Protestors in clown makeup march in Tel Aviv Saturday

Protesters march in Tel Aviv to mark 42 years of occupation

By Ofri Ilani

Tags: Israeli Occupation


Protesters held a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday to mark 42 years since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Around 1,000 demonstrators marched in the rally, which led from Rabin Square to the Tel Aviv museum.

MK Nitzan Horovitz (Meretz) addressed the crowd, calling on Israel to stop settlement building and heed calls by U.S. President Barack Obama to restart the peace process.
"The negative reactions to Obama's initiatives are only coming from Al Qaida and [Israeli right-wing party] the National Union," Horovitz told the crowd, adding "this is the time to end the occupation."

Head of the far left Hadash party Mohammed Barakeh also addressed the demonstration.


____________________________
I was running yesterday (finally) and I decided to not run on the tiyalet near the beach and to explore a little more. As I'm about 10 minutes into my run I find this protest that is written about in the above article. From what I could understand from the Hebrew I could tel it had something to do with Palestinians but it was a little unclear to me. It was by far one of the stranger things I have seen in awhile. Of course my curiosity made me stop and get as close to the drumming protesters as possible. I squeezed through the crowd and around the camera guy and peered in through a couple of strangely dressed Israelis and the many clowns standing around me. My first thought was why the hell are there clowns here. I thought to myself that maybe it was some sort of entertainment for a good minute but the chantting and drumming squandered that thought. As i stood there I was sweating up a storm because Tel Aviv has become absurdly hot these days, but still I stood and became the curious bystander. About 5 minutes in the police started coming in and later I noticed there was a row of army guys standing there too. As the Police tried to break up the circle of drummers and chanters a couple guys start yelling in English "Fuck the Police." Beyond this experience being quite thrilling i decided this was my cue to keep on running. I stood and observed for a few more minutes trying to figure out what i was observing and kept running. About two seconds a way was a whole crowd of people , young and old, Israelis, Jewish and non Jewish it appeared holding up the colors that represent Palestine. A guy was yelling something through a microphone coming out of his beat up truck.

I always have wanted to be part of a protest but i guess a observer is close enough at the moment. Although until this morning I had no idea what i was observing or that the the buildings I was standing near were government,army buildings. The question I pose though is , How exactly being dressed as clowns fit into this whole picture and have to do with the occupation?

And the whole country ran for cover....or not.

JPost.com » Israel » Article

Jun 2, 2009 0:44 | Updated Jun 2, 2009 20:53
Sirens sound in home front drill
By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JUDY SIEGEL, JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP

Air raid sirens sounded across the country at 11 a.m. on Tuesday as part of a week-long, country-wide war drill dubbed "Turning Point Three."

Home Front official on Turning Point 3
When the sirens went off, citizens made their way to designated safe rooms, while schoolchildren were led to bomb shelters and shown a 20-minute film on safety procedures.

Israel never ceases to amaze me on the out of the ordinary things that occur here. A full out country wide drill occured today. When i was first warned about it i thought it was a joke. But no. This really happened. at 11 am exactly today I was walking around the art street with my friend Julia when the alarm went off. The day before i had asked, "What do i do if i'm on the street" the consistent response was do what everyone else does... Well the alarm goes off, julia and i look around to see what everyone is doing and well the answer is nothing. Everyone just went on with there buisness like it was no big deal. And why is there a country wide drill? for the chance that there could be a full out attack on Israel. a little scary wouldn't you say?

Now this is something to write home about.. "Dear mom and Dad, Today i particpated in a country wide drill to practice what to do if the country is under attack.. Don't worry because I actually don't know what to do because during the drill no one ran anywhere."

My niece told me she had to hide under desk during the drill and my brother ran to a bomb sheltor. As i said...israel just never ceases to amaze me. in a good way and odd way sometimes.

The Bubble

10 Reasons to Love Tel Aviv....
-time out israel-

1. there are draconian laws against smoking which nobody seems to know about

2. you can buy rolling paper, bongs and God knows what else at the corner store

3. its easier to find passion fruit smoothie than a parking spot

4 there is a gay beach right next to a religious beach and g-d doesn't seem to mind

5. the prostitutes, policemen, street cleaners and convenience store owners are all... jewish

6. you can bring your dog to a gourmet resturant

7. the city's official language changes to french every summer

8. every taxi driver feels the need to tell you about his brother, the millionaire in the usa

9. who knew that people actually play paddleball

10. rabbis driving around and dancing to loud trance music are the city's biggest noise violation



p.s i didn't write this, i just read it somewhere. the reality is that half of it is true......tel aviv is like no other part of israel.

