of ugliness in any population. As we are all capable of evil, we are all capable of good as well. That, I think, is the real lesson of the Holocaust.
I digress, though. You're blog isn't about the Holocaust or it's consequences, I'm just going off on a tangent. Sorry!
Don't worry I'm not always delicate with my wording either and you did get your point across. I totally understand and agree with what you're saying. And I'm glad that something I wrote sparked interest, doesn't matter if that's not what the whole blog is about :)
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