What a moving piece! Thank you for sharing. The kindness you received within two Arabic societies, Palestinian & Iraqi, mirror mine, minus the harrowing times. I have lived among Palestinians, and I know with what little some families & individuals had, they graciously shared with me. Palestinian hospitality & appreciation of me by my students will always remain some of my deepest memories.
Thank you for sharing such a personal story about kindness from those who have represented in the media as the opposite. Your experience there serves to show the truth about Palestinians.
I also have fond memories of Iraq and its people when, in the late eighties, my parents decided for us to spend Greek Easter there (my dad managed a mechanical/electrical engineering company, contracted to do the engineering for new university campuses across Iraq). I remember a great children's museum in Baghdad, the fun we had at the bazaar, a picnic at a lake surrounded by a palm tree forest, Easter mass at the Orthodox church, and unfailingly kind, generous people. When a couple of years later we watched the first Gulf War unfold on TV, we all had tears in our eyes. The Iraq we knew would be no longer.
I am a Greek Cypriot, and we have our own share of invasion, occupation, and war. I went to school at Berkeley, got married, and marched against the 2003 war with my (Jewish American) husband.
Over the years I got to travel, for business and pleasure, across the Middle East, learning a little Arabic along the way and making friends for life.
We were in Haifa 8 years ago and we were lost. Nobody would give us directions for some reason. I heard Arabic coming from a cafe, we walked in, and the Palestinian owners (Israeli citizens, I'm sure), delighted at my kid-level Arabic, gave us coffee and directions.
What is happening in Palestine is nothing less than devastating. Thank you for your incredibly informed perspective, and for sharing your experiences, and the unbelievably hard lives of the Palestinian people, with us.
Thank you for this: a reminder of the aspects of humanity of which we are capable, that are a part of us, in the face of witnessing so much of the other aspects of what we do.
Chris has honestly earned the expertise with which he speaks on the Middle East situation. Robert Fisk, the great Irish journalist, had similar experiences, and spoke of the history of the Middle East with the same empathy.
That Empire has turned Islamic people into our enemies is the long standing crime responsible for what is happening now in Gaza. It's past time we asked ourselves why we find it so easy to hate, so difficult to show the human kindness Chris experienced.
What brilliance. The truth changes with time - except with love and kindness. Human kindness always remains all-powerful. Think about who our so-called allies and enemies are: constantly changing, just like Big Brother and the forces of evil want. Do not let the war mongers take our souls. Fight them with love and kindness. Be human.
Touched my heart deeply. Where is this human kindness now😪 Thank You Chris Hedges💕 your personal story is what is desperately needed... we need to rise above the hate & remember our humanity☮️💜
Chris Hedges you are as always a beacon of hope and truth.
The kindness and generosity you speak of is well known among travelers. I remember a book by Paul Theroux about traveling throughout the Mediterranean. His experience with the Israeli authorities was, like my own, quite negative, but he had great fondness for the kindness and hospitality of his Palestinian hosts.
I suppose today we’re all considered anti-semites. You know, soon we’ll have to just let them squawk and let that term be used for people who refuse to hate.
October 6th was a criminal and indefensible act, but it was about freedom, not hatred. The invasion of Gaza is driven by hatred, racism, and greed. And it is, is in so many ways, anti-semitic.
What's going on over there - the Mid-East - dates back to Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. It's Biblical in Judaism, Christendom and Islam. It's not going to go away as long as those three religions are around.
Three days before 9/11, Archangel Michael asked me in my sleep if I would make a prayer for a Divine Intervention for all of humanity? I woke up, made the prayer. On 9/11, I was very concerned that President Bush would start another winless war overseas, like the Vietnam war. I never imagined he would start two such wars. A few days after 9/11, as I walked out of a U.S. Post Office, Michael told me, "America needs to get out of the Middle East altogether, and let Israel and Islam work it out, or fight out out, and that way learn which, if either, is God's chosen people."