The wandering Jew

- Passover Chofesh in Amsterdam...

I was at the jewish heritage museum in Amsterdam and I heard this quote and I wanted to share it...

""There is no Orthodox, there is one Judiasm that we all experience in different ways..."

I've come to the conclusion that there might not be a day where the whole world agrees on the same thing. When an entire group of people can't even agree on the same topic then at what point do we all meet in the middle? I think that while disagreement can at times make one grow, it can cause distruction because everyone wants to think they are right. But, if everyone is right then who is wrong?

I'm on my Passover Vacation right now in Israel. Wait what? Passover Vacation... Thats a new one. Usually i'd be on my "Easter Vacation" but i'm in the Jewish State and here, theres no easter vacation. I actually forgot about easter until I was in Amsterdam and started seeing chocolate eggs everywhere.

Why is Passover different here then in every other part of the world? Why is it special to be here in israel on passover now, rather then any other time of the year? Why today do we eat matzah and not bread? Why do sephardic jews eat beans but ashkenazic jews not? Why do we have one sedar in Israel and not two? Why do I question everything this week and not last week?...

Passover in Israel... Special Round matzah that costs a fortune. Stores that cover up their shelves with white paper that says חמץ... Long vacation for all students... 48 hours of no public transportation... Where kosher could refer to more then one type. Are you sephardic kosher or are you ashkenazic kosher? Is your kosher kosher enough? What label kosher do you buy?

It was sad to not be with my family on Passover but i was with my brother, sister in law and nieces. To answer why its special to be in israel for passover instead of other parts of the world... Because there is a point you say "Next time in Jerusalem." and where was I ...Jerusalem! We jews walked 40 years through the desert to get here, along the way we received the torah...and here I am... years later spending passover in Israel. Now... i'm only 23 years old, so unlike those who left egypt, i didn't spend 40 years wandering the desert to get here...but I did spend 23 years of my life searching for the right path to get here. As much as I missed my family, sometimes it takes different experiences to realize what you beleive in and what kind of experiences you want to have in the future.

For everything else...
The weather in Israel is great... I feel like its Summer in Michigan. Question is..What will the weather be like in the next month in Tel Aviv? Summer in Israel is not really my cup of tea. I spent the first week of my break in Amsterdam and when I came back I realized I need to relax, so i've been hanging out in Afula. Sometimes its nice to not run around trying to catch buses, but rather lay out on a patch of grassy knoll with erica and catch some sun. Who needs the beach, i probably wouldn't have gone in the water anyways.

On Thursday I am moving to Tel Aviv and living with Dana and i'm really excited!

The wandering Jew

"Let your beat go on forever,
They say we are made to live as one
Let this need to fear eachother, Not be passed on to my son
let your beat go on forever
let your fears down rivers run
Let the silence be the music, when the words are said and done..."


Purim: Israel is the only place in the world that all children get a 3 day vacation for. It is the only place where purim, as far as I know is celebrated for a whole week or even better... a entire month. Is the only place where I have seen the most creative creations for costumes in my 23 years of life. Purim I have come to find is by far one of the more interesting holidays. Can't say i completely understand the whole idea behind it, but i guess its a mitzvah to drink until you have lost all senses.
Should i feel guilty that I did not get into the holiday that much, perhaps. I did a few things for it. Afula had this huge carnival/ fair in the center of the city and i was pretty in awe with it. I did not dress up though. It is not that I do not like to party, but i guess since i never celebrated puriim before this year I found it hard to get into it. It was fun to see everyones costumes though, the city really got into and it was kind of exciting to see. I felt like i really was experiencing something in Israel that I could not see in the United States. To Tell you the truth, Purim here is way cooler then Halloween at home.

Considering I work with only children, I was surprised with a 3 day, which turned into a 4 day vacation! Happy Purim to me! Vacation for purim? Thats new to me.
I made pretty good use of my vacation execept for the actual day of purim, where apparently I did not receive the mitzvah of hearing the migillah reading...woops.

