Friday, November 10, 2006

Clash of Cultures : Dialog II

Jihad, Turmos Ayya resident too said ...

Well Palestine is for Palestinians, and its promised to U guys by Great Britain. They promised that because they wanted an apology from U guys for what happened to Jews in the Nazi Death Camps.
One day as we will all will fight to fight for our land back, we will retain it sooner or later, Inshallah (Allah Willing) it will be Arab owned again.
One last thing: It is a great thing to talk about and hear from both sides. I lived in Turmos Ayya for almost 10 years, look from my house, two sides and I see Shilo. I wonder how you guys see us from that side? I would like to see some photographs of Turmos Ayya taken from Shilo's side.

Salam Jihad,

I too prefer to exchange words and ideas than bullets or other lethal means. I'll try to put up some photographs of how Turmos Ayya looks from the Shilo side of the valley.
As for your other comment, I don't think the Jewish People are here in the Land of Israel because of the British, the United Nations or some misconstrued compensation paid the Jewish People for the tragedy of the Holocaust of the Second World War.

First the Jewish People always lived in the Land of Israel, at least since Avraham left Haran some three thousand years ago. As for the British and the so called Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, that predated the Second World War by twenty two years. I think it more realistic to see both the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations decision at San Remo in April 1920 as a recognition of the reality. The Jewish People, after 1,795 years of oppression and forced exile, having demonstrated their eternal devotion to the Land throughout all the centuries, was poised to return and recreate a nation-home for themselves. We can argue what might have happened if six million Jews had not been systematically murdered during the Second World War ... how many of them might have followed in the footsteps of those countless Jews that returned to the land generation after generation. It is interesting to think that the demographics might have resolved the question of who would build a country on the shores of the Mediterranean and on the hills of Judea and Samaria, without recourse to the influence of outside powers?

What fascinates me is the duality of your comment. On one hand you inform me, Mr. Jihad, that Arabs will rise up to fight for the land, yet on the other you seem to look forward to dialog with those you claim 'stole' the land from you? Please help to understand how these two, on-the-surface contradictory interests sit together in the same personality.

I look forward to your response.

Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin

(called Ibrahim Iben Ibrahim by my Arab friends in the Galil)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that Jihad looks from his house and sees Shiloh on two sides. For one, Shilo doesn't surround Turmus Aya, it's across the valley. For another, living in Shiloh, I look out of my house and I see bare mountains in all directions. Yes, there's an Arab village here and a Jewish village there and there's even the big Arab town of Sinjil, but all around is one big emptyness.

Yoel, you can send Jihad a picture of what Turmus Aya looks from Shiloh, but if you zoom out a bit, you can also send him a picture of the entire view to the South - and the emptyness that surrounds everything.

ps. I assume Jihad's parents named him so for the personal inner struggle to better oneself and not for the violent war against all infidels? It would be somewhat difficult to have a dialog with somebody named "I'm going to kill you!!!"

Yoel.Ben-Avraham said...

I'll make the photos I and my sons have collected on Flickr.com available.