Memories of the dinner table and the words of Dr King remind me to hold onto hope for Peace in the Middle East

Andrew Heaslet
Jan 13, 2009

My brain hurts. My brain hurts because my heart is throbbing with pain. My heart throbs with pain because, across the globe, rockets, bombs, and missiles are raining down on human beings, some militants and many innocents.

My head hurts because of my peers asking why people are only speaking up now that violence in Gaza has reached a critical point.

“Where were you when Gazans were suffering because of the blockade?” my pro-Palestinian friends ask.

“Where were you when mortars were indiscriminately being lobbed into Southern Israel?” ask my Pro-Israeli pals.

Battle lines seem to have been drawn, making it difficult to simply say, “Palestine. Israel. I want peace for you both.”

Finger pointing in the holy land can go back millennia and despite Israel’s desire to end the “Hamas problem” once and for all, they will ultimately have done little to stop the mortars once this campaign ends. It reminds me of the phrase, “Fighting for Peace is like Engaging in Coitis for Virginity.”

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When someone is pointing a gun at you it’s difficult to ask, “What’s at the root of your anger and frustration?” In this world, when at then end of a rifle, it generally means find your own weapon, hide, run, or get shot. The blockade has limited the ability of Gazans to hide and run, forcing a heart-wrenching situation upon the people there.


My brother, Ron, beat the tar out of me on multiple occasions growing up. Usually I had done something to deserve it although that’s not to say that he didn’t pick some of the fights. He always won. And my dad usually stopped the fight before they escalated to irreparable limits. When I’d want to get in revenge shots, Ron would remind me of the potential beating I could receive but he also, more often, sternly and honestly reminded me that we were family and had to live together, so we might as well try and enjoy it. And we would. We’d share things, play together, loan each other cash so we could have things we could both enjoy. That didn’t mean that we no longer fought, but there was a subtle understanding that we could do better together than we could by fighting one another.


You can’t expect a people to remain peaceful when their access to medicine, food, water, electricity, fuel, entertainment, capital, economic opportunities, and ability to move are controlled by outside forces.

You can’t expect outside forces to relinquish control when, despite a strangle hold, they are still getting attacked.

So how many people have to die before both sides are satisfied?


When fighting my brother, regardless of who started it, I, the younger, weaker, and chubbier, would inevitably yelp for help once the pain hit a critical point. My father would yell from the other room, “Ronald! Stop it.” Ron resented the seeming assumption that it was automatically his fault, but he would obey the order and we would, albeit grudgingly, hunker back into our corners of the room. Inevitably, we’d be called to the dinner table and forced to break bread together and be reminded that living together didn’t require fighting. Eventually, after enough meals and enough time spent together in peace, Ron and I came to understand each other and become friends.


We’ve all heard the cries for help. Now Israel and Palestine need respectable brokers to bring them to a table. The PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Likud, Labour, Kadima: diverse representatives from the diverse populations should all be at this table. Other Middle Eastern nations should be at the table too. Bread, leavened or otherwise, should be broken. Listening must happen. Patient, civil conversation in a peaceful environment must occur. Bombs from both sides must stop falling long enough for all people to think, listen, and remember what peace can be like.

I’m hesitant to make further assertions or speculate on what the Israelis and Palestinians will ultimately have to say to one another to reach a lasting peace. But I recently read Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s Eulogy for the Martyred Children that followed the Birmingham church bombing that took the lives of four young black girls back in 1963. As I read his words, I could feel his cadence in my bones, the energy in my spirit, the frustration in my heart - and if he had said: “Go hurt somebody,” I would have done it, 45 years after the fact. His words are that powerful. But that’s not what he admonished those present to do;

“We must not despair,” he said. “We must not become bitter, nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.”

Tears of hope followed. Reconciliation and forgiveness is possible.

Peace cannot choose sides. Both sides must choose Peace.

May peace be found in Middle East.