Why do you prefer to see bloody scenes?

By David Verveer

The World press is daily filled with articles dealing with the violence in the Middle East, and funny anough the enormous quantity of information about our region fails to mention that normal people live here, who besides warring and terror, try to live like ordinary people, and our daily routine is almost similar to that of any citizen in the modern world.

I have written several times on the integration here in Israel, not only between the very different origins of the Jewish population, but also the mingling in daily lives of Arab, Bedouin and Druze minorities with the Jewish citizens. Of course, there is discrimination (the facto), but officially this is rarely seen on the street and in the daily relationship between ordinary people of all faiths and origin.

Here in Israel, people who want to wear tribal, religious or modern clothing are allowed to do this without any restriction. I visited last week the Bar Ilan University and noticed the many types of attire, from Arab girls with headdress, Ultra religious Jewish girls, modest dressed and head covered, beatniks, Arab men with Kafiah, Chasidic Jews with typical Polish 18 century clothing, men in short trousers, with or without skullcap, girls dressed in mini, etc.
Nobody was bothered what his neighbor wore, you can see them sitting together on the lawn, discussing the latest lecture, a totally mixed crowd, facts the foreign press won't cover, but can be seen daily in our society.

What does this mean? Could it be that the Middle Eastern conflict is artificially kept burning by the extremists on all sides (and believe me, there are thousands variations in political thoughts, not only divided by religion and origin, but also by greed, power and manipulation).

Let us take for example the Temple mount in Jerusalem, a holy place for three religions, the Jews, Christians and Islam. Wars are fought around this small area of real estate, people visit it on pilgrimage, youth are sacrificed by extreme groupings, in order to fight the holy war in trying to conquer this collection of stones of ancient buildings, declared holy based on legends, dreams and uncertainty.

Mohammad visited the site in his dream and tied his horse on the temple mount, Isaac tried to kill his son Jacob (or the other way round, who cares) on the same spot, Moses never was allowed near it, a local despot with Jewish traces of blood, by the name of Herod (the great) rebuilt the temple on the same spot (but nobody can prove that story), which was destroyed by the Romans, leaving a wall as central place for the Jews to pray, (which helps us like talking to a wall). Jesus, a nice Jewish boy got annoyed with the temple priests making money from the pilgrims (something similar to the traders of the old city nowadays. The Romans, wary of the troublesome Jews crucified Jesus (a fact that somehow is forgotten, as the Jews are blamed for this).
But this makes the temple mount also holy for the Christian faiths and sects, which fight each other bitterly, clearly indicating that possessing the site is a blessing in disguise. But no local politician has the courage to admit it, it would be the end of his career.

In the mean time, for most days of the year the place is visited by people of all faiths, under the condition that the Jewish pilgrims don't pray on the Temple mount, as that endangers the foundation of the El Agsa Mosque, moving your lips, or swaying your body in trance, will mean immediate removal from the Temple Mount, but also the Jews are restricted in walking around on the Temple Mount, as they might walk on the place were in the past the holy of holiest chamber of the temple was situated, where only the high priest was allowed to enter.

I am not joking, this is serious, and this is in the 21 century. But on the site of this, Palestinian peddlers, Christian priests, Pilgrims from al over the world, Jews of all kinds, from hyper fanatic to free as a bird, crowd the streets in relative harmony, until some terrorist longing for 73 (I might be mistaken on the correct number, which being alive, I can not check in person) virgins explode himself in those crowds, or attacks an Israeli soldier with a kitchen knife, an event which would be mentioned on the inner pages of the daily, if it happened in Rotterdam, but when it happens in Jerusalem, it reaches the breaking news on the CNN and Fox news, (a question which also bothers me, if, the above mentioned large number of virgins, are also dead or still alive, and what does the slain hero do with so many virgins?).

What I am trying to say, is that all those high lighted events of the Middle East are kept alive by the media, who have their permanent resident correspondent on the spot, who can put some action in the paper, almost in the same time that it happened, sometimes even a little bid before, with pictures and explanations, dying children, blood (nice to put a camel on the background, and an Arab Sheikh with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, and please do not forget the smoke).

The average American or European reader has no idea that Afghanistan and the Taliban are far away from Israel and Palestine, with only Muslims and camels connecting the two warzones, Iraq and Iran have no borders with Israel and Palestine, Somali is even on another continent, not to mention Morocco and Tunis, but who cares, don't spoil the fun, the Middle East is an hell hole, and don't try to convince me otherwise.

I would like to read and write stories about normal people, living a normal live, amusing meetings between people of different origins, who, in the end, are normal like you, but that seems not to interest you, you want to see blood, and the Middle East is for you, what were the games for the Romans in history, from which the bull fights are a left over.