Dont Let the Light Go Out

First of all I would like to apologize in advance for two reasons. One is for not writing for so long, and two is that this is going to be a long post because I haven't written in so long. my internet went out for a long time and I didn’t feel comfortable writing in a blog that is entitled a Jew in Palestine in a random internet café in Birzeit. The following are the entries I have been writing until my internet decided to come back.

Feb 13

Sooo a few hours after I wrote my last entry I was listening to music on my computer and because Im a big crunchy lefty Peter Paul and Mary's "Light One Candle" came on. I am including the lyrics for those of you who don't know this wonderful song

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand

[Chorus:]
Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts

[Chorus]

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!

soooo as a young Jewish child going to religious school on Sundays I remember always singing this song around Chanukkah time, with the reference to the Maccabee children I always assumed this song was about the Jews and how many times people tried to kill us, but when I listened to the song this time I realized that it could just as easily be a warning to Israel and the Jewish people about inflicting pain on others that we ourselves have endured. Now dont worry Im not going to compare the Israeli Occupation to the Holocaust, but the discrimination and fear that Palestinians face every day is very similar to what the Jews went through in Europe and through out our history. How can we claim to be a light unto the nations when we are treating the Palestinians with such a lack of humanity?