War does not discriminate by Irit Umani

When I started this blog, in March of 2020, it was with the intention of offering a space that could provide mutual support at a time of global and personal crisis. It became a virtual location where many voices shared their experiences, fears, observations, thoughts. It feels, again, that this is a time for sharing in community. Tonight, my friend Irit writes from the deeply personal perspective of an American-Israeli who has committed her life to being a peace activist. Please email me if you have something you would like to share. Perhaps we can help each other navigate this painful new reality.

War does not discriminate by Irit Umani

The cruelty of the reality that is coming out of Israel is numbing. It’s not enough for me to say “heartbreaking,” because there actually are no words that we, human beings, have in our vocabulary to meet such realities. And there will, equally, be no words for what is yet to come and be witnessed, in the retaliation, in the revenge, that Israel is launching on Gaza.

At this horrific time I think that my predicament as an American-Israeli is quite different than the one of most of my friends here in the U.S. It’s why, right now, I am asking to not engage in political discussions about Israel-Palestine-Middle East. There will be time for this later. Not now.

Instead, I wish to make it very personal, as my contribution for most people who, naturally, watch the news here with a distance of not being directly affected.

My cousin in Israel, Mira, became a war widow in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago. Her, then very young, children became war orphans.

Now her daughter, Dror, is awaiting news, any word, about her husband, Shafik, who worked in that music festival-turned-slaughter field. He is either dead and not yet identified or a captive in Gaza. She is most likely a second-generation war widow.

My other cousin’s family lived in Kibbutz Be’eri, where at least 108 people, all civilians, were slaughtered, from babies to grandmas, in their homes. Thank God, one son, in a heroic and unimaginable act, managed to get them all out of the kibbutz—including a 90-year-old grandmother, his brother, sister, and all their children. They are traumatized beyond what even I can imagine. If they talk at all, it is about not seeing themselves ever going back to live in the homes in which they lived all their lives.

Amongst the captured, for example, is an elderly woman, from this same kibbutz, who was the main organizer of a program that, before this awful war, transported sick people from Gaza to Israeli hospitals for treatment. War does not discriminate between heroic peace activists and war-happy people.

With all this, I pray for the civilians in Gaza.

Yes, ONLY love, peace, and justice are humane.

My heart can barely hold itself.