http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/24972009-03-17T13:19:21+01:00Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.<hr />
<h2>Internationally renowned Israeli singer Noa writes letter appealing to Palestinians in Gaza</h2>
<p>Dear Palestinian brothers,</p>
<p>It is with a heavy heart I write to you today. Gaza is burning. The <br/>
border with Israel is under fire. Children on both sides of the fence are terrified, traumatized for life, wounded in body and soul. Life!! Life is lost. Blood flows! Pain and tears and anguish abound.<br/>
How familiar it all is, my brothers? How well we know these images, this fear clutching our throats, hope slipping away from our hearts?</p>
<p>A new year has begun. I am sitting here near my computer in the dark night, in my home by the sea. This sea that is ours, our Mediterranean sea, our culture, we the people of wandering, we the homeless, the homesick, we the fighters ,the builders, the survivors, our dreams like waves and tide, pulled by the moon and stars to eternity.<br/>
Since that fateful day in 1994 when Rabin was murdered a few feet from me, since that awful moment, I have dedicated much of my public life to singing and speaking for peace.<br/>
I have seen the peace process rise and fall and rise like the breast of a woman breathing in the night. I have seen opportunities missed, so many missed, so many chances, so much ignorance and stubbornness and bullheadedness, so much beauty trampled under the heavy boot of pride.<br/>
I have sung and I have spoken, I have argued and I have embraced, I have been moved to tears so many times, I have made the most unlikely friends? Friends I would give my right arm for, friends I would run across the border under fire to protect.</p>
<p>And today, today I say this; we have one joint enemy, one awful joint enemy and we must all work together to eradicate it! That enemy is fanaticism my friends. That enemy is extremism in all its ugly reincarnations and manifestations.<br/>
That enemy is all men who put ?god? above life, who claim "god? as their sword and shield, who claim ?god? is on THEIR side. Jews, <br/>
Muslims, Christians, all share this black streak. All have fallen to this<br/>
destructive, horrible fanaticism at some point in their histories and the results have been devastating<br/>
I have often spoken out against fanaticism in my country, for I find it<br/>
repulsive and unbearable. In government, in settlements, in synagogues, I am passionately against it. I have risked my career and my wellbeing for this belief.</p>
<p>Now I see the ugly head of fanaticism, I see it large and horrid, I see<br/>
its black eyes and spine-chilling smile, I see blood on its hands and I<br/>
know one of its many names :Hamas.<br/>
You know this too, my brothers. You know this ugly monster. You know it is raping your women and raping the minds of your children. You know it is educating to hatred and death.<br/>
You know it is chauvinistic and violent, greedy and selfish, it feeds on<br/>
your blood and screams out Allah?s name on vain, it hides like a thief uses the innocent as human shields, uses your mosques as arsenals, lies and cheats, uses YOU, tortures you, holds you hostage!!<br/>
I know this is true my brothers!! I know YOU know the truth!! And I know you cannot say it for fear of life so I will say it for you!! I fear<br/>
nothing!!</p>
<p>I am privileged to live in a democracy where women are not objects but presidents, where a singer can say and do as she pleases! I know you donot have this privilege (yet?but you will, inshallah, you will?)<br/>
I know you are SICK of being held hostage by this demon, this ugly beast, not in Gaza, not in Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, not <br/>
anywhere!!! You are a people destined to flourish in peace! Your <br/>
majestic history is overflowing with creativity, literature science and<br/>
music, endless contributions to humanity, not crippling, torturing <br/>
fanaticism, yelling Jihad and Shahid!</p>
<p>I see you sometimes, out in the streets, demonstrating with the <br/>
monsters, yelling ?death to the Jews, death to Israel!! But I don?t <br/>
believe you! I know where your heart is! It is just where mine is, with my children, with the earth, with the heavens, with music, with HOPE!!<br/>
You want nothing of this but you have no choice! I see through your veil of fear my brothers, through your burka! I embrace your hopes for they are mine!<br/>
My country has made many many mistakes over the years, I have watched it miss so many opportunities, and as a citizen of this country I am the first to admit it and criticize its foolery. I demonstrate, I vote, I speak out, I sing loud and clear.<br/>
But, now, today, I know that deep in your hearts YOU WISH for the demise of this beast called Hamas who has terrorized and murdered you, who has turned Gaza into a trash heap of poverty, disease and misery. Who in the name of "allah? has sacrificed you on the bloody alter of pride and greed.</p>
<p>My brothers, I cry for you. I cry for us too, yes, I cry for my fellow <br/>
countrymen suffering the bombs in the south and north and everywhere, I cry for the kidnapped soldiers and the murdered ones, for their bereft families, for the innocence lost forever, but I cry especially painfully for you for I know your suffering, I feel you, I feel you!!<br/>
