Two nights ago, I watched John Stewart on Comedy Central make fun of the America’s reaction to the situation in Gaza. He laughed at how all American politicians, Republicans and Democrats, were all reciting the same line about how Israel must use a sledgehammer to kill a fly when the shit that produces the fly is left uncovered, untreated and unprocessed. He was sending a message that only a Jew could send without the risk of being seen as anti-Semite.

Beyond the military cost and the lost of lives, there are moral, ethical, strategic and political costs attached to the assault on Gaza.

I do not believe, for a moment, that all the smart people of this world could not find a solution to the Middle Eastern conflict that will not continue to debase our humanity. How could it be that we have all failed for this long?

I have a strong belief that someone is fooling us. There is something so simple that we all are getting so wrong. It is something very fundamental. I could not get my fingers on it, yet, but something tells me it is within our reach if only we could open our eyes.

Maybe we could get close to that thing by thinking, what if…

J. K. Rowling said that, “we do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

What if I were Jewish? What if you were Jewish? Would that help us to imagine better?

What if I were Palestinian? What if you were Palestinian? Would that help us imagine better?

What if we say, yes, we can make peace no matter the cost? Or am I only dreaming? Why are we ready to bear any cost to fight a war but not any cost to make peace?