One of the things I love about the blogosphere is that it exposes us to views to which we would not normally be exposed. On many occasions, these views can pleasantly surprise us.
I had the pleasure of discovering this blog yesterday. The blogger, a 22-year-old Egyptian woman, reacted to an old post of mine, in which I said “Egypt is no friend of ours.” This prompted the following response:
I have always been a firm believer that Israel is not an enemy, and that you cannot hate someone just coz they are israeli. I am all for peaceful relations, and active peace between Egypt and Israel.
But this blog let me see the other side, especially that sentence “it doesn’t change my opinion that Egypt is no friend of ours”
I realized – well if most of the Egyptian population hated Israel so much, and would do horrific acts of brutality if they come across an Israeli, then this must be reciprocal. Israeli’s would feel pretty much the same towards us.
The idea that someone hates me so much – without even knowing me, sent a chill through my body!
It’s scary
(I still stand behind my opinion, that Israel is no enemy of mine)
Now read the ensuing comments. I don’t know about you, but I was pleasantly surprised. I knew intellectually that there must be some Egyptians who supported peace with Israel, but I never heard from them before. Granted, Superluli admits that perhaps 0.5% of the population thinks like her, but, hey, it is 0.5% more than I assumed. Not only that, but 0.5% of 77 million is still close to 400,000 people.
What have I learned from this? While it is true that we are surrounded by many countries who would love to see us wiped from the map, it is important to know that not all Arabs and Muslims desire this. Not only that, but there are some who try to see things from our point of view, and truly understand the situation without being influenced by the propaganda of their leaders. We saw it with Hossein Derakhshan, and we see it with Superluli.
My hope is that we will hear many more such voices. And with the blogosphere growing at such a rapid rate, chances are we will.
