Imagine....

I got this email this morning. Except for the first paragraph or so, this can all very well be applied to Palestinians whose homes are demolished because they are not given permits to build but must because of growing families,etc.

While I very much sympathize with the Jewish people who live in Gaza, I see many similarities to Palestinians who come across this every day but it is not widely publicized. These demolitions are not the mass demolitions usually (like in Gaza now) but one house here and one house there. but it happens nearly every day. Palestinians have their homes demolished but, unlike the Gaza Jews, are not given trailers to live in. They are left totally homeless.

I hope this will open the eyes of many Jews who now know what it is like to have their homes demolished and your livelihood taken away. I hope they will be able to sympathize with the many innocent Palestinians who find themselves in this very same situation every day...

Dr. Miriam Adahan on the Matzav

* Imagine that you live in Israel, which has suffered 25,500 known
terror attacks just since 2000, including 6000 rockets just on your small
section of Gush atif, and instead of attacking the Arab enemy, the
government attacks you.

* Imagine that your teenage children are arrested for handing out
orange ribbons on street corners and when you see the police choking them
and bashing them with brass knuckles and you come to their aid, you, too,
are arrested and charged with harming the police officers who arrested
you.

* Imagine that you and your friends come to Kfar Maimon to peacefully
protest this outrage and that the government sends 20,000 soldiers and
police (the same number President Bush sent to invade Iraq) to encircle
the area with barbed wire, creating a virtual prison camp.

* Imagine that it is August 1, 2005 and you are to be evicted from
your home on August 15 and you have no idea where to go.> * Imagine that youve been told that you will be allowed to take enough
possessions out of your home to fill two small containers and that the
rest must be left behind.

* Imaginethat you live in a beautiful eight-room home of your dreams
with five bathrooms and that you will, at best, be given a cramped caravan
which leaks in the winter rains and is sweltering in the summer.

* Imagine trying to decide between your piano and your washing
machine, between your books and the beds, between your sofa and your
dining room table between your clothing and your photo albums.

* Imagine that you discuss with your neighbors whether you will lock
yourself in your home and make the arresting officers bash the door down,
in which case you will forfeit all government compensation or walk
silently to the bus which will take you to a detention center, or be
dragged out of your home as a way of passively protesting this atrocity.

* Imagine that you discuss with your spouse whether the children
should have to see you being dragged out of the only home they have ever
known or if it is better to have them sent away.

* Imagine that yur son/husband/neighbor is an army officer or
policeman and it is their duty to drag you to the waiting buses.

* Imagine that the Israeli press ignores your plight, except to refer
to you and your neighbors as fanatical hooligans who have stolen the land
you live on.

* Imagine that you have lived in a community for 10, 20, 30 years,
have been productive and independent and that you will soon be unemployed,
a burden on the state, a humiliated and broken welfare recipient.

* Imagine that you walk around your precious community, knowing that
your home, synagogue, mikvah, community center, schools and health centers
will be soon be bulldozed into oblivion.

* Imagine having to go from a home with a huge backyard, filled with
flowers and fruit trees to some cramped apartment in a strange city.

* Imagine having to leave your children and grandchildren who could
easily run next door to visit you and whom you will now see only rarely.
* Imagine that the government is spending $7 billion dollars to deport
you and your neighbors, forfeiting the $2 billion a year earned by the
Gush Katif population and that the money for this expulsion plan was taken
by slashing pensions for the elderly, closing schools and hospitals,
reducing health services, reducing the sick and the handicapped to
begging, sending 37,000 abused children were sent back to abusive homes
since there was no money to keep them in state dormitories, canceling
summer programs for children - and then you are blamed for all this pain.

* Imagine that well known rabbis, teachers and community leaders
suddenly disappear and that you are told that they are being held in
prison indefinitely and being treated in a most brutal manner.

* Imagine 14 year old children arrested and sent to solitary
confinement for having insulted a police officer.

* Imagine that the government declares war on Judaism, closing down
radio sttions that used to disseminate inspiring words of Torah, closing
down religious councils, cutting off support for religious schools and
institutions, threatening rabbis who disagree with government policy and
firing government workers who protest.

* Imagine that even before the 25 communities of Gush Katif are
destroyed, that the "Peace Now" Organization hands over a list of 120
Jewish settlements in the Shomron to the Israeli Supreme Court to be
destroyed, claiming that the land was stolen from the Palestinians (as if
there ever was such a people!).

* Imagine that Hamas has already announced that there will be massive
parades throughout Gush Katif celebrating their victory over the Jewish
people.

* Imagine that the whole world will watch as terrorists take over
these communities and think that Jews are the stupidest idiots in the
world.


NOW IMAGINE THAT YOU HEAR HASHEM HIMSELF SAYING:


* My beloved people, imagine tht this is a test of faith, which I
offer you out of love, so that you can know your own greatness.

* Imagine that I am sifting out the righteous from the evil.

* Imagine that these experiences are going to develop iron faith and
that this is the only thing that will keep you from going insane.

* Imagine knowing that whatever happens is necessary and ultimately
good.

* Imagine that evil is necessary in order to give you opportunities to
develop and demonstrate your spiritual powers kindness, self-discipline,
courage, integrity, gratitude, humility and faith.

* Imagine that in a world without evil, words like treachery, slander,
egotism, arrogance, blackmail or betrayal would have no meaning. Integrity
is never painless. Here is your opportunity to develop it.

* Imagine that I am a Master Puppeteer. Behind the screen on which
these events are projected to form what seems like an insane, unjust and
terrifying reality, there is nother reality. I am cheering for you to
make the right choices. I am a loving G-d. Sometimes, you need to imagine
this.