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I see nothing whatever objectionable about people marching through London in support of the Palestinians, or any other cause, except from the point of view of obstructing traffic, but pretty well all the British newspapers do. The days when journalists were in favour of freedom of expression ended long ago. 

S Sebag Montefiore

@simonmontefiore

I was close to tears when i read the words of Samer Sinjilawi, 52, a Palestinian of Jerusalem, recounted by

@gershonbaskin

Do read this especially those of us far away in our armchairs fighting righteously and very bravely in the media for one side or the other: Trauma and the hope for tomorrow: Samer is very courageous. He says in public that he, as a Muslim has to recognize the historic rights of the Jewish people to be in this land. There is no way to deny the Jewish connection to this land for thousands of years. But he adds, yes, the Jews were always here, but they were never alone. There were always others on this land, and we are the others. We were also here. “Perhaps a long time ago maybe I was Jewish, maybe I became Christian also before I become a Muslim, because my family has been here for hundreds of years”. When Samer is asked how he deals with the trauma of this war and of the whole conflict he responds by saying that when he sees an Israeli Jew who hates Palestinians and even wants to kill them, he understands them. He says “we did terrible things to the Jews and the Jews did terrible things to us. I used to think that we were the good guys and they were the bad guys. Now I know that the reality is much more complex and we have done terrible things to each other.” Samer went to visit Kibbutz Kfar Aza after October 7. He was filmed there by a documentary film maker and he said that he came because he wanted to see with his own eyes the atrocities committed by Hamas. He said “I have to take responsibility for this because it was done in my name as a Palestinian, by my own people, and we are all responsible.” He also now says that he hopes that someday Israelis will be able to go to Gaza and stand up and say “I take responsibility as an Israeli because the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza were done in my name.” Confronting trauma begins with compassion and taking responsibility. I, as someone who has spent his whole adult life working for Israeli-Palestinian people, and as someone who has more than 100 friends and colleagues in Gaza that I have been in contact with since October 7, I can say that I feel the pain and the suffering of people in Gaza. I receive WhatsApp messages from friends and colleagues describing the horrors that they are living through. A young woman from the Nusseirat Refugee camp in central Gaza who has a one-year-old baby who writes to me “I am living in the street. My home was bombed. I am hungry.” It breaks my heart. Another young woman who I helped to raise money for her university tuition where she was studying computer programming and doing quite well until the war, her university has been demolished along with all of the universities in Gaza, and I have not heard from her in two months. I don’t know if she is alive. I am sorry and I feel responsible as an Israeli for the horrors of what this war has brought on the Palestinian people. Yes, Hamas is primarily responsible for what has happened, but as an Israeli I cannot escape responsibility for what our army is doing in Gaza. Our war is with Hamas, not with the Palestinian people, and not all Gazans or all Palestinians are Hamas or share the goals of Hamas... I want all Israelis to hear the voice of Samer.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/trauma-and-the-hope-for-tomorrow/