If I could Escape....

Hey all,
I hope the holidays have been merry,
unfortunately they haven't been everyone....(But I'll get to that in a second)

Ok so, on to my newest adventure as promised:

I am returning to the Middle East, and am sooooooo excited about it! In May, around the 17th or thereafter, I will be traveling with a small group of students from the UW-Madison campus to Palestine! (Or as the U.S. government refers to it, Israel) Its a trip called Quest:Israel/Palestine, and it is being offered through a campus ministry called The Crossing. More info about the trip can be found here: http://www.crossingministries.org/content/view/101/118/

Even though its a trip funded through a religious faction, it has a completely one-hundred percent non-denominational agenda. Our purpose is to travel to the region and learn as much as we can about the conflict between Israel and Palestine and then share it all with everyone we can. Its a trip to learn and promote peace-building, and I couldn't have been more excited when I learned I had been accepted.

Of course all of this happened before the recent..err..developments, we'll call them, in Palestine, particularly Gaza. I'm not sure whether or not anyone else has been paying as close attention to the news surrounding this issue as I have but, jsut over Christmas, the supposed "cease-fire" between Israel and Hamas ended, and it went out with a BANG. In the course of the last weekend in December, Israel opened fire on Gaza. I won't go into much detail here, at least not yet, but hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been killed and many more are injured and fighting to stay alive. Israel still has the support of the United States, which I find the hardest to believe. But I won't try to sway your opinion as far as which side is right or wrong, or even if there is a right or wrong. The bottom line: both sides are now using HEAVY violence, and the death toll is rising at an alarming rate.

I'm still very excited to go to the region, but now coupled with that excitement is a certain anxiety I just can't seem to shake off...I am anxious to do my part, to do as much as I can to help this situation. I feel as if the presence and perserverance of American youth that doesn't just blindly support Israel because that's what our government tells us to do is in dire need right now. I have many friends, and new family members from my trip last summer that are closely affected by so-called "holocaust" in Gaza, and I can't help feeling that as I sit here in my nice, centrally-heated bedroom with my big screen TV on just a few rooms away, myu stomach full from a well-rounded dinner, I can't help but feel as if I should be doing more. As of right now, I'm trying to learn as much as I can, as much of the truth as current media will allow. I'm trying to read between the lines of propganda and bias and I'm trying to raise awarness, and make sure everyone I know knows that even if we just rang in the new year with smiles and a little too much champagne, there are others halfway across the world who are suffering more than we could ever imagine. So now, my blog has turned into an outlet, for all the pain I feel when I hear about the barber who's vocal chords were ripped from his throat as he closed up shop one day. It is now an outlet to everything new I learn about the conflict, every new article or news source I find, and any kind of discussion in between. My newest trip will take me what many would arguable call the most dangerous place one Earth right now, and while everyone else in my life says I should be running scared, I can't help but think that I can't get there fast enough.

So to all those who do care about me, this is it, this is what i need you to do. I need you to take a second off from your daily routine and think about the suffering that so many people in the MIddle East are going through right now. I need you to think of their pain and their loss and the violence with no feasable end in sight, and now, I need you to come back to reality, to your hybrid cars and well-paying jobs, to your season sports tickets and smoldering fireplaces, and educate yourselves. Don't trust everything U.S. media tells you, a lot of it is false, don't just read one articele from The New York Times or CNN and assume you have all the background you need to decide a position or judge the conflict in any way, never stop thirsting for knowledge from other sources, never stop putting your own life in harsh perspective...I need you all to do this, for me.....

I believe I've stated once before that only from knowledge can we change the world. That old saying that says "Ignorance is bliss" is the biggest lie of our time, Ignorance, is far from bliss, ignorance is violence and misunderstanding and resistance and intolerance and death. Knowledge is power, is change, is the key to unlocking the door to peace....

I wish I lived in a country who's government agreed with that sometimes....I'm not saying Israel is bad, and i'm not saying our government is wrong, I AM saying that the rest of the world needs to learn to open their hearts and their minds...soon....or there really will be no end in sight.