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A Palestinian and a Jewish stranger are showing people what a civilized conversation looks like

"I believe and I hope."

Photo by Farrinni on Unsplash

Two hands reach toward one another.

We live in challenging times, made even more divisive by social media rage. This is not to say that the rage is always uncalled for or unneeded, as there are many moments in history where even anger is righteous. But far more powerful in these times are the surprising moments of real connection, communication and understanding, like a recent exchange between a Palestinian and a Jewish stranger that shattered negative stereotypes and expectations.

I, like many, have become addicted to the algorithm, often fueled by propaganda, false narratives, and plain myopic anger. We are all, by nature, tribal ,and so many of our hearts have swelled with fear, sorrow, and an existential angst around the idea that humans simply might not be fixable.

earth, space, humans, water, peace A photo of Earth from space. Photo by NASA on Unsplash

But I've noticed lately that I'm getting a stronger dopamine rush from reading supportive and kind comments as opposed to the hate-fueled ones. I stumbled upon a post on Threads from last year just before the Jewish New Year, (Rosh Hashana) which really struck me. A man wrote:

"As a Palestinian, like many of my Jewish and Arab friends, this year has been a heavy one. Nonetheless, I believe and I hope."

"A Jewish friend once shared a verse (from the Pirkei Avot) with me that I've saved and held on to: 'The world is sustained by three things: by truth, by justice, and by peace.'"

"It has been especially poignant as a mantra all year."

"To my Jewish friends, L'Shanah Tovah. May a new year bring love, light, healing, and a sense of peace grounded in truth and justice for all."

Threads, Jewish, Palestinian, Israeli, peace A person on Threads shares a sentiment. Threads, Mohu

Having read this, I find myself constantly searching for like-minded people of all races, religions, and political affiliations who would also like to find a soft space nestled in this chaos. I scour social media sites and have found that often when you search, you find. It doesn't mean that there aren't literal and metaphorical fires burning all around us. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't stay informed and stand up for what we believe.

But, if just for a day, we could focus on these tiny victories, perhaps it's the smallest step to regaining our humanity. I happened upon a conversation last week (also on Threads) wherein a Palestinian woman made a comment about having pride in her heritage. Many nasty Islamophobic and anti-Semitic bots and trolls came out of the woodwork, but one comment stood out.

The OP wrote:

"All I said in my last post is 'I love being Palestinian' and the comments speak for themselves. We can’t love our heritage? Our culture? That’s too much for you (clown emoji)."

In response, someone wrote back:

"I’m Jewish. We probably disagree on lots, but to hell with those comments. You’re a human being deserving of respect, and to be proud of your culture and heritage."

The OP answered:

"Thank you for being rational. May we find a common middle ground one day."

This is met with:

"Hopefully in our lifetime! Don’t let the uneducated people bring you down."

flower, peace, nature, kindness, earth A purple flower surrounded by green leaves. Photo by Konrad Koller on Unsplash

A Threader pointed out, "This is one of the more mature comments I’ve seen. So much hate on these threads. Thank you for being a human being." The kindness began to multiply, with another person sharing, "That’s so true. I started a dialogue with a Jewish man and I would like to think we both learned a lot. You can’t understand how other people think and behave without respectful debates."

There are many more threads like this out there between people from every side of the proverbial chasm. They don't take away the pain and fear, but they could serve as a step in the right direction.


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One woman's furious response to Uber's new deal with the Saudi government.

Every day, Salwa wakes up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus to her college, but most days, her first class isn't until noon.

She can't take a later bus because there is no later bus.

She can't drive herself to school either. She's not allowed.

So when she arrives on campus hours before her class? She waits.

Salwa lives in Saudi Arabia, where women have been banned from driving cars for decades.

Saudi women are forced to rely on rides from friends, family, and "male guardians." Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images.

There's no actual law on the books banning women from driving; it's against the social values set by religious clerics who advise the king and can ban pretty much whatever they want. They've argued that allowing women to drive would have serious negative impacts on society — everything from a "chaotic" mixing of genders in public to claiming that somehow the act of driving pushes up on the pelvis in a way that would cause birth defects. Which is, you know ... insane.

So Salwa is left taking the bus.

Leaving school to get to her internship at a nearby hospital is no picnic either.

"Female students are not allowed to exit the university without permission from a male guardian," Salwa told Upworthy through a translator. "This male guardian can be a father, brother, uncle, or even a cousin. So every time I want to leave the university, I must have two copies of a paper containing my male guardian's signature. I have to give the female security a copy so she'll let me leave, then I must give another copy to a security man who is always standing at the bus door. He doesn't let any girl ride the bus without this paper."

King Saud University, where Salwa goes to school. Photo by Basil Al Bayati/Wikimedia Commons.

Even though she has to plan her entire day navigating around these rules, Salwa is getting her education.

She's a senior majoring in clinical laboratory science at King Saud University in Riyadh: a city that once banned women from entering a certain Starbucks after a wall fell down that had previously separated families from single people.

