Hani and Haggai

5.23.02 INT. FITZPATRICK ENGINEERING CLUSTER 1:30pm DAY

today i worked with a Pales­tin­ian and an Israeli; Hani and Hag­gai respec­tive­ly. they got along fine, speak­ing ara­bic and jok­ing around. if they can do it why can’t all of the oth­ers? fight­ing for your beliefs is one thing, fight­ing anoth­er per­son because of their beliefs is infi­nite­ly decon­struc­tive. its vic­to­ry is anni­hi­la­tion leav­ing noth­ing behind but ash­es. they joked about the mid­dle-east and debat­ed in a respectable man­ner. no hints of vio­lence. the media influ­ence makes it seem that mid­dle-east­ern­ers are all exces­sive­ly vio­lent exotics that are only a con­cern of ours because they sup­ply us with oil. they are just like us white mid­dle-class. i like them both. they like each oth­er. no need for killing. its nice.

but

the vio­lence is real for them, Hani is from Nazareth, Hag­gai from Tel Aviv (i think). they have lived in the midst of a war that has been going on since Israel was formed as a state. in fact the recent bat­tles are just the con­tin­u­a­tion of a war thou­sands of years old. vio­lence is com­mon­place. i can’t imag­ine…