Decision ‘08

Some Good News, For A Change

Some of you may be surprised (though it’s mentioned in the comments of a thread elsewhere, from the Israel/Hezbollah war this summer) that I count among my good friends a quite liberal anti-Zionist (but not anti-Semitic: I concede there is a difference) Palestinian.

You shouldn’t be: political agreement is not a necessary precondition for friendship. Indeed, though we differ on the particulars, almost all men of good will long for peace in the Middle East, and an end to the never-ending turmoil. We can argue elsewhere about cause and effect and who’s responsible for what; that’s not what this post is about.

My aforementioned good friend has a nephew from Ramallah who is attending Earlham College in Indiana. Unfortunately, his parents, who work for the Palestinian government, have not been payed in some time (as you may know, the Palestinians are in a bit of a budget crunch due to most international funds being pulled after Hamas gained power), and could not afford his room, board, and tuition. A partial scholarship helped, but he was still $10,809 short.

That’s where an unlikely friendship with a young Jewish man from Los Angeles kicked in. I don’t want to spoil the rest; you can read the remarkable story of Joey Katona and Omar Dreidi here (and soon, in the New York Times, as a reporter has contacted Omar about his and Joey’s story). But I do want to highlight this:

“We come from two different places with two different backgrounds and two different religions, but we became best friends” recalls Dreidi.

“We don’t always agree politically,” chimes in Katona, “but we do agree that everyone wants a solution to the violence.”

Indeed we do…good story for this time (or any time) of year…