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A Day of Mourning

I got an email from a friend a couple of days ago that apologized for the actions of Israel in Palestine and now Lebanon against Hamas and Hezbollah respectively. I had a pang of sorrow strike me in reading his note and then the replies from other friends in Lebanon and Egypt about the escalating craziness of the situation. For those outside of that world, it is hard to fathom the deep-seated feelings of culture, pride, hurt, and anger surrounding Israeli-Arab relations; those feelings go back far beyond the 1949 creation of modern Israel and the 1967 six-day war between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Now, it seems that the eye of the storm - the Israel-Palestine issue - has started to pick up storm clouds again. When I think about the impending war that almost seems inevitable to break out as the hours pass, I feel sadness for the detrimental effects this will have on the region and the worrying effects it will have on my friends. For this, I find myself in a day of mourning.

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