CONCERNED VOICES FROM ISRAEL. “Listen to us women, because violence is killing us.”

Here are some of the responses from people in Israel that I have read in the past week on social media. I used the Hebrew-English translator on social media. Be clear. These are voices of a minority of Israeli citizens. I drew from extracts of their social media messages and their responses to messages from other Israeli citizens. At times, I have drawn two or more extracts from the same person(s).  Friends in Israel have written most of the contributions.

• Everyone was on the balcony facing the street, their (Arab residents nearby) faces were plated with worry and fear…I got out of the car and walked to my house. We all tried to avoid a look. We all played our part in the terrible play that a playwright wrote for us from hell. And then I decided – no more. I stepped back to the balcony. “I don’t care what’s going on outside, and I don’t care. I will always be your close and loving neighbour,” I said.

• On the one hand it’s important that we understand – the violent side here is the state of Israel about its armed forces raging in the mosque at the peak of Ramadan.

• We didn’t have anything to say, and we did not answer. Because there was no justification, and not even a single reliable explanation came up.

• The demonstration yesterday in Sheikh Jarrah… we were hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian protesters and also some Knesset members. Police have put many dozens of armed soldiers to prevent the demonstration from entering the neighbourhood. In front of our faces, the police allowed dozens of religious young men – some of them with weapons – to enter the neighbourhood but when the protesters tried to do so, the soldiers did not allow.

• The circumstances of Israel and Gaza – we know that more power and more bombs will not achieve anything. It was tried in 2009 and 2012 and 2014.

• The fire is now breaking out between Israelis and Palestinians, between Jews and Arabs on the streets of Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, Ramla, Haifa, Acre…. The hatred is horrific between Jews and themselves, between Arabs and themselves. This reality will not change without political criticism and without a determined struggle.

• This post is about love. In the midst of the inferno and fear, in the midst of the explosions and hatred, in the midst of the loss, bereavement and horror that we shared these days, I want to write this: the human heart, our heart, knows how to expand and get out of this stupid and threatening game, which is zero.

• When there’s a threat, the brain stem systems are activated and make us little robots.

• There are deliberate interests and also more than one criminal policy that misuse human nature.

• I was rescued today from Jaffa. My body is whole and my heart is broken. Yesterday I went to say hello in my favourite Arab cafe. We sat for a while, me and the owner, and we talked about how much we love Jaffa, how special and beautiful she is. It was quiet in the coffee, this afternoon after the night’s rockets, and I looked at the Palestinian literature in the library there. Mahmoud Darwish spoke to me from the walls.

• Netanyahu knows the dynamics of escalation well. He knows that the use of violence in the old city – and certainly in Gaza – does not bring any achievement and he also knows that a barrier placed at the Nablus Gate can reach bombings in Gaza within four weeks.

• Listen to us. For women. For mothers. For years we stand – five, fifty, five hundred or five thousand – and tell you that violence kills us, injures us and scars the soul, private and collective. Instead you tried to put fire in the fire, incite violence in more violence. You have failed.

• Listen to us, women, because violence is killing us.

• The important line that preserves the difference between love and hate, between violence and discourse – begins inside the heart, which does not just stare after cross-events.

• When will it be understood that not the opponent’s strength or weakness are our allies, but the true desire to live a life of security and prosperity?

• A murderous and cynical organization doesn’t want any good…I am only sorry for the acceptance between the truly murderous Hamas and the IDF.

• This despicable and offensive point game… As if tolerance, respect and consideration are a luxury.

• My heart is with the mothers of the brave Palestinian young men. Sitting at home. Prayers. Prayers. Prayers. Anxiety. Anxiety. Anxiety.

• Woe to a police policy that assassinates and dismisses citizens of life.

• Sit down kids and I’ll dictate to you how to be dictators when you grow up. Are you copying? Good, please write down.

Keep the population ignorant.
Be sure to take advantage of every crisis, economic and political, for your own benefit.
Use the same national narrative that has been enacted in public consciousness for 70 years, and pump it to the population wisely, so that the educated will also eat it and feed others until they don’t know.
Never give up on the throne of Prime Minister.
Take advantage of every opportunity there is to set another fire. In camouflage. Apparently.
Are you done? So, what are you waiting for? Go to war.

• Hate is a plant that needs to be sowed and watered for years, and wide-scope violence is always the result of calculated human decisions. Some people think they can advance their interests through hate, violence and death. They call it politics. You can call it – human sacrifice.

• Sometimes I wonder about the human ability to speak.

• The mothers say enough of the generals rule and will stop the ground entrance to Gaza in their body. We are 50 % of the solution and demand to be a partner in the solution and settlement of the conflict in Gaza.

• The disturbed is just a tool in the hands of the rabbis and the fascist political leadership. First of all, see the reality.

• The wisdom in us can free us from the violent instincts in us: we have already seen that they don’t lead to a good place.

• Karma is Karma. And every war, every action out of hostility, directs our consciousness to be established even more with violent impulses. And the price is terrible.

• There is something to do, and in our hands we continue to have both power and choice.

Photo shows Israeli soldiers after taking control of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.