Monday Jess and I took a little tiyul (trip) to go hike up Mount Tevor. It was a beautiful day and I'm so happy I decided to go. I need something like that in my life to make me feel like i'm not wasting my time here. I guess we did not anticipate the diffiuculty of the hike, because it was hard and well... i'm out of shape. Everything about it the was beautiful, it is these kind of trips that make me realize and remember how much i love Israel. There is something really refreshing about open space, fields, nature and mountains. Somehow this supposed 30 minute hike took two hours or more. We took the wrong the path and were kind of wandering around the mountain for awhile. As we got closer to the end what did we find, well a heard of wild cows....and their children. Now how often do i walk around michigan and find random wild heards of cows? pretty much...never. Being pretty uneducated about wild cows, jess and i decided we should find out if it was ok to go near them. There was no way to keep going with out being inches away. So we called my friend who informed us that no...wild cows are not dangerous and to just not pet them.

By the time we got to the top of the mountain i was exhausted, we skipped the church at the time and hitched a ride with a sherut going back down with some catholic people from england, here for a pilgramage of sorts. They were absoltutly appaled that we didn't go to the church. We get to the bottom and a group of nigeran tourists try to push their way on to the sherut. Apparently they didn't understand you have to let people off first, so i'm trying to get off this bus and they are pushing me as they shove their way on. A little fact for the day....The nigerian government pays for it citizens to come to Israel once in their lifetime. The rumore has it that they make a lot of money from oil that pays for this. Is this true? don't entirely know.

Today! I took my first small road trip in Israel. It was quite exhilirating. I went with erica and rehut, her host sister and it was a lot of fun. Its a rare occasion that i go long distances in an actual car. I sometimes wonder if i can even still drive after 6 months of not stepping into the drivers side of the car. ERica and I had interviews at save a childs heart and then spent the rest of the day at the beach. Today was also a beautiful day!

Recently I watched this movie called the Bubble....First I want to say i recemend it. Second, i have been thinking about the title. The Bubble. It takes place in tel aviv, and in some ways I can see the idea behind it being a bubble. To come from Afula to Tel aviv in one day, you almost your not living in the same country. Life in Tel Aviv always just continues on, with no realization of life outside of the city. you could live in Tel aviv and barely know whats going on in the south Near gaza, or in the north...

"Are you making Alliyah?".....

Life happens when your busy making other plans ~John Lennon~

A crossroad has been reached after more then a half of year of life in Israel. I beleive I have gone through every emotion I could have gone through being here. From absolute happiness to wishing I was on a plane to go home last week. During October I recall thinking I had fallen in Love with Israel and I as i faced the many challenges of living here I think that feeling has grown stronger. There were times i wished i could just go home for 5 minutes and see all my friends and for daily life to be simple again. But with anything or anyone you love, there is obstacles that you face. You become angry with them, they make you sad and confused but at the end of the day you still love them and feel connected. Thats how I feel about Israel.


Now is a point in the year where I have to make decisons. Do I go along with my orginal plan I had when i signed up to come here or do I make a bold and maybe unwise move and change everything. This is where the crossroad comes in, what kind of decision do i make. My brother once told me about this concept that humankind is the only species on earth that has the ability to think about the future. There is a part of the brain that has the ability to daydream about the future and think about will happen. With this though, sometimes the things that you think you want in the future are really the things you want right now in the present. In the future I would like to travel the world, but the reality is I wish I was traveling the world right now.

And as John Lennon once said, "Life happens while your busy making other plans." Now I have reached this crossroad and need to make a choice. There is nothing I can do about going home in July because my cousin is getting married but I don't really want to go. As thoughts of next year consume me, I have realized I need to remember that quote. While I sit here making my future plans, life goes by and you forget to look at the mountains as you drive by them. Or you speed walk through a crowd of people with out noticing their faces. Think about how much your actually missing when your constantly thinking about the future. It is ok to think about tomorrow, but it is also important to take in whats happening today. To take advantage of the good things in front of you.

