[Paulo Henrique Santos da Costa]

In a time when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is making the news headlines everyday, and the animosity against Israel and the jewish people is growing in rampant alarming ways, it’s very important to understand the roots of the conflict. If the conflict was indeed an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the solution would be much easier. But this conflict of seemly impossible solution have not started in 1948. The “nakba” and the developments of the past 75 years brought new nuances to the problem, but the conflict is much older and in order to efficiently address it, we need to zoom out and seek reconciliation and healing to a wounded relationship that goes beyond Gaza and the West Bank. In reality, it’s a family division that started in the tents of Abraham when Isaac was chosen to carry the seed who would bless all the earth and Ishmael did not understand his role in honouring and submitting to God’s choice. That said, the conflict is not only political, and goes beyond a dispute between religions, to solve this problem we need to seek and promote reconciliation among two brothers (Arabs and Jews) that for so long have being living in enmity.