Dear friends,
as many of you know, tomorrow I leave for a trip to Israel and Palestine.
In the first two weeks will follow a route through the holy places, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, making a long turn clockwise through Galilee. I'll try to make this journey on foot, calarmici inch by inch, not jump from a "postcard" to another, trusting in the 'poor hospitality "in monasteries, kibbutz, Palestinian families. I do not know exactly how it will develop and if it succeeds. But I'm confident.
The third and fourth weeks I will have Jerusalem as a base and explore the reality of the West Bank, visiting Arab villages and towns (Bethlehem, Nablus, Jericho ...), trying to meet the Palestinian people, to collect stories, faces, names, neighborhood considerations.
if I have the opportunity to be visiting some refugee camps (Jenin, Nablus, perhaps Shatila in Lebanon).
What do you expect?
After the recent massacre in Gaza, our media have not paid much attention to matters more Israeli / Palestinian. However, the situation is not stagnant.
As for the Palestinians in Bethlehem today began the convention of Fatah, Arafat's already gone and now only movement recognized by Israel and the West for the negotiations, led by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the last convention was held in '89, to coincide with the beginning of the first Intifada, and had escaped from a Document aggressive tones. This morning, in opening remarks, said that Abbas' Fatah and the Palestinians have chosen to pursue peace with Israel, but resistance remains a legitimate option in the face of violations and acts of Israeli occupation. "
which would be great news, except that Hamas has prevented the delegates from Fatah in Gaza residents to leave the strip, using this kidnapping to force Fatah to release hundreds of militants Hamas.
On the Israeli side, these days the newspapers report tones also critical of the violent and illegal evictions against some Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, made in establishing new Jewish outposts in the Arab part of town, and probably with the ' political intent to unify the whole city getting rid of the Arab quarter. U.S. and Britain have condemned the incident with harsh words, but the Israeli government says they are questions of justice, not political ones. Paradoxically, the government of the right (extreme) Netanyahu has also attacked from the right, the association of settlers enraged by an alleged "collision" with some secret government groups the left who oppose the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land (news disseminated by the military radio, you do not know on what grounds and for what purpose).
also are coming out for months now reports of some international organizations (Amnesty International, UN, UNICEF ...) who say that based on the data collected that the invasion of Gaza was perhaps the most violent and criminal action carried out by Israel in against the Palestinian people has always been, among other things, violating all international conventions on human rights, war and military occupation: 1400 deaths (95% civilians), including about 300 children, killed in almost 20 days in cold blood ( compared to 13 Israeli soldiers deaths).
Finally, the Israeli public is shaken by some Israeli papers, publications (including Haaretz) confessions of dozens of soldiers who took part in the operation, revealing backstage chilling on orders received ("shoot first, then look at who shot you ") and the behavior of the military (" the climate created by the above leads us to shoot at anything that moved down the street "," we did not expect to have in front of people ").
As for me and my trip, the massacre in Gaza was the first bell that is sounded like a call to that land.
But in reality, more that the story draws me a sense of history. Nowhere in Palestine as it consumes the most profound contradiction that regard (maybe always, but especially after the twentieth century) the whole of humanity: the possibility for man to invent his being "out of History", and in opposition, the absolute event of history as violence and any man who annihilates his effort.
Jerusalem city thrice holy, eternal and mystical! Mincer humanity always!
Revelation: an earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem.
Holy Land, birthplace of the three monotheistic religions (including Islam, which has some of its sites in Jerusalem more saints, and sent it to the act of prayer, at least until all'Egira and replacement with Mecca).
Earth, through the three religions, has raised the most profound reflections on man's relationship with history, violence, power, evil, get out by history, salvation, not innocence but the purification , the creation of alternatives to the eternal chain of oppression.
start thinking about the origin and the present day: looking for signs of a philosophy of history, practical, humble, poor, by foot: the only effective philosophy of history: in my mind whirling words, writings, story of Simone Weil, Hanna Arendt, Benjamin, Dostoevsky, of Francis of Assisi, Gandhi. "If there is no hope (and there is hope) make your body go and hope." People who renounce the ideology, giving up the real-Politick and common sense and, in essence, refusing to "belong to the century" and giving "the living body as an offering" (according to the maximum and final recommendations of Paul) , have forever changed the relationship between man and history, inventing what did not exist before, physically, conceptually, each in its own way and in its scope.
start thinking about the social experiment of Milgram, inspired the Eichmann trial that took place in Jerusalem in '60 (in the presence of Arendt, who wrote). Milgram showed that more than 60% of normal people, selected at random, are willing to torture any other person, almost to induce death, provided they present three conditions: do not watch too closely to the torture, have an absolute assurance about impunity for their actions to know that the action is intended to be universally recognized authority within their communities. Milgram devised the theory that "each situation is characterized by its own ideology," which implies a constant redefinition of meaning and moral value of the events, actions and their role: what once was considered an abomination and an absolute evil, once can easily become the fruit of his own conscious action.
start thinking about Christianity, I feel like a dark road, underpinned by very strong light, which has brought our civilization to this point: obviously rationalism, anti-clericalism, atheism, socialism and, ultimately, our fragile secularism, are a natural outgrowth of the evolution of Christian civilization. Yet it is a story of darkness, because the origin of this religion was removed from those who wanted to rewrite the premises for purposes equally obscure. We will never know the truth, but we do know that Paul, who took advantage of the extermination of the only community founded by Christ and guided directly by "James, the brother of the Lord" to assert their own vision of Christianity, making it more universal and certainly a doctrine less esoteric, but probably the cooling them shocking and transfiguring power of the individual and the community. He who had the upper hand, according to his visions autodichiaratosi apostle among the apostles is the only one who had never personally met Jesus!
Christianity, however, retains, even in just four late gospels selected to create a state religion reasonable, not to mention the other excluded, a disruptive force and absolute originality that sets it apart even from the other two monotheistic religions: the replacement of the figure of the "prophet" with that of the "blessed "(then, with ideological operation and post-medieval art restorer, the" holy ", as distinct from ordinary people and supernatural) that the cancellation of the abyss that separates God from man, God became man, and from that moment 'recklessly man can approach God through the foolishness specific anti-social, anti-Policka real, but actually transforming towards History, which is the bliss (holiness). The knowledge of Francis, his life and writings relating to him, is a source of illumination definitive with respect to this matter.
back to the sources from Christianity, the historical site and all inside of me, deep in my imagination inherited from the chain of generations that have followed, fighting the imagination (the imagination is our hell, "as Simon Weil ) to tap content rough of an imaginary "real", not fanciful, made up of those objects that are removed from office interiors to even more radical end of the process of dispossession, through which necessarily look (and maybe we can actually see and) the reality.
speak of spiritual realism? Let's talk about Dante? Let's talk about Dostoevsky?
I would question the saints, the true poets, angels, stones, in this regard. I start thinking about
Darwish and poets and poets polastinesi that when they read their texts in public fill stadiums with thousands of people applauding like a rock concert ...
... These are some premises of my journey.
writing them realize a need to handover between my inner journey that I have conducted so far, through preparation, the many readings, reflection, and a few meetings, the physical journey that will start tomorrow morning -And will be a different story.
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