The lighthouse sits on the hill, a soft breeze in the hot afternoon, and in the background the boiling news: crowds are coming to Jerusalem, trying to stop the coup d’état.
The intimate circle, on the hill, with the open view of the Gaza area, invites a different discourse about the place and the period, and an attempt to look beyond this day and the times of rage, as befits lighthouses facing a stormy sea.
Well, in summary: it is possible that the meetings in the future (in a decade, maybe even sooner) will pose new, different challenging questions: the wars of today, the conflicts between nations and religions, will be a thing of the past and other hardships will cause cooperation (or, God forbid, more wars) between the people who share our space, and in general, all regions of the world.
Global warming is not a trend: it is an actual, irreversible reality on Earth.
Have we sailed far? Perhaps, but already today, the basic human need for water, simply water, even before the water of food, healing, clothing, shelter, outweighs the hold on the beliefs that marked the struggles throughout the centuries.
Did we agree on the diagnosis? Five friends in a circle, and a beehive of different opinions washes over the place, like the spirit of the beehive that recently lived here.
Hayuta pulls out a book of poems and Amir Gilboa adds his words to the conversation.
And suddenly it’s already four o’clock.
This time we were: Rami, the Tzur brothers (Hayota and Shmolik), Oded, Moshe.
Written by: Moshe

Rami was at a conference this week along with another 1,500 participants from all over the world. He explained the insights in front of us in the first hour of the meeting, and the gist of it as it was preserved in my memory:
The earth provides resources for sustaining life on it. Humans live on and near these resources. The resources in a certain area need to sustain the community living near them. The distribution of resources should not be by countries but by regional communities. For example, here, in the area where we live, there are large areas of land, there is groundwater, there is rainfall, there is the sea. These are resources that all residents of the area have to live off of without state border lines. Rami adds and says that it is possible (with a legal procedure, some of which can already be implemented) to establish here, in the compound where we sit, an environmental research station that will conduct research on subsistence in the environment’s resources. Rami stated in advance that he came today for a short time and we did not discuss too much understanding or development of the idea.
A little before Rami’s departure, Jaber arrived.
After Rami left, it was Jaber’s turn for insight: he is currently working as an bus driver, he does not intend to continue doing so for a long time. He finished the tours operators course with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he studied a lot and on the other hand, he had difficulty in the final exam, according to him, due to internal resistance to basic assumptions that contradict his knowledge and understanding of territorial and historical facts and processes on which he grew up (I tried to phrase it gently…). Jaber’s son finished his medical studies in Romania, returned to Israel and needs to complete exams to start working. applause! Today Jaber was quite upset and spoke excitedly about his attitude as an Israeli-Arab-Muslim to the protest.
Shmulik Nahshi and I are already traveling as usual to Be’er Sheva for demonstrations on Saturdays. We invited him to demonstrate with us, and he gave us an emotional speech about why he doesn’t see any benefit in these demonstrations and even said that if the government succeeds in its plot, we might finally feel a little of what he goes through in his daily routine as a citizen. He of course understands that his situation will also get worse, but he is intrigued to see the reaction of the privileged when their privileges are harmed.
We parted as friends because four o’clock had come.
And Gaza, what about it? Maybe this is the place to tell that a few days ago we were present at an artistic event where we met Gaza with whom we communicated until about a year ago…
We were: Moshe, Rami, Jaber, Nahshi, Shmulik, Oded.
Written by: Oded

Today, as well as on all Fridays since the end of March 2018, we met at “The Lighthouse”.
The beehives, along with the bees, were transported from here.
The shade of the pine trees, cooled by the pleasant wind, finally cleared, and we were able to move to our “summer residence”.
Nahshi, Shmulik, Moshe, and Oded participated in establishing the gathering.
Rami later joined, initiating a discussion (which is actually relevant these days) about “resistance,” fascism, democracy, and more.
Later, Maharan also arrived, completing the male presence in the circle.
And Gaza?
As usual, she is here next to us, waiting for something good to happend.
This time we were: Shmulik, Moshe, Nahshi, Rami, Maharan, and Oded.
Written by: Oded

The discussion started while driving to the lighthouse: Talking about books, that Shmulik likes Meir Shalev more than Agnon.
Friday afternoon in the Gaza area. There is a pleasant breeze, and the bees are satisfied with the water near the hive.
Shmulik makes sure to serve coffee, and to mention that on the other side of the fence next to the sulfur factory, today they celebrate the holiday of the sacrifice, Eid-al-Adha.
Hayuta, always armed with a book, pulls out another work of Meir Shalev, “Fontanela”. She reads from the book and for a moment we move from the Gaza area to a courtyard with the views of the Israel valley.
With our return to the here and now, Shmulik raises his concern about the political situation and the future of the Jewish-Arab partnership, for example in the Israeli Communist Party. A party that was founded about a century ago, and has produced generations of leaders and activists. Shmulik misses Dov Hanin.
Today there are no hikers in the area, not even shepherds around.
So what did we have today? We sailed to the Israel Valley, traveled to other times, returned to the Gaza Strip…
This time we were: the Tzur brothers (Hayuta and Shmulik), Moshe.
Written by: Moshe