(Other things banned in Saudi Arabia include Pokemon and cat selfies. Not just cats or selfies, but cat selfies: pictures of one's self with a cat or cats ... or anything else.)

Understandably, it's the strict prohibitions put upon women that anger Salwa the most.

Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images.

"I'm really annoyed because I'm not a minor [who should] be treated like this," she told Upworthy. "I'm an adult girl who's reached the legal age. But they treat us like kids."

Recently, Uber announced a deal with the government in Saudi Arabia. Could this be the answer for women like Salwa who need to get around?

The ride-hailing service just announced a $3.5 billion investment the Saudi government, which marks the biggest single source overseas investment in the company's history and possibly a new chapter for Silicon Valley tech. Given that Uber has experienced some recent regulatory issues in parts of Europe, including the conviction of two of its French executives, it makes sense they are more aggressively pursuing markets elsewhere, like the Middle East and Asia.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

But it's not as simple as it sounds. Uber has partnered with a government that banned half its population from driving.

So when Saudi women utilize Uber, they're now giving the government a financial incentive not to lift the driving ban. Many of them, including Salwa, find that insulting and exploitative.

"Saudi Arabia is now taking benefits from Uber economically," she told Upworthy. "Thus, the government won't give us our rights since they are earning huge amounts of money due to this partnership. I'm here as a Saudi women calling for the withdrawal of Uber since it is the cause of a lot of suffering for us and makes our rights delayed."

Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images.

She's not alone. Saudi women recently took to Twitter in big numbers to announce a boycott.

Before long, the hashtag "Saudi women announce Uber boycott," (which, yes, is shorter in Arabic) had 8,500 mentions in a week.

Uber spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker responded to criticism of the deal saying, "Of course we think women should be allowed to drive. In the absence of that, we have been able to provide extraordinary mobility that didn’t exist before — and we’re incredibly proud of that.”

But for Saudi women like Salwa, the driving ban isn't just a matter of getting around. It's about fairness.

"The clerics here are against women working, driving, or being independent," Salwa told Upworthy. "They claim that men's prestige will be lost if women did all that... Girls here are considered property."

Women attending a spring festival in Riyadh. Photo by Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images.

Since speaking out against Uber and her government, Salwa says she has been harassed and threatened on social media. She's not afraid, but she is angry. "If I could leave Saudi Arabia without getting permission from my male guardian, I would leave," she says.

Tomorrow, when Salwa wakes up at 5 a.m. to begin her commute, she still won't have the right to drive.

But she'll continue pursuing her education. She'll continue building her career, and she'll continue speaking her mind, fighting to be a person in a world that tells her she's property.

Maybe one day when the anger and courage of women like Salwa forces Saudi Arabia to a tipping point, she'll be free to walk, drive, take the bus, or take a cat selfie — whenever she wants.

For now though, she has to get to school.

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A Canadian woman went to Greece to help rescue refugees. Here's what she saw.

The video begins with a man in a blue and orange coat surrounded by strangers breaking down on a Greek beach.

For a moment, he sobs, clutching his daughter — no more than six years old — tightly to his chest. A person from the crowd drapes a thin, grey blanket around him. Then, suddenly, he begins to panic. He holds up a few fingers — first four, then two.
He is a refugee, and his first moments on European soil were captured on tape by Rory Aurora Richards, a Canadian volunteer working to aid the thousands of men, women, and children landing in Greece after fleeing persecution in their home countries.
"He was from one of about 13 boats we brought in that night. Scenes like this are not uncommon," Richards told Upworthy.
"People come off the boats very traumatized. The relief of being on safe land triggers a deep release of emotion and trauma."

Richards is one of dozens of volunteers from around the world who have traveled to Lesbos Island in Greece to aid refugees fleeing war in Syria and around the Middle East.

Though neighboring Turkey is often the first stop for many refugees from Syria and the Middle East, many ultimately decide to attempt to continue on to Europe. When refugees successfully complete the dangerous, over-water crossing, Lesbos is often where they land.
Roughly 6,000 refugees arrive on the island per day, according to some estimates.

Lifeguards rescue refugees from a boat off a Lesbos beach. Photo by Rory Aurora Richards/Facebook, used with permission.

According to Richards, who is raising money for the relief efforts on Lesbos, the volunteers operate individually or in separate groups organized by country of origin.

While the volunteer teams only occasionally coordinate, they share a common goal: giving aid and comfort to people in great danger.

"The only thing that binds us together is compassion and the concern for human lives," Richards says of her fellow volunteers.
It was this compassion, as well as a sense of duty drawn from own religious and cultural background, that led Richards to offer her services at her own expense.
"I'm Jewish, so the reality of genocide and being a refugee resonates deeply for me," she says.

Richards praised the dedication and compassion of her fellow volunteers, many of whom frequently risk their lives to save the incoming refugees.

"The Spanish lifeguards, as a group, are incredibly impressive. They physically go out into the cold water and retrieve the boats," Richards said. "They work 24/7, and I have seen them put themselves in extreme danger many times. They are all volunteers. I hope people in Spain know who they are and what they do."

