Gatestone Institute..
06 February '17..
After returning from an awful weekend trip with a Christian youth group, I told my mother I wanted to stop going to church in the next town over and worship where we lived. "Nobody likes me over there," I said. Her response was direct and brutal: "Maybe they are not the problem. Maybe it is you."
It was a shock. Mothers are not supposed to talk that way to their 11-year-old sons (so I thought). In the years since, I have tried, with varying degrees of success, when in a difficult position, to look at the role I played in creating the circumstances I find myself in.
Maybe I have behaved in unlikable ways and need to stop. Life together with other people — with any measure of peace — requires a willingness to dispense with a false belief in one's innocence. We all tend to believe that nothing is ever our fault; more likely, we realize that many things are.
There are times when I wish my mother could remonstrate with the Palestinians intellectuals, many of them Christians, whom I meet in the course of my work. Listening to them talk, it often seems as if the difficulties they describe are solely the result of other people's acts. Most unsettling of all, however, is the willingness of Western peace and human rights activists to affirm this crippling narrative of innocence.
(Continue to Full Post)
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment