Where are the true human beings who love others and respect others as they also wish to be loved and respected?None of the senseless violence that continues each day makes much sense any more, no matter from what angle you view it.

We wake up each morning to more tribal war in Africa, new insurgencies all over, and today we hear that 700,000 Palestinians in the Gaza are without electricity and water. How concerned are we really about this escalation?What has to happen before people come to their senses? Who will be able to stand up and say enough? Who will have the courage and moral character to say we are going to stop? How many more lives need to be lost before someone wakes up and says enough! Wake up humanity.

We need to make a call to end the madness everywhere. Israel needs to stop the violence and find a way to stop their hatred. Palestinians need to stop the madness and put down their arms and start feeding the people, building homes, paving roads, going to school, the simple stuff of life.

Here’s a thought: what will happen if everyone puts down their guns and instead brings large numbers of musicians into open arenas and let them play the music of their fathers and mothers and dance and eat and party. Let everyone bring joy again to everyday lives.

Impractical? So how practical is it to kill each other over land? How practical is it to dedicate your life to control someone? No one owns the land. No one owns other people. No one even owns himself or herself. If you doubt this, read any religious tradition in the world and you will know how much nothing belongs to you. Each of us will die someday, and we will leave it all behind. When we see the Creator we will be asked to answer to everything that we did and did not do. I shudder to think what the Creator will ask of those so-called leaders.

We can all wait for that perfect leader to come and lead all warring parties into sanity… or every man, woman, and child in these territories can get more sane and stand up and say “No More.” Israelis and Palestinian sane people can march peacefully and say, “No More.”

I fervently pray that some great woman or man will stand up and say enough! That would be great. But until that happens, who will stand up and become the peacemaker before the conditions get so bad that even worse atrocities will be committed before any peace could be had?People in Israel and Palestine; wake up before it is too late!