Day 362- Two years later

Dear Mr. President,

It's been two years since Operation Cast Lead, since the Gaza war, since the brutal asymmetrical violence that left thousands dead, injured or homeless. This will likely be my last letter to you about Gaza, at least for 2010. I haven't heard any practical solutions for the people of Gaza from your administration, nor have I heard much in the way of insistence that Israel find an alternative to the utterly unlivable status quo. The peace talks that have now fallen apart, at their most ambitious, their most hopeful, did not include a framework for Gaza. The people of Gaza cannot continue living as they have been, they cannot be expected to raise yet another generation to call a prison camp home. Two years of endless stalemate haven't made Israel safer and they haven't made Gaza any more livable.

I wonder if you have asked yourself how this ends. How it will look when the war is finally over and the lines on the map are final. When every one has a flag and a seat at the UN. What will that entail? What will it look like, how will it be fair, what role will we play? Most importantly- how do we get there? If we already know these things, why aren't we doing it? It will be hard. People will be upset, compromise will not be easy. Friends and allies will be offended and alienated and you will be called any number of nasty names for your trouble. But it has to be done. Progress has to be made. The situation cannot stand.

Looking into 2011 and 2012, I know that re-election will overshadow any foreign policy goals that might not play well on FOX news. I wonder what you would do if no one were watching, if what they said didn't matter, if all the voices were silenced and you had only your own conscience to answer to. At some point, it isn't about the past, it isn't about politics, it isn't even about racism, it's just people; people killing, hurting, starving, oppressing other people and the people who look the other way and let it happen.

I don't want to be one of those people. I don't believe that you do, either.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 339-All in

Dear Mr. President,

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has stated that he will dissolve the Palestinian government and force Israel to take responsibility for the West Bank. Abbas is clearly a much better poker player than I would have given him credit for.

If Israel does not stop settlement construction, Abbas would be wise to follow through on this threat. Abbas is correct when he says that he cannot be expected to lead, to be responsible for a territory he has no real control over. Israel bears little of the financial or regulatory responsibility for its occupation, and forcing the government to pay (literally and figuratively) for its policies is the only way to compel change. The threat may frighten Israeli leadership enough to get an actual settlement freeze or could pave the way to a more just single-state solution, should the Palestinians begin lobbying not for statehood but suffrage.

I certainly don't envy the headache Prime Minister Netanyahu must be suffering as a result of this announcement.

With Israeli and Palestinian firefighters working together to battle a forest fire, I hope that government officials on both sides recognize the potential for all of the people in this region to live side by side, to work together, in peace. It can happen, but such an outcome is absolutely contingent upon civil rights, economic stability and personal security for all people, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity. It cannot happen under occupation, and I am glad that Abbas, at least, recognizes this. I hope that peace talks resume in a manner that is fair and respectful of both sides, but, should the intractable commitment of the Israeli right to continue the construction of the settlements prove to be insurmountable for Netanyahu, I fully support the return of administrative responsibilities for the West Bank to the Israelis. Palestinians have long been punished (often violently) for the actions of extremists within their midst while Israel has empowered, protected and elected their own fundamentalists. The price of this hypocrisy ought to be the social, financial and political burden of the occupation and oppression supported by those fundamentalists and spearheaded by settlers in the face of international law, the interest of peace and basic common sense.

Abbas has slid his chips across the table. Netanyahu must go all-in with him, or fold and face the consequences. As Israel's ally and an advocate for peace, (not to mention a leader familiar with the costs of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan,) I'm sure you can appreciate just how difficult Netanyahu's decision will be. Netanyahu should learn from history, freeze the settlement construction and return to the table for peace talks more willing than ever to compromise for the sake of peace. Call your friend, Mr. President, and tell him it's time to fold.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 318-It's not murder, it's a metaphor

Dear Mr. President,

While reading an article about the way our brain reacts similarly to the literal and metaphorical feelings of pain and disgust, I cam across this passage about Palestine and Israel:

in a world of sheer rationality where the brain didn’t confuse reality with symbols, bringing peace to Israel and Palestine would revolve around things like water rights, placement of borders, and the extent of militarization allowed to Palestinian police. Instead, argues Axelrod, “mutual symbolic concessions” of no material benefit will ultimately make all the difference.

This got me thinking about the military aid offered to Israel in exchange for a 90-day extension of the settlement freeze. The terms of the freeze are largely symbolic; settlement construction could continue in East Jerusalem, the ostensible future capitol of a Palestinian state, and no extension of the freeze would be requested after 90 days. The objections to this plan from the Israeli right are largely symbolic, as well. It makes me wonder how much we'd be willing to pay for symbolism. 3 billion a year in aid? Unlimited cover at the UN? What about any potential future peace in the region?