I think there is plenty of fault on both sides for what is going on in Israel and Gaza today. I don't see how Hamas got so strong and dug into Gazza, without Palestinian help.
It's a shame, Britain, France, Norway, America and South America did not offer the World War II European Jewish refugees safe harbor. The Christian American right and left seem to have forgotten their country did that to those Jews back then. Had America received those Jews, maybe there would be no Israel today. Maybe a lot of wars in the Middle East would not have happened..
Thank you Chris. Kindness is the Dali Llama’s religion, he said. The solution is a one state solution with Truth and Reconciliation, as in South Africa: during the proceedings, a woman faced the policeman that killed her son. And she said to him “you killed my son.I need a son.I want you to be my son.” He burst into tears and assented. The minister who told us the story at a spiritual conference, said to us “you think you know forgiveness,you don’t know forgiveness until you can be like that woman”. Human beings are capable of such deep and spiritual being ness. We need more stories to tell us and give us the permission to know that happiness. That’s the only thing that will save us.
As I debate whether to continue subscribing to the Chris Hedges Report in Chris' favour for renewal .
I did my my usual metaphysical inquiry and found the guilty party in Gaza.
Lord Beaverbrook. I don't think many remember Lord Beaverbrook. He was ENGLISH and created Palestine and in 1939 he was central to Hitler's excuse for the Holocaust.
CBC TELEVISION 1960 Lord Beaverbrook and Gaza explained in under a half hour.
How insane is it to expect Lord Beaverbrook to solve the problem his idiocy caused in the first place. I was twelve when I watched this on television and je me souviens.
Does anyone else remember Brendan Behan? He wrote great plays about real Irish history and how foreign the Irish Americans were in Eire.
Thank you Chris I needed a wake up. I live in a 21st century secular humanist liberal democracy where we try to be christian in what do , not in what we say. I was thinking that it might be nice to spend a few hours in downtown St Johnsbury and pick up some books and enjoy a lunch with my partner of many years "She" was born in Gaza at the Vanderbilt Hospital in the heart of Gaza in 1938.
Like Chris I found the Palestinians warm and friendly and just like in St Johnsbury I found the local culture foreign and barbaric. I am a wandering Aramean like my brother Jesus and Jesus said the truth shall set you free.
We had a mass shooting in 1989
(In Queb3ec there is no such things as RACE, Gender and Religion. I was made welcome in Chicago Woodlawn and suburban Nashville but the people in Nashville's inner city were wary of this stranger.)
We had a mass shooting in 1989 when a gunman walked into our major engineering shool and shot a number of our best and brightest future engineers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The people of St Johnsbury are warm and friendly but I am a Jew and I must sleep with one eye open. I am 75 and only see with my left eye. It wasn't that long ago that St Johnsbury was Louisiana and put out its Gentiles Only signs. I know Chris remembers his childhood. Vermont was the reddest state in the Union and only saw through its right eye and then Bernie, Ben , Jerry and Paul Newman and turned Mississippi North into the healthiest, wealthiest and best educated neighbourhood in Gaza.
We used to have only Gentiles signs in Quebec I was born under anti Christian Roman/English theocracy and we have signs saying there is no such thing as gentiles, jews, males females, Islam, Christianity and Judaism because we love company and welcome the stranger.
In the Legends of the Jew Louis Ginzburg 1908 Jewish Publication Society talks about the destruction of the evil cities like Sodom and Gemorrah. In Judaism Sodom is destroyed not for its wickedness but for justifying the unjustifiable.
What a moving piece! Thank you for sharing. The kindness you received within two Arabic societies, Palestinian & Iraqi, mirror mine, minus the harrowing times. I have lived among Palestinians, and I know with what little some families & individuals had, they graciously shared with me. Palestinian hospitality & appreciation of me by my students will always remain some of my deepest memories.
Thank you for sharing such a personal story about kindness from those who have represented in the media as the opposite. Your experience there serves to show the truth about Palestinians.
