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gabrielib

To Israel? Now?

Yes. To Israel, now. Today, fifty days since the barbarity, and amidst a ceasefire that holds as best it can. I have felt the need to cross the Mediterranean to do many things that I really enjoy and to confront things that I don't like at all.


I like journalism. When I enjoy my work is when I am happiest. Journalists have great power that comes with great responsibility. But this is being forgotten.


I don't like the journalism in our country. I am a journalist who has been in the market for a short time and a long time disillusioned. I have stopped consuming various media to which I once entrusted my trust. They finished draining it the night of the supposed Israeli attack on a Gaza hospital, and those 500 deaths turned out to be about twenty. I don't like the journalism in our country, I no longer believe it, and I don't know if I want to change it or if I want to escape from it.


I like people. I am regaining the curiosity about my surroundings that I once had. Affectionate women, young people with a big weapon and a big heart, future rabbis, and girls who smile when they receive their Hanukkah gifts. A meeting place. We have not yet explored our entire planet. Neither scientists nor journalists.


I don't like our society. Politicians who use others' pain for their own benefit, bookstores that do without their customers' culture to eat a little warmer, and feminist groups that don't think about women. Graffiti on the walls of my city, torn posters, and silence. Indifference, ignorance in both senses, and selfishness.


Change or flee? First, I will try to do the former.


I am not a soldier, but nevertheless, I land in Israel with missions. I land in a hot war, leaving behind a cold war. I land in the cradle of uncivilized civilization. The taxi driver who insults, the neighbor who shouts. But also the stranger who opens the doors of his house.


Or used to, at least.


For all this and more, yes: to Israel, now.

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