The deal you've offered is trading just that. You've sent a message to the Palestinians that they have 90 days to make peace and after that they are on their own. No US support for Palestinian statehood unless it is on Israel's terms. No US diplomatic pressure to keep the settlements from expanding again in 90 days. The unconditional agreement of those new bombers, which the US will provide to Israel regardless of a peace deal being signed or not. It's an offer so good, it should have it's own infomercial. The unfairness of the whole situation, and the utter absurdity of the Israeli right balking at such an offer is mind-boggling.

Instead of settling for symbolism, why didn't you decide to leverage our special relationship for an agreement that would have practical results? It seems as though you'd settle for the illusion of progress so long as it makes every one (except, of course, the Palestinians) feel better and look good, rather than a less popular, more difficult long-term plan that will actually hold Israel responsible for curtailing settlement activity? Instead of trading away a guarantee to do everything in our (not inconsiderable) power to prevent recognition of Palestinian statehood by international organizations, why wouldn't we threaten to do everything in our power to support it, if Israel doesn't follow international law? I just don't understand.

I would never argue that this conflict is simple or that achieving peace won't be a complicated process. But when lives and homes and the basic human rights are at stake, we can't afford to sacrifice the protection of these things for the sake of symbolism. Water rights, housing demolitions, settlements and security are practical points of disagreement that must be addressed seriously and with respect to the needs of people on all sides. Instead you have practically increased Israel's capacity for violence and symbolically granted the political cover to wield it with impunity. Symbolically, and practically, this was a total failure.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 314-Diplomacy or Professional wrestling?

Dear Mr. President,

Weird things are happening. A few days ago I saw a headline that read "Obama leads world chorus against Israel plan for Jerusalem." I was surprised by the implications of this headline, but I sort of brushed it off as typical media sensationalism. Then I saw the Huffington Post article describing the way you "slammed" the settlement activity. I read over your remarks. Nothing about them evoked the image of a pro-wrestling move, or, for that matter, a chorus of condemnation. Calling the settlements not helpful isn't exactly strong condemnation, or at least not the kind that would warrant this sort of media language.

It is incredibly surreal to see the right wing and the Israeli Prime Minister criticizing you for being too tough on Israeli settlement activity when, from my perspective, you haven't said or done nearly enough. It's one of those stories told so consistently that it begins to make me doubt my own perception. I think it's also indicative of how unacceptable criticism of Israeli policies, (even international law-breaking, immoral, hypocritical policies,) has become in our national discourse.

I think what you said about the settlements in East Jerusalem was right on the mark. Especially while Palestinian homes are being bulldozed in the same part of the city, there should be no new settlement activity. Palestinian leaders have already demonstrated a patient commitment to this peace process, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they do not have equal partners in the Israeli leaders. While Palestinians crack down and temper the extremists in their midst, Israelis are electing and empowering their own.

I know that you place a high importance on the state of US-Israeli relations. I just don't believe that true allies get this up in arms over such small criticism. The Israeli government is never going to make the tough calls necessary to a successful peace without strong urging from the US. I sincerely hope that your remarks indicate a toughening of our line against settlement activity, and a move away from the unconditional support that perpetuates and excuses the kind of oppression preventing peace in a region that needs it so badly.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 302- Emotional and academic

Dear Mr. President,

A few days ago my class was visited by an Israeli guest lecturer. I tried to go in with an open mind, especially because I knew the professor places a huge importance on human rights and is sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. Throughout the lecture, I found myself getting angrier and angrier. His attempts at objectivity were so obviously colored with the comfortable, academic detachment that I find so frustrating. Reducing events and issues that represent tangible suffering, blood, death and disenfranchisement to abstractions might lead to calmer discourse, but it doesn't do justice to the people not lucky enough to pretend it's all just an academic exercise. At the end of the lecture, he opened it up for questions and was gracious, if a bit dismissive, about my views on the unsettling rise of the radical Israeli right wing.

