Gatekeepers: Breaking the Bread in the Middle East

This film below, came into my mind over the last 24 hours, I felt it as significant.  Someone on my blog looked at this and it inspired me to look again. I feel  deep love for these intelligence officers in Israel.  I will post the film discussion, the main film has a cost to access.  I have written below and produced a poem as my heart yearned for truth.  My poem is called ‘Breaking Bread in the Middle East’. May this inspire you.  Hope is always there, may the Israeli’s see that this conflict is a lose/lose.

I watched a film on Shin Bet (Israeli secret service), it was called The Gatekeepers.  The film interviewed the heads of Shin Bet.  It was very interesting and unexpected.  There was an awareness that violence doesn’t work.  That as one hurts the other hurts, I saw an eye for an eye.  An awareness was expressed that they were unable to show their humanity until alone.  It was in the moments with the self that the head moved to the heart to process the reality of murder.  To reflect on the pain caused by parting family members from wives and children.  The film showed the infamous prison outside of Jerusalem and the torture techniques.  Reminded me of Tuol Sleng Prison in Cambodia, I felt the agony of this place in both the persecuted and persecutors.  How people are tortured to give information is for me, a difficult one to understand. Yet people believe it has to happen as they believe in an enemy that can hurt them, they believe they are somehow less.  I read something really interesting yesterday which spoke of attack. It happens as the person attacking is seeking to be equal to the other.  Yet the truth is they already are.  People feel powerless when they see a threat, so they seek to find power to destroy the threat.  The reality is the threat is not real, it is just fear. It can never be destroyed, you can only remove it by facing your own fear, as it is in you.  Hard to believe?  It is true I’ve found.  Fear is the only enemy to humankind.

It was clear in the beginning of the Occupation that there was a focus on the Palestinian situation but when violence broke out the attention focused on the perception of terrorism and protection of the State of Israel.  It was mentioned that the Prime Ministers of Israel (except for Sharon Perez) did not think of the Palestinians at all.  I see this as a blind spot.  I have experienced it in disconnected humanity whereby people only look at their own interests and not the shared interests.  I’ve seen it here in Australia in covert ways, but the same energy.  Conflict resolution is about sharing power not imposing it.  It is about conversations and listening and taking responsibility for outcomes. Until all leaders learn conflict resolution rather than politics and start to understand that what they do to the other they do for themselves.

The issue of extremism is really the mirror of extremes.  As people suffer and it becomes intensified overtime their methods of equalising power through pain becomes more aggressive.  So one creates the other believing the other is separate.  What we fear we attract.  I am really getting that the profile of the bully is the one most terrified.  So they outpicture (project) bravado and power, which is really chest beating, to ensure the other fears them so they don’t lose control.  This is how control works and control is fear through force.  I’ve watched it play out in family situations where one member has to have things their own way.  They don’t admit that the reason they dominate is because they can’t cope, instead they project the other is wrong, disrespectful, breaking rules etc. to justify force. Yet what they don’t understand is they are taking another’s power and happiness. When they show respect and share power, then everyone benefits and equality is in harmony. When you live democracy and human rights it won’t occur to you to tell another what to do, you will immediately collaborate to find a win/win solution. That is real power. The virtues of humanity is where power resides, it is a false power when taken by force ( fear).  Fear is our greatest weakness and distortion.

The great teachers of both Islam, Judaism and Christianity communicated about love.  They were the radicals. It amazes me how this is forgotten as those fearful turn wonderful positive teachings into us against them, when in truth the real teachings were about love.  No wise or holy people encourage division.  Those who are awake see the oneness is all life and honour all life as god or source (unity).  We did not create ourselves and my feeling is that the image reflecting is really one of love.  When we reflect love, acceptance, generosity and unity then life reflects it back.  So the mirror may become confused and smoky when we look in the mirror and believe that another is the evil other.  In truth we are seeing ourselves projected.  You can’t see what is not in you, it has to come from you, otherwise you wouldn’t recognise it.  Can you see?

It has taken me a while to really get that life is a mirror.  The mask is really what we deny or hide within ourselves.  We construct identities based on roles, religions, gender, age, culture, family and so on.  Imagine if you identified with unconditional love, what would you see.  None of us really want to admit that we have become what we fear.  That the moment we slip into defence we are gearing for war, thus preparing and given the law of attraction actually bringing it to us.  That is why those who go on about World War III or Armageddon or Terrorism are actually creating it, as all human beings have the power to create or destroy, just look around the world.  It is a choice.