I can only wish for you that Israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally RID YOU of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called Hamas. And that these killers will find what little compassion may still exist in their hearts and STOP using you and your children as human shields for their cowardice and crimes.</p>
<p>And then? then, maybe, Inshallah, we will again have an <br/>
Opportunity we will again pick up our broken bodies and souls and walk slowly towards each other, reach out a tired hand, look into eyes filled with tears and with a choked voice say: ?Shalom. Salam. Enough. Enough my brother ?. you want some coffee? Here, sit for a while?let's talk?.we know the words, we know the songs, we know the road?.</p>
<p>Shalom<br/>
Salam</p>
<p>With a broken heart still yearning to love,<br/>
Your friend,<br/>
Noa</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3653183,00.html">click here to read the article Israel-based iPeace website</a></p>
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<h2>Reaction to Noa from Israeli-American director Udi Aloni, creator of the 2006 film Forgiveness (Mechilot, winner of the Woodstock Film Festival Audience Award and Shulamit Aloni's son)</h2>
<p>Dear Achinoam Nini,</p>
<p>I chose to answer you, and not the entire raging Right, because I believe that the betrayal of the peace camp, at this of all times, exceeds the damage caused by the Right a thousand fold. The ease with which the peace camp gives itself over to the roars of war hinders the creation of a meaningful movement that could a true resistance to occupation.</p>
<p>You roll your eyes, use your loving words in the service of your conquering people and call upon the Palestinians to surrender in a tender voice. You bestow upon Israel the role of liberator. Upon Israel – that for over 60 years, has been occupying and humiliating them. "I know where your heart is! It is just where mine is, with my children, with the earth, with the heavens, with music, with HOPE!!" you write; but Achinoam, we took their land and imprisoned them in the ghetto called Gaza.<br/>
We have covered their skies with fighter jets, soaring like the angels from hell and scattering random death. What hope are you talking about? We destroyed any chance for moderation and mutual life the moment we plundered their land while sitting with them at the negotiation table. We may have spoken of peace, but we were robbing them blind. They wanted the land given to them by international law, and we spoke in the name of Jehovah.</p>
<p>Who are the secular people of Gaza supposed to turn to, when we trample on international law, and when the rest of the enlightened world ignores their cry? When enlightenment fails and moderation is seen as a weakness, religious fanaticism gives a sense of empowerment. Maybe, if you think about the mental situation of the people under siege in Masada, you could get a better sense of what’s happening in Gaza. </p>
<p> The seculars in Gaza find it hard to speak against Hamas when their ghetto is being bombarded all day and all night. You would probably say that 'we would not need to shell them if they held their fire,' but they fire because they are fighting for more that the right to live in the prison called Gaza. They are fighting for the right to live as free citizens in an independent country – just as we do. <br/>
"I know that deep in your hearts YOU WISH for the demise of this beast called Hamas who has terrorized and murdered you, who has turned Gaza into a trash heap of poverty, disease and misery," you write. But Hamas is not the monster, my dear Achinoam. It is the monster's son.</p>
<p> The Israeli occupation is the monster. It and only it is responsible for the poverty and the sickness and the horror. We were so frightened of their secular leadership, which undermined our fantasy of the Land of Israel, that we chose to fund and support Hamas, hoping that by a policy of divide and conquer were could go on with the occupation forever; but when the tables have turned, you choose to blame the effect instead of the cause.</p>
<p>You write, "I can only wish for you that Israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally RID YOU of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called Hamas. And that these killers will find what little compassion may still exist in their hearts and STOP using you and your children as human shields for their cowardice and crimes." It is the same as if your Palestinian sister would write: "Let us hope that Hamas does the job for you, and rids you of the Jewish Right."<br/>
So maybe, instead of ordering around a people whose every glimmer of hope we have surgically eliminated, you could help your brothers and sisters in Palestine rid themselves of the occupation, oppression and the arrogant colonialism inflicted by your country. Only then can you urge them to fight democratically and return Palestine to the mental state it was in before we pushed it into the corner of the wall that we built.</p>
<p> And if your brethren in Palestine choose Hamas, you have to respect their choice, just as the world's nations respected Israel when it chose the murderous (Ariel) Sharon. Hamas is theirs to fight, just like you fought him. That is what democracy is about. Only then can you and your brethren in both Palestine and Israel share – as equals – the joy of the land, the sky and the music; only then can we fight for equality together, for every man and woman living living in our holy land. Amen.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3653183,00.html">click here to read the article Israel-based iPeace website</a></p>-ARTICLEstory