I fully admit that, for all of my academic energies devoted to Palestinian issues, I have a much deeper and much more immediate emotional reaction. I don't apologize for or regret this; witnessing injustice against real people is an emotional and not an academic experience. But I also recognize that my emotional reactions may not be as useful to those who are struggling with that injustice as some one else's more detached and rational response. It makes it difficult for me to listen to people like this professor make statements about his optimism for the peace process, so long as people let go of the "irrational" idea of a right of return. I've been to Dheisheh refugee camp and seen the way that refugee status still affects the day to day lives of my friends who grew up there. The idea that they have no claim to the homes their ancestors were forced out of, that their future aspirations can be swept aside and dismissed as irrational gives me a visceral reaction to the callousness of this detachment.

I also have to constantly question my role in all of this. Can I help, at all? I have to question how much of my desire to work in Palestine is fulfilling a selfish need to belong and feel useful, and how much is actually a desire to be part of the solution, an honest desire to fight injustice. Do I have the skills necessary? Is it enough just to bear witness, or do I have a responsibility to do more? I ask myself these things every day, as I discuss, explain, argue or learn more. And I don't have any answers; continuing the peace talks without a settlement freeze seems like political suicide for Abbas. A unilateral bid for recognition from the UN seems like it would lead to war. Discussing a one-state solution is tantamount to anti-semitism in modern American discourse, and even mentioning the role that Hamas might play in the peace process is enough to undermine one's credibility with so-called moderates from Israel and America.

I can't discuss these options without thinking about the tangible, personal way they will affect Palestinian people. Maybe that makes me a poor academic. I think that losing sight of the human cost of political decisions costs us our humanity, and I would rather keep mine than perfect a more dispassionate debate style. I think that the academic and political spheres need more compassion and more empathy, not less. Even if it makes certain lectures more difficult to sit through, and certain articles more difficult to read. That difficulty is nothing compared to the struggle of actually living with the bleak reality of the facts on the ground. You're well-known for your calm, cool approach to heated situations. I appreciate this about you, even if it at times frustrates me. I'm certain that, no matter how cool your exterior reactions may seem, these issues must affect you on an emotional level as well. Do you feel like the sheer number of problems around the world, the overwhelming amount of suffering causes you to become desensitized to it all? Or do you keep your emotions in check in order to keep every one else calmer?

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 285- Water

Dear Mr. President,

Tonight I'm writing a paper on the inequality of water access for Palestinians as compared to illegal Israeli West Bank settlers. Papers like this are difficult to write, because I've seen the inequality I'm writing about, I've seen the suffering that results from it, and the nature of the assignment requires that I write in dispassionate abstract terms. I want to write about the disbelief I felt when I realized that water doesn't always come out when a faucet is turned on during dry summer months. The way we walked through the July heat and the settlements loomed above us from the hilltops. The contrast between their swimming pools and irrigated orchards and the dry land. I can write about the disparity in water consumption and the unfairness of consistent availability and subsidized rates enjoyed by settlers, but it doesn't feel personal enough.

Water is incredibly easy to take for granted, growing up the Pacific Northwest. More than enough of it falls from the sky. Even more flows from the mountains and still more waits just underground. It is always green here, I am always able to take long, hot showers and I have never once had water shut off because there just wasn't enough. In Palestine, I felt like I was waiting for weeks, expecting rain that would never come. While I was away, Seattle had it's own hottest, driest summer weeks, but the green trees, the lush gardens and the car washes never suffered the want of a single drop. On the fourth of July a woman not much older than me spent all afternoon bringing up water from her well and heating it so that I and the other girls I walked with could wash once we arrived at her home that evening.

How do I explain that in an academic paper? How do you explain it? When you ask representatives of these two peoples to come together and talk about peace, do you ever consider that one side lives on 70% of the WHO's estimate for basic water needs, while the other lives on 300%? Do you ever consider that, in 27 years, Israel had granted permits for only 16 new Palestinian wells, a number that doesn't even begin to keep pace with the number rendered useless by drought in that same time, let alone the increasing demand of a growing population?

International affairs are complicated. The nuances of peace negotiations are surely more complicated than some one like me can appreciate. But water is simple. Water is basic, a necessary component of survival, health and economic stability. Access to water is something that no one should be denied because of their race, religion or nation of origin. Palestinians are already kept off of 60% of the West Bank controlled by the IDF because of settlements, settler roads, or military zones, specifically because of their status as non-Jews. That their access to water resources is similarly (and in fact, more dramatically) curtailed makes Israeli apartheid practices even more offensive.

