My Jewish Mother, My Palestinian Father and a Family Torn Apart

 

"I find myself standing between bunkers, exposed to fire from both sides. I recently launched a novel, inspired by my parents and their brave attempt to rewrite tribal hatred. As the book hit the shelves, the bombs began to rain on Gaza. And as the blitz transformed into a ground offensive, every social media site began to run the kind of vitriolic, hate-filled attacks that dogged my childhood and eventually tore my parent’s marriage apart after 25 years of raising us in hope.

This conflict defies rational argument and bypasses understanding. Here are people so blinded by pain that they cannot recognise suffering in anyone else. Jews and Palestinians have spent so many years beating each other and being beaten that they have become nothing more than a bruise and a stick. Victimhood has become a national religion. The right to “self-defence” is a holy creed for both sides. And the impossible search for justice, the redemption of all the wrongs of history, has become a blind alley to salvation."

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My Jewish Mother, My Palestinian Father and a Family Torn Apart