Israel and Palestine
Topics:
“Israel and Palestine”
“Taking Sides Matches Energy”
“This Is What Comes of Blame”
“What Is Important Is Acceptance”
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Lynda (Ruther)
“Any of you that moves in a direction of justifying and judging and choosing sides, you are contributing to the very things that you’re judging…. You’re creating conflict also.”
“You all do ripple out. And what is important is that each of you as individuals are aware of that and being more self-aware, recognizing that and recognizing that in shifting, what is exceptionally important is acceptance.”
(Audio begins partway through session)
LYNDA: Israel and Palestine are killing each other again. Our friend Peter in Australia had a very good question for you about the topic. This is to you, Elias. He’s Jewish, a cultural Jew like me, but unlike me practices many traditions. I think we do agree that the killing on both sides is beyond sad, but will continue until we shift a bit more. Peter has a question for you that Finou has offered to ask at the group session. I hope that gets asked.
My two cents is that I would agree with something Bashar said as a part of this, that that geographical location is home to this ancient conflict – huge, ancient – and I just want to say that this week I was really sad about it – deep bone sad, I couldn’t even describe why. My friend the rabbi is having a vigil for Israel at his home Sunday. Part of me wants to lend support to him and go; another part of me doesn’t want to lend support to the division. My support is that everyone stop killing each other.
And then one thing, later Peter and I went back and forth and he sent me something Golda Meir said, that you can’t negotiate with a terrorist. I said no, I agree with Golda, you cannot negotiate with a terrorist – but we can accept what’s happening, and that acceptance piece is going to be the piece for us, where the rubber meets the road, because I don’t see this conflict changing if this is what’s happening. And that’s where it’s hard, because accepting it and trusting ourselves is confusing right now, but that’s what we have to do.
So…. I get where Peter’s coming from, and he said he also knows that he’s matching energy and it’s hard for him to not match energy. And I said, “Pcht, hello! I get it.”
So I’m kind of encouraged about the back and forth with it, and I also think that it’s a question of… it’s accepting. It’s accepting what happened in Maui; it’s accepting a lot of things that are not okay and trying to figure it out. I’d like to think a new generation of kids are going to go, “This is really stupid,” and stop doing it. It could happen, but it may not, at least in my lifetime, or the next couple of lifetimes, but… Anyway, it was a good thing.
Okay. I think the bigger flinch for me is that I shunned my Jewish culture for my whole life and feel sad about that. I’m having a hard time reconciling that with engaging my understanding of the Shift and my deep love for my culture, which is genuine. I have a lot of strong feelings that I didn’t really know were there until very recently. It doesn’t mean I want to go to Israel, and it doesn’t mean I want to engage one specific spot on the universe to justify my Jewishness – it’s not like that. It’s that I love this culture I chose, and I’m letting myself realize I don’t want to join a group but I’m supportive. I’m crying with everybody.
There you go, that’s my week. Thank you very much. You don’t have to talk to me about Jews. I think part of me overcoming my dark side of Jewishness is part of being in the deep end, and I’m letting it go and resting with what I chose in this life. [To Elias] There you go, Rabbi, shaking your head. (Elias chuckles quietly) Anyway…
ELIAS: (Slowly) It is an ancient divide, but it’s also a modern divide that has aggravated ancient culture and possession, and… (long pause) the ancient ties on both sides play into the modern and today. And in that, there is a tremendous divide in relation to very strong grudges that neither side wants to let go of, and both sides are steeped in justification.
In that, it’s a difficult situation, but it was almost to be expected. This has been brewing and seething for more than a half century.
LYNDA: Since Israel became a state? Since they took the land from Palestine?
ELIAS: Precisely. And in that, that is a long time to be boiling, and it has been. It’s been a pressure cooker that is long overdue to blow. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, it was inevitable. It is surprising that it didn’t ignite sooner.
In that, this is one of those expressions of humans that make it impossible to predict what you will do or what you won’t do. It would have been something that would have been easy to predict that this would have happened decades ago, but it didn’t.
LYNDA: Why?
ELIAS: (Pause) Whenever there is (pause) a conquering people, they generally establish a dominance, and the stronger that dominance is, the more repression is expressed in relation to what is being dominated. And I would say that Israel has expressed a very strong, fierce dominance that (pause) defied challenge. And they established even more of a fierce dominance when they generated that conflict with Egypt, and that stood and has stood for decades as an example of that domination.
Regardless of what culture it is, regardless of what country or state it is, wars are fought over land, and whoever wins is the dominating force.
LYNDA: Yeah. That makes sense.
ELIAS: And in that, there’s always someone who is going to be dominated, which will be the one that is oppressed.
LYNDA: So OUR contribution is shifting individually and sending out ripples.
ELIAS: Most definitely. I engaged a conversation with an individual very recently – (pause) yesterday – about this very subject, an individual that is tremendously passionate about this subject and what is happening between these two cultures, these two countries, and… (pause) an individual that is considerably judgmental about one and supportive of the other. And I will express the same now that I did with this individual: That simply matches energy. And in that, whether it be Palestine and Israel or Russia and Ukraine or any other cultures and countries, it doesn’t matter who it is and who’s fighting whom, – (pause) taking sides matches energy.
And in that, you are all entitled to your own individual guidelines. You are all entitled to your own individual opinions and likes and dislikes and evaluations of right and wrong – for yourselves. And in that, you can express that you think that certain behaviors, certain practices are wrong and that YOU wouldn’t do them and you wouldn’t engage them, but that’s where it stops.
LYNDA: (Whispers) Yeah.
ELIAS: In that, generating judgments about other people and their cultures and their practices, no matter how offensive they may be to you, it’s a matter of remembering: You chose to live where you live. You chose to be in the culture that you chose. They chose to be in the cultures that they chose and to live where they live. And their beliefs and what they engage, and even in relation to OTHER people that perhaps DON’T live there or aren’t part of the culture but become caught up in the whirlwind of the conflict, those people chose to be there at that time. And if they are caught up in the whirlwind of the conflict, they chose to be there. It’s not an accident.
And none of you are in the bodies and the minds of those people that are involved, and what their convictions are, what their guidelines are, what they believe. And whatever it is that they believe, they believe it just as strongly as whatever it is you believe. Therefore any of you that moves in a direction of justifying and judging and choosing sides, you are contributing to the very things that you’re judging. Therefore, you are engaging the same as the people that are engaging the conflict. You’re creating conflict also, and therefore you’re contributing to that energy.
You are correct, Ruther, you all do ripple out, and what is important is that each of you as individuals are aware of that and being more self-aware, recognizing that and recognizing that in shifting, what is exceptionally important is acceptance. And that was what your mass event throughout your world with your virus was partially about, the acceptance of difference.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: And since then, you have presented situations to yourselves that are extremes and that illustrate the importance and the need for acceptance, and the tremendous devastation that happens when there is none.
LYNDA: Eons of it. Right.
ELIAS: And there is none in these wars.
LYNDA: No.
ELIAS: It’s nothing but conflict and blame.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: And this is what comes of blame.
LYNDA: And our little efforts to overcome that stuff and change –
ELIAS: Does—
LYNDA: – seem like nothing, and they’re everything. They’re everything.
ELIAS: They ARE everything. And it DOES make a difference
[The timer for the end of the session rings]
LYNDA: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are welcome.
LYNDA: Nice chatting with you. I’ll see you soon.
ELIAS: You will!
LYNDA: I love you.
ELIAS: I express tremendous love and affection to you, and dear friendship, as always. Au revoir.
LYNDA: Au revoir.
(Audio ends and Elias departs after 19 minutes)
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