I also have fond memories of Iraq and its people when, in the late eighties, my parents decided for us to spend Greek Easter there (my dad managed a mechanical/electrical engineering company, contracted to do the engineering for new university campuses across Iraq). I remember a great children's museum in Baghdad, the fun we had at the bazaar, a picnic at a lake surrounded by a palm tree forest, Easter mass at the Orthodox church, and unfailingly kind, generous people. When a couple of years later we watched the first Gulf War unfold on TV, we all had tears in our eyes. The Iraq we knew would be no longer.
I am a Greek Cypriot, and we have our own share of invasion, occupation, and war. I went to school at Berkeley, got married, and marched against the 2003 war with my (Jewish American) husband.
Over the years I got to travel, for business and pleasure, across the Middle East, learning a little Arabic along the way and making friends for life.
We were in Haifa 8 years ago and we were lost. Nobody would give us directions for some reason. I heard Arabic coming from a cafe, we walked in, and the Palestinian owners (Israeli citizens, I'm sure), delighted at my kid-level Arabic, gave us coffee and directions.
What is happening in Palestine is nothing less than devastating. Thank you for your incredibly informed perspective, and for sharing your experiences, and the unbelievably hard lives of the Palestinian people, with us.
Oh, Chris!! In the midst of mayhem, thank you for this true story.
Thank you for this: a reminder of the aspects of humanity of which we are capable, that are a part of us, in the face of witnessing so much of the other aspects of what we do.
Chris has honestly earned the expertise with which he speaks on the Middle East situation. Robert Fisk, the great Irish journalist, had similar experiences, and spoke of the history of the Middle East with the same empathy.
That Empire has turned Islamic people into our enemies is the long standing crime responsible for what is happening now in Gaza. It's past time we asked ourselves why we find it so easy to hate, so difficult to show the human kindness Chris experienced.
Thank you Chris, again. As usual, you are amazing and eloquent. Your goodness and humanity shine in this dark, dark place we are in.
What brilliance. The truth changes with time - except with love and kindness. Human kindness always remains all-powerful. Think about who our so-called allies and enemies are: constantly changing, just like Big Brother and the forces of evil want. Do not let the war mongers take our souls. Fight them with love and kindness. Be human.
Wonderful, Chris! Thank you.
Touched my heart deeply. Where is this human kindness now😪 Thank You Chris Hedges💕 your personal story is what is desperately needed... we need to rise above the hate & remember our humanity☮️💜
Chris Hedges you are as always a beacon of hope and truth.
The kindness and generosity you speak of is well known among travelers. I remember a book by Paul Theroux about traveling throughout the Mediterranean. His experience with the Israeli authorities was, like my own, quite negative, but he had great fondness for the kindness and hospitality of his Palestinian hosts.
I suppose today we’re all considered anti-semites. You know, soon we’ll have to just let them squawk and let that term be used for people who refuse to hate.
October 6th was a criminal and indefensible act, but it was about freedom, not hatred. The invasion of Gaza is driven by hatred, racism, and greed. And it is, is in so many ways, anti-semitic.
Nicely said and done, Chris.
What's going on over there - the Mid-East - dates back to Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. It's Biblical in Judaism, Christendom and Islam. It's not going to go away as long as those three religions are around.
Three days before 9/11, Archangel Michael asked me in my sleep if I would make a prayer for a Divine Intervention for all of humanity? I woke up, made the prayer. On 9/11, I was very concerned that President Bush would start another winless war overseas, like the Vietnam war. I never imagined he would start two such wars. A few days after 9/11, as I walked out of a U.S. Post Office, Michael told me, "America needs to get out of the Middle East altogether, and let Israel and Islam work it out, or fight out out, and that way learn which, if either, is God's chosen people."
I think there is plenty of fault on both sides for what is going on in Israel and Gaza today. I don't see how Hamas got so strong and dug into Gazza, without Palestinian help.