I have a long time until I have to go home but time flies. It seems like yesterday that I moved out of Be'er Sheva but it was 3 month ago. It seems like a week ago that I moved to Israel but it has already been 6 months! I wish in some ways I could have both of each worlds. That I could go back to the United States but then come back here to try living here. OTZMA is great but I do not think its real life at all. My life style here is just not normal. I go to work every day but it is very different then working at home. I don't have a car, I don't pay bills and actually I do not get paid. Would I still love Israel as much if I was just a regular person and no longer the "מתנדבת" (volunteer). Life is just not a program.

With that... 6 new things that have become a part of my life since I left the United States
1. I light shabbos candles now with my roommates
2. I celebrate holidays that I never have celebrated before in the States
3. I found a love for art and drawing and it has become a important part of my life
4. I have become really good at boggle and catch phrase
5. I know longer speak just english...but i'd call in Heblish. Why? Because I find that when I'm speaking english I somehow subconciously add in hebrew words. like, כן, לא, מה נשמה?, אני לא יודעת, נכון...etc
6.

Yalla...

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And If I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?" -Pirket Avot

ONE
They all seem to think that they are obeying the call of duty

Don't they k now that the only duties to be called up are
Ghandhi's doctrine
John Lennon's "imaginge"
Bob Marley's, "Redemption"

Haven't they figured out that we are all One
and the same like
The Trinity
The Star of David
The pilgrimage to Mecca

Don't they know that there is only One who cradles us,
but communicates to us in different scriptures.

Why don't they know?

---- taken from... Yalla----

What I have Mono???!!!

Actually I don't have mono, but when you can't communicate with your doctor these are the conclusions that come of it.

I am beginning to realize what kind of barriars and struggles are created from people not knowing the same language universally. Going to the Docter should be a simple task right? It should not be so hard to understand your docters diagnosis but now what if that diagnosis is in a different language and your unable to understand completely what they say? Now this is a problem, and a problem that i experienced the other day.

I started being sick on Monday, and tuesday i diagnosised myself as better to be mistakenly wrong when around 4 or 5 pm my temprature shot up to 102.5 degrees Farenheight. In israel I have to cal my insurance company before I can go to the docter, which i did. There were no docters in Afula that i could go to so I decided to have a docter ordered to come to my home in the student dorms. One of the werider things i've experienced here. In the States I have never heard of ordering a docter to your home.

So here is the other problem...You have (or i had) a 102.5 fever but your docter only knows celcious and is unable to understand the significance of your fever. Not only that I didnt' know how to convert to celcious. So thats the first big barrair. I come from a country that wants to be special by being the only country that uses Farenheight.

Lastly, The docter comes in and I ask if she speaks english (in hebrew) and she says (in hebrew) I speak only russian and hebrew. Well obviously I dont speak russian, and although i can speak hebrew, i do not do well in high stress situations or when i'm not feeling good. She starts checking me, can't figrue out what 102.5 *F means and then procedes to diagnosis and treat me in only hebrew. Being flustered I have no idea what she is telling me. I mean this is a huge problem. I'm sick and the docter sent to me is telling me there is something wrong and I can't understand her because we speak different languages. Finally i get hillary to translate to me and in confusion I think the docter is telling me i have mono!! So then i get upset because i'm thinking how can the docter know this , she barely checked me. But then hillary says the docter says i have a throat disease. At this point i'm very upset, because she uses the word disease and thats a scary word. In the end it turns out i have a throat virus but how can you trust the diagnois from a person you can only understan through the translation of your roomate?? Very frustrating.

I have never been so frusrated to not be fluent in hebrew. But in a time of need all you wish for is that people just spoke your language. I guess thats what i get for deciding to move to a country where i'm not fluent in the language. Now i have something to laugh about later....

A world where bomb sheltors become the playground...

For the ones that do not know and still read this... I do not live in Be'er Sheva anymore. As of one month ago i live in a small town called Afula. Or as the Israelis call it, "The hole at the end of the ruler." it is like no other place I have ever lived before and from outside of where I live you can see mountains, or hills. Literally i live in the middle of no where, theres no night life here and not much to do at all. Today we discovered a small take out place that has sushi. My four roomates are Hillary from conneticut, Erica from Flordia and Jessica who is also from Michigan. We live in student dorms for the college Emeq israel and we live with 200 students. We haven't met everyone but we have made some friends.

