Walking 20 km a day gives one a lot of time. The first day I mostly talked to others but the next day I took upon myself the role of scout, walking in front of everyone with a bright yellow vest, just in case any car came by. (Yes this is still Australia with the ‘safety first’- over protective mentality I find everywhere).

the path that never ends

Anyway, it gave me a lot of time to think. And with all the talk about ancestral grounds I began thinking of my ancestors, who as the tale goes, walked through a different desert for 40 years after escaping slavery in Egypt.
Anyone who knows a little geography has to ask why the hell did it take them 40 years to cross a small desert? Well the biblical story tells us that it is a punishment. Most of the Israeli people still had the slave mentality they left Egypt with and did not believe they could conquer the land. That is why they wandered the desert for 40 years waiting for the older generation to die.

Even the flies couldn’t stop me from getting all philosophical

I started thinking what would have happened if the Israeli people escaping the holocaust would have waited 40 years for the post trauma to fade? Of cause it wasn’t much of an option to the millions of refugees but ‘what if?’
I began thinking of the ‘jewish’ people as a collective ‘meme’ with it’s own propagating agenda.

Many people suffering from abuse as children grow up to recreate these patterns. Abused become abusers or else ever remain with a ‘victim’ mentality staying in abusive situations because that is all that they know. If people act that way, why not entire countries?

No one can doubt the suffering that the aboriginal people have gone through. Yet, the people I met (by no means a representative sample), were preaching a philosophy of ‘we are all one people’. They are teaching their children that they are citizens of the world with equal rights, while still being very adamant on preserving their heritage and knowledge. I was happy to discover that there were rangers that were accepted to the group even if they weren’t from aboriginal descent.

The police came to visit on our walk. warning us of the upcoming storm.

Why the hell can’t Israel do the same? Is there any chance the Israeli nation can escape the ‘battered person’ syndrome I believe it is suffering from? And if so would there even be an Israel? Well, just because I’m asking questions doesn’t mean have answers. But if you do, let me know what you think.