It Begins again

I am here, still away from work, watching the new year begin.

It has been cold here. We were with friends and ate blueberries. We were safe and warm.

The next day the stock market went up as a sign of hope.

Today Israel marched into Gaza as a sign that nothing has changed there for sixty years, really for three thousand years.

From this distance it is difficult to tell what exactly keeps those people so entrenched in their "My Way or Death" positions. The Israelis have treated the Palestinians terribly. The Palestinians have never accepted Israel. The large majority of both populations are caught in the middle, until hostilities break out and then they cling to their side. They fight for power and pride, fostered by some kind of religious justification.

For someone in my profession, who labors for hours to help one person relieve their anxiety, it is difficult to watch hundreds of people be blown out of existence during a ten minute air-raid. But this kind of thing is not new to the world. That is what becomes so discouraging as we age,

Never give an eighteen year-old a weapon and visions of glory for using it. But every culture does. So it goes on.

The issues were too complex for President Bush, who believed in right or wrong. Perhaps a new administration, with more ideas, can bring the pressure of the whole world to bear on this conflict.

If the world can truly be different, the changes have to begin right there. Perhaps that is why it is happening now, just to show where the bleeding starts.