I volunteer in 4 different places. Twice a week i work in a community center, twice a week i work with a program called ATIDIM and i am going to teach debate to high school students to help them with there english. Two mornings a week i go to another city called Mgdal Hemit and I volunteer in a high school with Jessica. We work in the english center and we also are teaching different lessons to students. Then once a week i go with jessica to Nazrait Illit and we work in a elementary school. I find it pretty rewarding and i like it better then when i was in be'er sheva but sometimes i still think i should be doing more.

Right now all otzma particpants are in the cities they should be in , accept asqkelon just moved to their city yesterday. I found out they were worken up this morning at 7 am by a siren and had to run for cover. If i heard right the rocket hit so close they could feel the imact from when it hit the ground. Kind of scary and i'm wondering what will happen with them. I think they are taking a chance by being there because its hard to tell what is going to happen and exspecially after the israeli elections on tuesday if anything is going to happen.

Speaking of elections...I was in jerusalem this past weekend i saw the most ridiculous thing. Since the elections are on Tuesday there are posters all over the place with the canadiates pictures on them. Right now Tzipi livni is running for kadima so she has her picture all over the place, and even though its just a drawing somebody took paint and drew all over her face so you couldn't see it.


Yesterday I got back from a 5 day seminar called "Conflict and Hope." We spent the entire five days discussing the conflict in Israel, the occupation of the West Bank and the war in Gaza. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the last 5 days but they were very signficant to my OtZMA experience. I began to realize how much I don't know, and i dont know if i'd say it changed my perspective but i left feeling a little bit more pestimistic then i was before. So where the hope comes in , i'm not sure. But i learned a lot that made me lose a lot of faith in the world. I left feeling saddened that people could hate eachother so much. And I wish i knew what it is that i could to do to create change. I used to think all change was possible but I think this is a time that i dont feel confident saying that.

Since I do not know how describe it to you.. i'm going to leave you with quotes i wrote down from people and thoughts i wrote down throughout the weekend. In hopes you can get a small perspective to what was going on and how it was signficant.. I spent time in jerusalem but i spent shabbos in a small settlement in the west bank called Tackoa and then i spent sunday in Sderot.

Jan 29th Thursday
Topic: The Israeli Arab Conflict - Intro and Backround
on the subject of land for peace..
"Two withdrawls Gaza and from a security area in Lebanaon, has led to attacks back on israelis..."

Topic: The zionist attitude Towards Arabs Prior to 1948 in Israel

Topic: When fighers turn pacifist and their vision of Peace
Speaker: Combantants for peace
* Two speakers, one a past member of fatah who was caught trying to plan a car bomb and a past israeli soilder who was kicked out of his unit when he refused to serve in the west bank

Jan 30th Land vs Peace
Topic Land vs Peace? A perspective from the Left
Speaker: Peace Now
Peace now beleives that without negotiations on Jerusalem there will not be peace and is for a 2 state solution

Topic: Land vs. Peace: a perspective from the Right in the West Bank
Speaker: Eve harrow
"When it comes to religion all rationality goes out the door
"They Say : we hate israel because they took our land.."
Israel gives back land for peace and then nothing comes out of it
"Should people still be considered refuggees generations later? Why should refugee status be passed down. That means all jews kicked out of their country are refugees too"

Topic: Foreign Press Coverage of the conflict and life on the other side of the green line
"Foreign medias predisposed to the favor of the palistinians"
"When your sitting abroad watching foreign news your not seeing the human side"

Feb 1st- Sderot
* Why do we have to wait for kindergarden to be hit by a missile full of childeren, to get international support.."
"what does it mean to have 15 seconds to run for your life?"







Thoughts from Jan 30 - Feb 2nd
Given the backround of the conflict and the perspectives of different peace group and individuals...

The situation is more complex then I imagined. yesterday we saw that a palestinatn and israeli could be friends even though they differed on certain perspectives.
Why don't people realize that hate is bred on both sides, whether ones more extreme then the other is, its still hate. And with hate the situation doesn't cease to exhist.

Jan 30 -31st Day in the West bank/ shabbot in Tackoa
"Today I traveled in a bullut proof bus into the west bank..."
The only thing that made me realize I was somewhere out of the ordinary was that people were caring guns around with them. When i thought settlement, Tackoa was not what i had pictured in mind. Its a beautiful place, with nice homes and friendly people.
I don't think I know enough to give an objective opinon the conflict. I can't decide who is right or who is wrong. These people here don't seem violent or crazy, they just seem like normal people who want to live their life on land that israel captured during war. Isn't that how war works? But then i think about the occupation.. and as another speaker said "With land comes people.." So what about the other side, why should they be forced to live their life under occupation? maybe some want to live i peace too..

