When reality and emotions overcome concepts and ideologies

Here I am, sitting in my small apartment in Hamra, thinking about New Year's Eve, travelling plans, friends and spending the next hour at the gym. I decide to check the news before stepping out into the jolly streets of Beirut. With a click of a button, reality hits me again (it has been hitting me for the past 24 years).

The scene: Gaza city burning underneath the savage Israeli war planes. People running around the narrow city streets; screams; blood; bewilderment; anger; desperation. This is Gaza. This is Palestine. This is Israel. This is reality. This is us... and this is them.

Here I am sitting here and writing; trying to make sense out of whats happening around me. Since I came to read and understand our conflict with Israel, I've been always trying to be as objective and neutral as I can be. I thought that as an educated individual living in this part of the world, I had to stick to objectivity in order to open dialougue and maybe pave the road to a solution to this vicious cycle. As an Arab, a Palestinian and a Muslim, I've always been open to criticisms, to labels and prejudice. I've argued, discussed and worked hand in hand with people who displayed obviouse malace to my "kind". I've joked about my stereotype and laughed out loud at comedy shows that discussed it.

Let's face it, to maybe more than 50% of the world, I am a terrorist by default because of my appearance: Arab features, olive skin, dark eyes and a veil (!)

So, here I am asking myself: why should I be any different from those who label me? Why should I be tolerant, objective and neutral when 155 people of my "kind" just perished in the last hour? Why should I assume that Jews are different from Zionists when ALL Palestinians in Gaza are categorized as Hamas-biased and ALL Muslims are globally known as terrorists?

I have reached a point where all my exercised objectivity, ideologies and concepts have collided with emotions and reality. Actually, it is the reality of emotions that struck me hard this time.

We are all guilty for the deaths and blood in Gaza and Palestine as a whole.
We are all as guilty as the Israeli war planes, bullets and IDF soldiers.
We are all guilty for the ideological extremism and hypocritism that has invaded our world.
We, human beings, are guilty for our own sorrow.

Beirut
27.12.2008