I'm going to try to distance myself enough to write this paper without emotion. But I can't help feeling deeply ashamed of my own lifestyle, as I do so. Americans consume water at a rate unmatched in the rest of the world, and we do so as we support the denial of even basic water access to others. Some days I feel so incredibly hopeless, I just don't know where to even begin working toward making it better.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 277- Why the peace talks will not continue

"President Barack Obama rises at the UN and calls for a further moratorium on building in the settlements, as if it’s a crime for peaceful people to have children and add rooms to warm and hospitable homes." Shmuley Boteach, Jerusalem Post

I'd like to know if the peaceful people of East Jerusalem having their houses bulldozed are entitled to these things? Or the Bedouins? Settlement expansion is part of the same manifest-destiny mentality that makes people like Mr. Boteach feel entitled to the entire West Bank. And I wouldn't call this an act of peace.


Dear Mr. President,

Rumor has it you've been writing your own letters lately. I don't know if this account is true or not, but I do believe that you are desperate enough to continue the peace talks that you would make the offer you're rumored to have made to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Increasing our aid money, our weapon sales, our UN-veto frequency in exchange for a 2-month extension on the settlement freeze might seem like a good deal. Let's be honest, the US was going to veto those resolutions, sell those weapons and send that money anyway. I'm sure you still will, and so is Netanyahu, which is why he rejected your offer. I suppose in this sense you had nothing to lose by making it.

But the nature of your offer to Netanyahu highlight the utter foolishness of our policy toward Israel. Unconditional veto of UN resolutions? What does that say about our respect for the UN, the Security Council, or the process of seeking international justice? That no matter what Israel does, the US will use our veto to defend it. I suppose I was foolish to think that your administration had more respect for the UN than the previous one, but it really is disappointing to see how little you care for the institution and its purpose. Your alleged offer makes it clear that Israel may commit whatever human rights violations it sees fit and count on US support. Just like your reaction to the Mavi Marmara. Or the Goldstone Report. Or the Gaza war. Just like your complete lack of outrage over the cold-blooded murder of Palestinian children by Israeli troops. Your policies make it impossible to defend your administration against those on the left who wonder what the point of voting is, any more.

So the settlements will expand. The peace talks will break down. You can't ask President Abbas to abandon his already fragile legitimacy for peace talks that Israel has done nothing to indicate sincerity about. I am sorry, if not surprised. This is why it doesn't matter if you really made that offer to Netanyahu or not. The US cannot continue to pretend to play an honest broker while being this cozily in bed with one side of these negotiations. If you are serious about peace, if you want to earn your Nobel or secure your legacy or if you honestly want to ease the suffering on both sides of this conflict and leave the world a little safer for Sasha and Malia than you have to cease the charade of neutrality. The US can be neutral, it can be an honest broker and can lead both sides to a just and peaceful future. But it has to be more than just lip-service. We have to end the funding of Israel's occupation forces and insist that the Israeli people pay the bill themselves. We have to end our unconditional defense of Israel to the world and base our positions on the values of the United States of America- respect for human life, human rights, and for international law. We have to stop selling weapons to a regime that targets civilians and stop giving tax breaks to us groups funding illegal settlements. If we can practice real neutrality, we can achieve real peace.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 268- BDS? Droid Does.

Dear Mr. President,

I got a smartphone because it seemed like a good idea at the time. After owning it for a few weeks, I realized that my already troubling addiction to the internet was getting completely out of hand. I still haven't figured out a reasonable balance, or summoned the self-restraint to limit my usage. Despite my mixed feelings about this technology, I had to smile when I saw the story of the Israeli bloggers against illegal settlements who developed an app to let consumers find out if their purchases come from West Bank settlements.

President Abbas has already warned Israel that the negotiations will fall apart without the continuation of the settlement freeze. These Israeli bloggers are acting responsibly to demonstrate their objection to these illegal settlements by changing the way they spend their money (and by helping others to do the same.) I think a theme of my political philosophy, almost surely lifted shamelessly from your own writing, is that the way we spend our money reflects our values as individuals and as a society. The BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) campaign against the Israeli occupation is an effective, non-violent strategy for expressing opposition to injustice. These same settlements are officially opposed by your administration. Economic sanctions have been used by the US to nonviolently oppose the human rights abuses of unjust regimes around the world. The US should officially adopt a policy making it illegal to import or purchase goods produced by Israeli West Bank settlements, or to provide material support to these settlements which are illegal under international law and a major roadblock to our stated foreign policy goal of a viable, sustainable peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

