STOP WAR! Can that ever be possible? Just stop it! Sounds simple enough but apparently impossible. All my life I have heard the words conflict, War, Gaza, Israel and Palenstein. Then I read the Bible and saw the words again but now these places were considered the most religious places on earth. How can religion and war be so intertwined? I am old now. What about the children of these places? How can they ever think of peace as an attainable thing if they never get to see peace? Are we raising natural born killers?

The most recent war began with the murders of three teenage boys. By the time it was over, 500 children were dead. For 50 days this past summer Israel and the Palestine’s of Gaza fought their bloodiest war since 1967. The question is, Can peace be taught to children who have only learned war? The first boy to die was from Israel. The next day Israeli terrorists kidnapped a Palestinian   boy.  He was burned alive. Within days, there was war.  The typical child now lives in fear.  In the past 60 years the United Nations have discussed and heard both sides of constant conflict between these neighbors.

They formed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which oversees 252 schools, homes and jobs in the Gaza area for seven decades. Apparently that is not enough for these people. Hate and war must prevail. It is difficult to be a child in Gaza. They have no idea what it is like to have electricity 24 hours a day or heating all the time or the stability of homes and schools since all that has been destroyed many times over. That must all take a toll over children who need stability over all else. The schools soon became homes and shelters for over half a million people in Gaza. I say stop the fighting over such a   small strip of land. Make no one live there and make it a national park for visitors only.

Some of the UN schools were attacked and a UN investigation found that Israel hit several schools killing 4 people but the UN also blamed the Palestinian militants for hiding weapons in vacant UN schools that were not hit. The history of this nonsense began in 1947 when refuges of Israel’s creation compressed into a strip of land 32 miles of land by 7. In 2006 Guzan’s elected a government led by Hamas that the United States says is a terrorist group. Israel responded by sealing the borders and bankrupting Gaza’s economy. Hamas burrowed tunnels underground for trade and terror. This summer they attacked each other again over the borders and the tunnels.

So, how will the children answer the question “What do you want to be when you grow up? If war is all you see and all you learn than war will never end. About 2 million people live in Gaza and half of them are under the age of 18. A survey found that about 20% of the children witnessed a death in the family.   35% saw destruction at or near their home and 40% are suffering from Post -Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even the successful are in ruin now. Contractors who were wealthy enough to build homes for all their family members are standing in their ruined shells of buildings after war. War solves nothing only promotes more hate. Stop it now!