the pages of the book turn, the color may change, the names may change too. what stays the same is the words. Starting my day, I was told how could you start smiling and singing. Not before long, a soldier managed to turn this around. "why don't you cancel your people because its better for my people. I was shocked to hear it so spelled out. I can not by excusing him because I know he's a human being. on the way back, another soldier said he wants to ask us a personal question. With humor, I said sex? 3 times a day. He frowned to that and said"I'm a religious and don't like this. I then asked so if you're religious, you don't have sex; he replied with no. he then asked: out of all this big world why did you chose to come to Nablus? my colleague replied: we where in tubas. so he elaborated where you're from, my colleague said: Jerusalem. So you're Palestinian. So there's not Jerusalem.
he considered me retorted after my reply. he emphasized that there's many nice places and why come to Palestinian, ugly areas.
having faced this blunt hatred in one day worried me. it seems like old, familiar tendencies are reviving. so what's next? I wonder. most behaviors, massacres, etc start with being ideas, generalizations, dehumanization and bluntly. if we know this from history, and where it leads to, where is our responsibility in calling it what it is? there's clearly a mob mentality amounts Israelis that is aggressive and ligitimises racism. yes, we know these signs from previous historical disasters.
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