Lifeguards from Spain, waiting on the arrival of a refugee boat. Photo by Rory Aurora Richards/Facebook, used with permission.

Richards also singled out a group of Israeli doctors and medics who spend their nights treating the wounded and the sick upon arrival.

Wars around the Middle East have displaced millions of people just like the man that Richards filmed on the beach.

The civil war in Syria has already displaced and uprooted over 4 million people.
Caught between Bashar al-Assad's army and ISIS, nearly a quarter of the population of that country has fled rather than stay and risk death, imprisonment, or worse. While the trip across the Mediterranean might be less hazardous, it is only barely so. Over 3,400 people have died making the crossing in 2015 alone.

Refugees wait to cross near the Greek border. Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images.

Even after making the trecherous journey, many refugees have had trouble finding a home in Europe. While Germany prepares to accept over 800,000 refugees this year, thousands more remain in refugee camps throughout the continent, prevented from crossing national borders.
"If you had a family, and children ... wouldn't you want to take them to a place where they would be most safe, and that they had the most of amount of opportunities? This is human instinct ... . Why is that shameful?"
Meanwhile, the decision to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees has ignited a political firestorm in the United States, over fears that violent extremists might be among the resettled. More than half of all state governors have declared that refugees from Syria are not welcome in their states, despite the fact that they don't actually have the power to refuse refugees.

As someone who's met dozens of refugee families, and witnessed their suffering up close, Richards says she finds this attitude frustrating and difficult to understand.

A refugee couple Richards met in Lesbos. According to Richards, they fled war in Afghanistan and arrived via a treacherous trip through Iran and Turkey. Photo by Rory Aurora Richards/Facebook, used with permission.

"They are human, with same emotions and dreams as we have," Richards said. "People say, 'Oh, well, of course they want to go to Western Europe, or the USA or Canada ... they all want to go the richest countries. Well, wouldn't you too? If you had a family, and children ... wouldn't you want to take them to a place where they would be most safe and that they had the most of amount of opportunities? This is human instinct that we all have for our children. Why is that shameful?"

As for the man in the blue and orange coat, Richards and the volunteer team were, thankfully, able to help him.

Photo by Rory Aurora Richards/Facebook, used with permission.

"Doctors went him immediately and asked him if he was injured, and then an interpreter said he was not physically hurt, he was just scared," Richards explained. "His children were being treated nearby but he lost sight of them and began to panic ... . [But] we found his children immediately and reunited them."

For the volunteers, the rescue was all in a day's work.

"You don't have too much time to process," Richards said. "The lifeguard came over to tell us that another boat was near shore and was taking on water.
"We had to flee this crisis scene to attend to another."
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This unusual river of ice in the desert looks like fun. But the reason it's there isn't so funny.

What the 'hail' is going on in the desert?

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Natural Resources Defense Council

What the heck is going on here?

The video appears to have first hit YouTube in early November and has been making its rounds on social media. There have been a lot of guesses as to what it is, ranging from a flowing sand dune to a river of quicksand.

The answer? Hail.

When you get enough of it, it can flow like a river, picking up loose dirt or sand along the way. It happened in Colorado a few years ago and in the Texas Panhandle in 2012.

The one slushy you don't want to drink. GIF from ABC 7 Amarillo/YouTube.

What the "hail" is going on in the desert?

Heavy winter weather has been happening to the entire region for the past few weeks. Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia — pretty much everyone's been hit. And these storms have been packing an unusually strong wallop.

For instance, in late October, Baghdad was deluged with a whole month's worth of rain in a single day, according to an Al-Jazeera report.

And that much rain means flooding. Even the driest ground can only absorb so much water at a time, making creek beds, lakes, and low-lying areas swell with excess water. And if the rain happens fast enough, it can even turn into a flash flood.

“Flash floods are the most dangerous kind of floods, because they combine the destructive power of a flood with incredible speed and unpredictability," says the National Severe Storms Laboratory. “They can happen with little or no warning."




If you're thinking you can just power through it, think again. NOAA's flood safety site reminds people that it only takes a few inches of moving water to knock someone down and only a foot to start washing away cars!

All across the Middle East, dry river beds have become torrents, streets have become rivers, and refugee camps have been turned into swamps.

A lot of people have been hurt — some have died. 12 Saudi Arabians have been killed in the last few days alone.

Scientists predict these types of storms might become the new order of things.

Climate change is expected to knock extreme weather up a notch — droughts will become droughtier, floods will become floodier, and storms will become stormier.

A 2012 study from MIT, for instance, predicted that because of climate change, what we call a "storm of the century" hurricane could start happening every three to 20 years. That could mean a Hurricane Sandy or Typhoon Haiyan once a decade instead of once a lifetime. Other studies have found the same pattern in droughts, heat waves, and winter storms as well.

This is the kind of evidence people need to see.

There's still a lot we can do right now to help limit and prepare for these kinds of changes, but it starts with people understanding that this isn't just about the thermometer. It's about people's lives too.

This petition from the NRDC urges our world leaders to take action at the upcoming Paris Climate Talks — check it out to demand action!

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