It's a shame, Britain, France, Norway, America and South America did not offer the World War II European Jewish refugees safe harbor. The Christian American right and left seem to have forgotten their country did that to those Jews back then. Had America received those Jews, maybe there would be no Israel today. Maybe a lot of wars in the Middle East would not have happened..
Thank you Chris. Kindness is the Dali Llama’s religion, he said. The solution is a one state solution with Truth and Reconciliation, as in South Africa: during the proceedings, a woman faced the policeman that killed her son. And she said to him “you killed my son.I need a son.I want you to be my son.” He burst into tears and assented. The minister who told us the story at a spiritual conference, said to us “you think you know forgiveness,you don’t know forgiveness until you can be like that woman”. Human beings are capable of such deep and spiritual being ness. We need more stories to tell us and give us the permission to know that happiness. That’s the only thing that will save us.
As I debate whether to continue subscribing to the Chris Hedges Report in Chris' favour for renewal .
I did my my usual metaphysical inquiry and found the guilty party in Gaza.
Lord Beaverbrook. I don't think many remember Lord Beaverbrook. He was ENGLISH and created Palestine and in 1939 he was central to Hitler's excuse for the Holocaust.
CBC TELEVISION 1960 Lord Beaverbrook and Gaza explained in under a half hour.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1871003349
How insane is it to expect Lord Beaverbrook to solve the problem his idiocy caused in the first place. I was twelve when I watched this on television and je me souviens.
Does anyone else remember Brendan Behan? He wrote great plays about real Irish history and how foreign the Irish Americans were in Eire.
Thank you Chris I needed a wake up. I live in a 21st century secular humanist liberal democracy where we try to be christian in what do , not in what we say. I was thinking that it might be nice to spend a few hours in downtown St Johnsbury and pick up some books and enjoy a lunch with my partner of many years "She" was born in Gaza at the Vanderbilt Hospital in the heart of Gaza in 1938.
Like Chris I found the Palestinians warm and friendly and just like in St Johnsbury I found the local culture foreign and barbaric. I am a wandering Aramean like my brother Jesus and Jesus said the truth shall set you free.
We had a mass shooting in 1989
(In Queb3ec there is no such things as RACE, Gender and Religion. I was made welcome in Chicago Woodlawn and suburban Nashville but the people in Nashville's inner city were wary of this stranger.)
We had a mass shooting in 1989 when a gunman walked into our major engineering shool and shot a number of our best and brightest future engineers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The people of St Johnsbury are warm and friendly but I am a Jew and I must sleep with one eye open. I am 75 and only see with my left eye. It wasn't that long ago that St Johnsbury was Louisiana and put out its Gentiles Only signs. I know Chris remembers his childhood. Vermont was the reddest state in the Union and only saw through its right eye and then Bernie, Ben , Jerry and Paul Newman and turned Mississippi North into the healthiest, wealthiest and best educated neighbourhood in Gaza.
We used to have only Gentiles signs in Quebec I was born under anti Christian Roman/English theocracy and we have signs saying there is no such thing as gentiles, jews, males females, Islam, Christianity and Judaism because we love company and welcome the stranger.
In the Legends of the Jew Louis Ginzburg 1908 Jewish Publication Society talks about the destruction of the evil cities like Sodom and Gemorrah. In Judaism Sodom is destroyed not for its wickedness but for justifying the unjustifiable.
Manicheanism is Persian and most unChristian.
Bill 21 minutes away from downtown Gaza.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bill-21
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/polytechnique-tragedy
For those that read and don't understand my English I apologize.
My only excuse is my wide spectrum autistic disorder and the genius they said I* possessed in linguistics 70 years ago.
Manicheanism the belief in a universe of B+W.
It is not the story of the good defilers of the temple.
Beautiful, Chris! I wish I cud say something in Arabic!!
Why can’t all humans coexist peacefully?! May God, Allah, Yahweh have mercy on Humanity!