Hope for Israel and Sandra becomes a Class Representative.

When I was last in Israel, just before I fell sick, I voted for Barak and I remember the huge celebrations in the street. I remember the ecstacy in the air. The huge relief that the country felt as it seemed that peace was dawning.

I have a distinct memory, and I do not know if its a false memory of something that did not happen; or if its an imagined wish projected by me into my memories.

But I have a very very real memory of seeing a photograph in the paper of Barak and Arafat, reclining in deck chairs next to a swimming pool.

The talk in the air was that conscription could soon be abolished. And then things started going wrong.

Very wrong.

The delicate balance of my body broke. The delicate balance of the peace broke. I had a physical operation. Israel and the Palestinians had military operations. I left Israel in order to return to my home town to attempt to deal with the brokenness of my body. And the Intifada began again.

In the last eight months my body has been brought back in balance and today something great happened to Israel and the Palestinians.

I feel that a new dawn in my life, and in life of Israel has begun.

On other notes. Sandra has become the class representative for the 1st year homeopath students. She said "It just happened". She loves being organised and organising - and I would have been surprised if she had not somehow happened to end up as the class representative. (She is a trustee on the body corporate of our building too.)

Her class was presented to their cadavers today. The dead bodies were not uncovered. But they were taken into the room filled with clinical death. She said that no matter how prepared she thought she was. No matter that she had bought the tools. That she had read the introductory texts. That she had researched on the internet. Nothing can prepare you for standing in front of a dead somebody, the tactile sensation of touching a dead human being (albeit still covered up). The smell.

Israel and Palestine have been filled with dead bodies on both sides of the conflict. Hopefully the smell of death will be brought back to soon to where it should be... In universities and technikons for the benefit of all living.

Today Sandra agreed to represent her fellow 1st years students. A new world has begun for her.

Today the old warrior Arik reached out and shook hands with the moderate Abbas. And somehow I feel that this carries much more hope than the moderate self-satisfied Barak and the warrior Arafat lying (pun intended) in deck chairs.