"Those People"

I often hear people make comments about Palestinians in blanket terms. Lots of "they all" or "those people" believe this or that. Sometimes the comment isn't even about Palestinians--it's a blanket comment about all Arabs...or all Muslims but they invoke the word "Palestinian" to give some kind of legitimacy to their comment. Don't even get me started about how these folks are throwing the semantics right into the Cuisinart...As if a Palestinian was the same as a Kuwaiti, and a Kuwaiti was interchangeable with a Tunisian; which of course makes a Tunisian the same as an Indonesian.

The fact is one can be an Arab without being Muslim. One can be a Muslim without being an Arab. One can be a Palestinian without wanting to strap a bomb belt on and march into a Sbaro. But I don't think that one can be a Palestinian and not feel the pain of Occupation. I'm not even Palestinian and my heart breaks a little more each day with the things that I see.

Below is a poem that I really liked. It's a conversation between two types of people who share the same pain.

You & I
By Mahmood Jamal

You want to speak of War
I want to speak of Peace

You say Punish
I say Forgive

You speak of God’s Wrath
I speak of His Mercy

Your Qur’an is a Weapon
My Qur’an is a Gift

You speak of the Muslim Brotherhood
I speak of the Brotherhood of Man

You like to Warn others
I like to Welcome them

You like to speak of Hell
I like to speak of Heaven

You talk of Lamentation
I talk of Celebration

You worship the Law
I worship the Divine

You want Silence
I want Music

You want Death
I want Life

You speak of Power
I speak of Love

You search out Evil
I warm to the Good

You dream of the Sword
I sing of the rose Petal

You say the world is a Desert
I say the world is a Garden

You prefer the Plain
I prefer the Adorned

You want to Destroy
I want to Build

You want to go Back
I want to move Forward

You are busy Denying
I am busy Affirming

Yet there might be one thing
On which we see eye to eye

You want Justice
So do I

You can choose how to view the world: with optimism and faith or pessimism and doubt.