Amona – Next Steps.

Friday Morning, 9:15 AM – Ra’anana. Not wanting to get into a rut and become a one-issue blog, I need to come to some sort of closure on this issue, so I can move to on other blog-worthy topics…lets hope I succeed with this posting. (And now, Sunday morning, I’m rereading this and realize this issue isn’t going away so quickly…but I still have many other topics of interest to blog about)

I’m currently sitting in a dental office in Ra’anana as my son is getting some dental work done – so I’m banging away at my laptop. My son was rather scared of this particular treatment, and even though I told him that it would barely hurt, he doesn’t really believe me. We agreed that if it does in fact hurt, he gets to choose my next blog topic -- he told me he enjoyed reading about himself in my blog last week. I hope he doesn’t choose something embarrassing…actually, I hope it doesn’t hurt him at all, so he doesn’t have chose a topic. He’s lying in the chair, with dental equipment all over is mouth, and he’s listening to songs via his brand new Bar Mitzva present iPod..

Having no clue what I’m typing about, or that I’m Jameel, or even why I’m typing in the first place, the dentist is talking to me while he works on my son’s teeth. After a bit of Jewish Geography, (and I’m not making this up, since it sounds too crazy to be true), he just brought up the topic of Amona. Here I am, trying to blog about Amona, and my son’s dentist brings up the subject. I just keep talking and typing, and thankfully, my son deosn’t seem too traumatized by this procedure.

Actually, I’m happy the dentists did bring it up, since it demonstrates to me that people are thinking about Amona (without needing any prompting from me). I get the feeling he’s not really pro-Amona settlement, but he was outraged by the actions of the police…and that’s a good thing.

Of all the comments posted, I was bothered most by the growing divide between our people. If we no longer have any nationhood glue binding us so that we can say together, “We Are One”, I’m very worried for our future. The pictures and videos need to shock and outrage everyone to the point that we all take a step back, instead of it hardening everyone’s position. This evening in my yishuv, there’s going to be an open round table discussion between adults and teenagers about where we go from here. I know the teenagers will have lots to say, and their number one complaint will probably be, (as it was this summer), where are the adults? Where is the leadership? How is a group of a few thousand teenagers supposed to defend Amona from 5000 policemen, who don’t have a problem smashing their heads with batons and trampeling them with horses?

There are also many different types of people demonstrating at Amona. You had some, like Elchonon, who don’t have a problem of using violence against policemen who are violent against you. There are many, many others, who I am convinced are the majority who can’t bring themselves to do anything violent, and they sat on the floors of buildings slated for destruction – and they still got bashed over the head and brutally removed from the homes…many to the point requiring hospitalization.

Fast Forward to Sunday morning

There’s a big demonstration scheduled tonight (Sunday) at 18:30 at Kikar Zion, Jerusalem against last week’s brutal violence by the police. I’ll be there.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael