Doves and Hawks but No Pigeons

In a New York Times Obituary  it reports: “In Israel there was growing debate about how to reach an understanding —and peace — with the Arabs. Mrs. Meir noted that Israel had doves and hawks, but she had found no one who wanted to turn himself into a clay pigeon.”

The obituary goes on to further quote the late Golda Meir as saying: “There is nothing Israel wants so much as peace,” she added. “With all the bleakness of the desert, the desert of hate around us is even more bleak.”

As I reflect purely personally on (yet again) having a child in harms way “offline” I think these are sadly three truisms that sum up mood and my view of the challenge we find ourselves in and the need for us to cling together with a unity that is so crucial to our existence.

**There is nothing Israel wants so much as peace**
Just personally I am tired of a war I didn’t want to fight which had no need to happen, but which was the pure result of an act of the most almighty brutality. I want to live in “peace” and “quiet” with my neighbors and have my kids lead “normal” lives.

**“With all the bleakness of the desert, the desert of hate around us is even more bleak.”**
The spreading hatred is just so depressing and unfortunately so contagious. That millions march and protest in support, justification and acceptance of a cause triggered by what was sheer barbarity filmed live and truly not seen since the Dark Ages and accuse us of genocide in our defense and attempt to recapture those taken is as Golda Meir put it – bleak.

**Israel had doves and hawks, but she had found no one who wanted to turn himself into a clay pigeon**
But given this hatred and thirst for peace, we are united as a country and people in the fact that we are not going to allow our wholescale slaughter and that we must protect and guarantee the future of our people – one that has contributed and continues despite the war to contribute to the world in such disproportionate ways. We may disagree (vehemently at times) on the tactics but we will fight to survive as so beautifully echoed by Meir in the video linked in this post.

Lastly I will end with a quote from the late Golda: “We do not rejoice in victories,” she said. “We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.”

Today we may substitute strawberries and cotton for technology and scientific breakthroughs or the latest irrigation invention but that is what we rejoice over and I pray for the safety of my son, the children and loved ones of all who are fighting for our right to live, those held captive and all innocent lives put at harms way by the evil of those who propagate terror.

We may not rejoice, we may not want war BUT we are not clay pigeons and we will stand strong and hopefully unified.