I find myself becoming more pestimistic and losing my faith in the world, the more exposed I am to the hate and to the stories of violent acts driven by hatred.
Today we heard a speaker who told his personal story about the death of his son. In 2001, 2 14 year old boys were stoned to death in a cave near Tackoa by palestinians. So brutal they were not recognizable. What kind of person can justify this?

Where is there an end? Will there be an end? How can they even meet in the middle? When hate is present can there be peace? What comes first, comprimise or learning to like eachother and get along?

...and you begin to lose hope when the side that is supposed to work together can't even agree with eachother...

Feb 1 - Sderot
...Its crazy to think that right now i am looking over from sderot to Gaza. Think i'm looking over to a place full of suffering but a place where people are planning attacks on the very land i'm standing on right now. All i can see are buildings ut I know these buildings represent greif, teror, suffering, hatred, conflict, saddness..."

------
"The moent you go back and you realize as jews wea re family and not just friends then you'll realize יהיה בסדר (it will be ok)."

• Statistics of Kassam rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip

Total rocket attacks:

Since the first rocket fell on Israel on 16 April 2001: 4,067
Since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005: 3,484
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007: 2,046
Last year (2008): 1,571

Mortar bomb hits since April 2001: 4,183


Here are my thoughts. Imagine a person stood next to you and continuously poked you every day for 8 years. How would that make you feel? Imagine you kept telling them to stop but they kept doing it, should you be able to react? This is a horrible comparison, now change this to, imgaine someone was shooting rockets into your back yard for 8 years. Three to ten times a day a siren goes off and y ou have to run to a bomb sheltor, or all of your children, including you suffer from post tramatic stress syndrome. Not only that but now your children have to go to school in the bomb sheltor, how would that make you feel?

It has been three weeks since the war in the south started. With a cease fire declared, hamas still continues to shoot rockets into Israel. The question i'm continuously asked is , "What do you think about the War in Gaza" or what they also tried to call it "the operation." Luckily i moved out of Be'er Sheva a couple weeks before everything started, but why did the idea of rockets hitting there still make me feel very unsettled and terrified. After three months living somewhere you make connections, and the people being affected begin to have faces, emotions and life. I beleive that Israel made the right decision to finally stand up for themselves, and let Hamas know that rocket fire across the border is unacceptable. As a country, and a nation, they have the right to live in peace. At the same time, a lot of suffering occured in Gaza and it shouldn't be ignored. Was the suffering because of Israel or is it because Hamas leaders were letting their citizens suffer. All the blame shouldn't be put on israel because it shouldn't be forgotten that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Being here during all this I think has given me a perspective that i never would have had otherwise. I have never lived in a country at war before, but from every experience you learn and grow and begin to understand the world a little bit better. When everything started I was in Istanbul with three friends. Before I even knew, Dana and I stood and watched a protest in the middle of Taxim Square but with everything in Turkish we didn't know what it was about. When we went back to our hostel we asked the hostel manager what the protest was about. In his words, "Crazy Israel, killed 160 children." and the protest was people protesting against israel. Later i found out this was not true, but i was horrified. I kept thinking to myself, how could israel do that. Even to find out that the guy had be mistaken did not make me feel less unsettled. Why? Purely because he had such a distorted view of what happened. For three weeks after that i began to learn how effective the media is at not giving all the news and only telling part of a story. If Hamas had anything, they had the ability to use the media to their advantage. All i was hoping that somehow people could hear the real story, understand the reasons behind the IDF's deployment into Gaza. Instead what i saw was protests across the world against Israel and a rise of anti semitism.

I hope that everything really does begin to calm down but I am happy that i am here still. A lot of people wanted to know if i was staying, but it would have been ridiculous for me to go home. In the States i would have felt disconnected to the war and i would have not had the chance to talk with israeli citizens about their feelings and their opinions. It is experiences like that , that i think has shaped my perspective, and see as this a really crucial aspect of my life.