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Fadi Zaghmout

When does night end and day begins?

During the world economic forum at Davos, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Peace, Shimon Peres, told the following story.

A rabbi gathered his students and asked them: How do we know the exact
moment when night ends and day begins?

‘When it is light enough to tell a sheep from a dog’ said one
boy
Another student said: ‘No, when it is light enough to tell an olive tree
from a fig tree’
‘No, that is not a good definition either’.’
‘Well, what’s the right answer?’ asked the boys.

And the Rabbi said:
‘When a stranger approaches, and we think he is our brother, and all
conflict disappear, that is the moment when night ends and day begins.’

I quote the above from Paulo Coelho‘s book, ‘Like a flowing River’, and I ask myself how long would it take for the day to begin? When are we going to see the humanity in both the strangers and brother?

Would it be ‘betrayal’ highlighting the words of a leader of a nation that we call enemy? or is it wise to start looking into their human side and connect with it so that to elevate both of us to the nature of humanity in us that is longing for a normal life of love and peace?

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Responses

  1. Mariam Ayyash Avatar
    Mariam Ayyash

    its not “betrayal to highlight” ofcourse not, we can learn from our enemy as much… but exactly that is what we should do… the guy is mocking us 3ienak 3einak! i think we all should come to terms with one basic fact, we are in a damn war, noone wants peace, neither side.. so lets not be the quitters and fight, afterall, we are in the defensive side (u know because we own the house!), so we have no option… thats my humble opinion 🙂

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  2. Waed S. Avatar
    Waed S.

    had those words been the words of a man other than shimon peres I wud’ve fallen for them ! it is not “betrayal” to quote ur enemy , it is just do not fall for all the words that are said ! the moment when night ends and day begins , to me , is a moment of clarity and light .. A moment I can tell clearly who is my brother and who is my enemy …. his moment is blurry and blurry vision can be deceiving ! about Peace , we all know it is some thing strategic … it is not ever lasting… no matter what, there’ll always be conflicts … We can’t love every1, it is not human nature ! those who love all are Gods and we are not Gods we are simple humans with longings for both love & hate , War & peace !Our human side & their human side … we want our rigths back & they want their rights back … and we both believe it is one and the same , what they want & what we want .Now are u ready to give up all that is urs & let others have it their way ?In psychology not all human beings can ! only 4 % of all humans are capable of such sacrifce … what u want us to elevate to is not within us human … it is inhuman,, it is godly and again we are not gods ! 🙂 if we ever reach a settlement that is based on non violence and tolerance we will lose it in no time for it is not based on justice and what is more human than tolerance is our attachment to what is ours !

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  3. whatever Avatar
    whatever

    Well…Obviously, if it was someone other than Mr.-Talk-a-lot-i-am-all-for-peace-but-cannot-take-any-decent-stance-ever it would have had some weight there… But at the end of the day people on the other side of the river are human.We want them to go back to their original countries, most if not all the people who were born their consider it their country, and have no other nationalities. In addition it is neither possible nor is it right to think we can throw them in the sea. Every single day people on both sides die, for no reason at all, every single day, a whole human being, a life, the most sacred of things ends for no reason. We do not want to give up our rights, but we must reach some compromise, because the current situation is simply wrong. just wrong. Again, Peres would be a horrible start though.

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  4. The Observer Avatar
    The Observer

    mariam ayyash, I respect your opinion, but that is exactly the worst choice we can make, which is believing that no one wants peace. It is totally untrue, people had it with fighting and pain, we lost a lot of souls and had enough tragedies. It is time to compromise and shake hands. We are both humans after all.lost within, I disagree with you, it is also a human trait longing to living a peaceful life. Sometimes human beings can be short sighted, and sometimes we can blindly kill each other for a cause or another, but at the end we do realize that it is life itself that is the greatest gift we have. There is no hope for life with such situation. It is time to find a middle ground and fight for peace.Whatever, maybe it is time for both side to realize the obvious. Israeli state next to a Palestinian one. There is no other solution. No one can brush out the other, and we had it with blood shed. If our/their (all our in terms of human perspective) did something wrong, it is time for us to fix it and bring the day on.

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  5. dima Avatar
    dima

    this guy is smart.. and a smart brother is better than a smart enemy huh?…manipulation in the name of brotherhood which is the worst enemy ever!!!

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  6. Yazan Avatar
    Yazan

    I loved this post. Indeed, when will the day begin.

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  7. Mariam Ayyash Avatar
    Mariam Ayyash

    … “people had it with fighting and pain, we lost a lot of souls and had enough tragedies” my point was, we never fought, that was the case of peace!!! im totally disagreeing with you, if we really REALLY had it with tragedy, its time to pick up a FIGHT!

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  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

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