Looking back

It doesn't feel like two years ago, looking back at the photographs on my hard-drive, slowly piecing together a powerpoint in some vain attempt to get the point across. Of course, the point is to be unbiased, to present an observational and analytical insight into an ethical quandry, and the idea of this whole thing was to pick something that was hard. Something emotional and controversial that got you thinking, and you have to argue both sides.

This is a lot harder than I thought about it being. It's heart breaking.

As i'm explaining in bullet-points something i understand in my head but not in my heart, but I can't get too behind the facts: my eyes keep falling to the pictures of soldiers and settlers, crying together, weeping for Gaza, for Israel, for each other, and maybe for us too. The end of something and the beginning of something else. Years and years of faith and hard work, only to be pulled away and watch it raised to the ground out of vengence.

It makes me angry, still, and it makes me want to cry. I understand the why, I even support the why, but the how still hurts. Why do we do this to each other? Arent we brothers and sisters?

It's a difficult thing to explain to a class full of poli-sci students, most of whom know nothing about Israel or Judaism, and even less about the feeling that falls in the pit of my stomach. I can show them pictures, explain that while not everyone in Israel is religious, that it still hurts us as a people. Us as a whole, not just the Israelis but those of us in the diaspora, too.
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This is not something I can be objective about.

How can you not be brought to tears?