Compassion and courage by Irit Umani

I am preparing to travel to Israel later this week. I keep a vision that while I am there, instead of experiencing, yet again, seeking shelter while missiles fly overhead, I will experience the release of all hostages and an end to the war on Gaza. I plan to join the weekly demonstrations calling for this, about which we hardly read in the media. Amen to this vision becoming a reality.

It is reported that Hamas, vicious and criminal as it is, offered the release of ALL hostages in ONE event in exchange for a five-year ceasefire. I cannot understand why the government is not rushing full speed to sign such an agreement. Alas, Netanyahu’s survival in power is dependent on the extreme right-wing faction of his coalition, which will topple the government and call for an election if he were to sign such an agreement. 

I can’t comprehend what kind of a soul, mind, heart has a chance to save the lives of its citizens — in cruel captivity for over a year and a half — and thousands of Gazans, and chooses to not do so, even at a cost of his individual desire to remain in political power. I don’t get it. I don’t get how he sleeps at night, or even breathes. 

The power that I still have is to keep a vision and a prayer that compassion, and the courage to love peace above all, will prevail.

Here, in these United States, I was informed in the last few days, with all of us, of a four-year-old citizen with stage 4 cancer being deported to Honduras. I find no words.