Palestine, Israel, Lebanon........

With tears in my heart, I hear the news coming from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon.... How difficult it is for us here in the US, so far away, to realize the terror of such a situation. How do I respond? What do I say? A recent communicatikon from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship expresses well how I feel:

July 19, 2006
"During the past week, the world has been witness to a frightening drama unfolding in the Middle East, as Israel and Hezbollah are locked in an escalating conflict that neither party seems willing or able to diminish, and at the same time Israels operation in Gaza is creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

Each time such a situation comes to pass, we at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship are reminded of the Buddha's injunction that hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love.

These words are easy enough to say for those of us outside the conflict zone. We realize that life must feel quite different right now in a place like Beirut, Lebanon, where men, women, and children are under fire by Israeli bombers. Just today--July 19th--news sources report anywhere from 19 to 49 civilians have been killed by these air strikes, and more than 200 have been killed in the past week. And we empathize with the citizens of Haifa, Israel, and in other areas along the northern border where at least 30 people have been killed. There, wise words from any religious tradition may seem irrelevant with rockets landing in backyards and people injured or dying. For those of us who have never lived in a war zone, it may be impossible to realize just how stressful such a situation is and how easy to succumb to the practice of retaliation in the name of protecting ones own people.

Still, it is up to all of us in the global community to speak clearly for sanity amidst this insane march toward destruction, and to hold up the truth that violence only perpetuates more violence. And we must take actions to support this belief and to support our sisters and brothers in Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, and the entire Middle East."