I am very active on twitter. (I will not publicize my handle here just yet, though.)
This is mostly due to being bored at work, and there being wifi there, and a kind of insatiable need to engage with other people, see new perspectives, learn new things, and so on and so on.
Naturally, I am drawn to Middle East themed conversations. In doing so, I have met many varied and interesting people I NEVER would have met otherwise - like the 18 year old girl from Qatar who is studying to be a lawyer, a middle aged Palestinian in Ramallah, a mom living in England married to an Arab, but born a Jew, the Palestinian activist Gaza City, some of the Israeli reporters and bloggers I read, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist in Belfast, a liberal Buddhist born Amish (who believed Jews needed to "let go" of the holocaust and "move on" and stop hurting innocent Palestinians), and many other nice people as well. I have debated, discussed, argued, been insulted, insulted others, talked, learned, and taught.
The amazing Palestinian ability to rewrite history, both ancient and recent, is nothing short of amazing. There are legions of people out there who enthusiastically buy into lies, conspiracies, falsehoods, and brazen manufactured stories whose design is so transparent it is an insult to the listener/reader. You can't have a conversation with someone who isn't living in the same world as you!
And yet, insanely, we still try. "Atem k'ruyim Adam" - we are the paragon of human evolution, the vector and cutting edge of progress. And it is we who have learned to treat as human those who do not act it, who glorify the animalistic and death. We still beg to just talk, to engage, to create a world from words.
And yet, this scares the hell out of me. We're surrounded by these people, attacked by these people, demonized in the media by these people, and we grow weary of talking.
And our children - will they bother trying to talk? Or grow up believing there is no one to listen, so why bother?
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