The intelligence officer talked about Israel becoming cruel.  Another former head made parallels with Germany which is very brave given the holocaust.  I met a holocaust survivor and she and I connected as she mentioned love.  She said she did not hate the German people.  She told her story, painfully, over and over to tell people that love was the answer.  Of course many teach this but don’t live it.  I see it not only as an answer but all of it.  This beautiful old lady told me she had an angel over her shoulder in Auschwitz, she knew she’d survive to tell her message.

There is no winning of a war, there is only the surrender of violence when each get exhausted.  Think of all wars what did they achieve, there was so much carnage, destruction, hopelessness created.  Imagine what love creates.  When we surrender to love and we become conscious that we do not know (wisdom), we then allow something far greater than ourselves (mystery) to guide us naturally to sanity.  Love is always sane, war is insane from the perspective we are all one.  Peace and happiness is truth, it means when you feel this, you are in alignment with your own inner truth.  We all have inner navigation which is expressed through the emotions, when you listen to yourself you will know what to do, if it brings pain you are in a lie, if it brings joy you are  in your truth.  It is simple really.  We tend to get dictated by beliefs, imagine if emotions (feeling) were the guide to decisions. If it doesn’t feel good don’t do it.

You cannot kill an idea, you cannot kill another for they are part of you.  I recall a soldier saying when he killed someone he felt he had killed a part of himself.  There is truth in that as far as we kill our belief in our own goodness, that is the real death.  For life is a mirror.  However, one can redeem themselves by giving of themselves to those they believe they hurt.  Forgiveness is not just a word it is a healing.  I am sure these great spiritual leaders would say there is nothing to forgive as nothing was wrong or out of place given divine laws. Karma is happening as people are playing out their unconsciousness believing they know. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Why not bring the communities together through music, poetry, stories, kind words, shared culture, food and start to speak of peace as real.  All peace is, is the recognition of love and the trust that life is abundant, we can never lose when we live in peace.  Grievances come from perceived loss.  If a person truly believes that what they have is what they want and are open to good things coming, perhaps that is when the magic happens.  Think of the amazing things that have come to you without you making it happen, what if you just let things come and go and don’t affect events. This is nonresistance to life.  Thus life is a mirror.  Even if everything is taken, ones love cannot be destroyed as it is eternal.  Love is who you are!  Now is the time to make peace not only in the Middle East but the World.  I send you the dove.  Check out www.thework.com question your thinking and transform your world, only love is real.

Let’s turn the gatekeepers into peacekeepers.

BREAKING BREAD IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Shin bet,

Shindlers list,

One targets,

The other liberates,

From fascism.

Precision bombing, stone throwing,

Intifada, embargos and armadas,

Tunnels channelling supplies to the needy,

Electronic surveillance protecting the greedy,

For Gaza and West Bank are no go zones,

No fly zones,

As the West’s banks bank roll political power,

The bleeding wound of a million crucifixions,

Cannot resurrect hope.

Does an eye for an eye make the whole world blind?

What words do believers follow?  I ask:

“If someone strikes you on the cheek then you offer the other cheek?”

“If thou dost stretch thy hand against me to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee: for I do fear Allah”

Is wisdom housed in the holy Quran or the holy Torah?

Or in the sacred heart that knows it does not know?

Or those asleep who do not know they do not know?

Lashing out blindly in hatred, hurt and fury,

Fear is their master,

And revenge is the plaster caste,

Unable to heal what is truly broken in pieces,

For class is the great divider,

As the dust of settlement never settles.

What of …Leadership without morality?

What of …Business without principle?

What of …Decisions without fairness?

What of …Brutality without justice?

Sinking the statute on liberty and democracy,

Erecting a police state of scrutiny and mutiny,

Over the purity of the common wealth.

The resurrection of peace can only arise,

When trust is placed upon the round table,

Who is to break the bread equally?

Is it the meek that shall inherit the earth?

Is it when the shepherd returns to the kibbutz?

To gather the flock for all must work as One Comm-unity,

The key is to have fun in the sun,

For the grim reaper has taken the will to live,

And this returns when all give what is stolen,

One cannot hold onto assets and property if the wish is to be truly free,

For to part the red sea is to believe in miracles,

For all are the chosen people under one sonship,

This is the at-one-ment,

The crucifixion of judgement is the first wound to bleed,

As one then plants the good seed after the bad,

Resurrection is love under all conditions,

Only love is real and this is the final seal
that leads all weary travellers home to be free.