”What I ask for is not support, I ask for understanding”

My name is Michael, I’m 22, I love life and I love my country.
I know Israel is far from perfect, but is there a country that is? Every country has its problems. As I have read in ”The girl with the dragon tattoo” by Stieg Larsen, it seems Sweden has its share of women’s rights problems.
But that doesn’t give me the right as an outsider to criticize and to call for boycotts on Sweden does it? Not at least until I have actually been there and read enough on the local history and the problems in order to understand it.

I am part of what the world media calls ”the settlers”.
What I’m about to say might shock you:
I don’t hate arabs. I don’t believe in segregation either. All I want to do is work hard, succeed, have a family of my own one day. And I know that like me, so many arabs want the same. So what is the problem? Why can’t we do that?
Go to this link: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/12/500-muslim-youths-riot-in-gothenburg-sweden-to-protect-honour-against-sexual-rumours.html

See? Even at your own home. So why is this happening? We can find excuses, we can blame ourselves but that won’t get us anywhere. It won’t help to solve the problem.

The problem is that too many people make a living from this conflict, like Yasser Arafat before, and now Mahmud Abbas is getting a big fat pay check from the Europeans and the United Arab Emirates. Money that’s supposed to go to the Palestinians go to the authority’s mens own pockets to build big houses and buy expensive clothing for their wives. Some of that money is your tax money.

And the funny thing is. Many Israelis don’t even realize it. They think that the ”settlers” are the problem and that’s what they say to the world. And the world believes them. So please let me make it clear to anyone who’s reading this:

I never ”settled” anywhere. I lived here all my life; my parents came here when they were young. This land was empty; no one lived here before we came here; my parents worked hard and paid a mortgage. Not only that, the fact is, I live in an area called Gush Etzion – a place which had Jewish people living in it before 1948 (when the local arab villagers along with the Jordanian legions slaughtered the men, women and children that lived here).
And along with all that, we have a pretty good life here, as I am writing this, I am looking outside of my bedroom window, I see mountains and vineyards and the plum tree in my garden. An arab from one of the local villages is working in his field silently. No one has ever disturbed him, he’s never disturbed us. In the local supermarket you can see Jews and Muslims standing quietly (as far as people in the middle east can be quiet) in the line.
With a little more effort , this place could be Tuscany of the Middle East.

You think that many arabs want a state of their own? I suggest you ask them yourselves. Not the ones making a profit from providing the idea, I mean the actual people, taxi drivers, farmers, construction workers, I think some of their answers will surprise you.

What I ask for is not support, I ask for understanding. Understand that life is not black and white, there are deeper things and backgrounds to this conflict. But the solution might not be in western ways, because in many ways, the people living here are not western people (as much as we try to be and act like we are).

My name is Michael, I’m 22. I believe that all humans are born equal and I know that I have no other place to live but here and that is why I will protect myself in any way needed, even if it means to build walls and have check points with soldiers standing in them. We have no choice. This is our home and we love it.