I was pretty reluctant to type that last sentence. Not because I don't believe it. Not because I don't think you already know it's the right thing to do. I think that if we are serious about our foreign policy goals we ought to write laws and spend our money in a way that reflects this. My reluctance comes from my general preference to leave that choice up to the consumer. I don't enjoy being told where I can and cannot spend my own money, and it isn't something I'd want to impose upon another person, no matter how convinced I am of the necessity of such an imposition. Unfortunately, the difficulty faced by the average consumer trying to determine the origins of their purchases is significant enough to prevent all but the most conscientious from doing so. Official policy is the only way to ensure that consumers are aware of what they are buying and what those purchases support. I call for such a policy without the faintest hope that the political will exists to implement it. Even encouraging consumers to makes this decision on their own would be an act of political suicide. But until your administration is prepared to do more than gently discourage settlement activity, it will continue and it will dismantle any hope of real peace for Palestinians and Israelis. For those of us who aren't willing to wait for our leaders to find the moral courage such a stand would require, well, at least now we've got an app for that.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 267- Trust

Dear Mr. President,

Your speech to the UN general assembly about the prospect of peace between Palestine and Israel was difficult to hear, even as it was unsurprising. The way you glossed over any mention of violence by Israel against Palestinians demonstrated to any one listening that the United States continues to turn a blind eye to the very real suffering Israel has inflicted. It is so insulting to refuse even to acknowledge the needless loss of life and senseless destruction of Israel's occupation while using the most manipulative imagery possible to condemn the rockets fired from Gaza. ("This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire.") You perpetuate the idea that Palestinians might be oppressed, but Israelis live in constant fear of their lives- conveniently ignoring the inarguable fact that dramatically more Palestinians die at the hands of the Israeli military than Israelis are killed by Hamas. To allow that disparity to go unacknowledged while condemning Palestinian violence is the kind of gross misrepresentation of reality that I usually expect from FOX news.

While I admire your optimism in believing that the peace talks should continue even if the settlement freeze is allowed to expire, I don't see how you can reasonably ask the Palestinians to accept this. These peace talks are based on the idea that each side can trust their enemy to hold to its promises, to keep its word. That kind of trust is the only way any agreement will be reached or any lasting peace could ever be established. Stepping up construction on illegal settlements in territory that any reasonable final agreement will have to belong to the Palestinian state is the ultimate confirmation of the Palestinian's fears that Israel's appetite for land will never allow them a state of their own. (I say stepping up and not resuming because the settlement freeze has only slowed construction and never actually stopped it.) The Palestinians have, for six decades, watched their land erode to Israeli control. They have seen it taken by military force, by racist and unjust laws, by the construction of the apartheid wall. They have seen their neighbors and their children shot for harvesting crops on their own land. They have seen their water supplies dwindle to water Israeli crops. They have seen roads diverted around settlements that certain races are not allowed to drive on. They have been choked off from relatives living on the wrong side of arbitrary lines or with ID cards of the wrong color. They have had attempts at commerce and education foiled by checkpoints and blockades. It is a miracle that the current Palestinian leadership has summoned the good faith to talk, to suspend disbelief and allow for the hope that the land they have now might remain in Palestinian control. Allowing settlement construction to continue is a testament by the Israeli government that it has no interest in peace. That it has no intention of allowing the Palestinians their own state. It is a betrayal of trust these negotiations will not recover from.

You may ask all you wish for the talks to continue even if the freeze expires. It will come to nothing. You are likely using every diplomatic tool in your repertoire to try and convince the Netanyahu administration to extend the freeze as an act of goodwill. As Israel's closest ally and largest provider of military aid, our influence ought to be enough to accomplish this. I think, however, so long as you continue to demonstrate that we will not be practically tough on our ally, that we are not willing to revoke the military aid and to do more than verbally admonish their worst acts, Israel has no incentive to take the US or the peace talks seriously. I was a skeptic from the beginning about these talks, but you have asked us to hope. You asked us to trust that these men negotiating are serious about peace because they see it is their moral obligation and in the interest of their people. Trusting words is difficult in the best of circumstance, but trusting those words in the face of actions and policies that directly contradict them is downright foolishness. Israel must demonstrate a willingness to give up many of these settlements, that they can be trusted to obey international law and the terms of any future agreement. Expanding settlement construction now will only prove that the trust of the Palestinian people was in vain.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 266- 100 days

Update: It turns out due to an error earlier in the year this should actually be called "99 days" oh well. Live and learn, eh?

Dear Mr. President,

The measure of a presidency is often taken by the accomplishments of the first 100 days. I think this is silly. You've got to allow at least a few days to find all the light switches and figure out how to navigate the west wing, right? Not to mention all the the thanking people for their help getting you elected, the waiting for congress to remember that no one in the country knows who they are after election season ends, and, of course, the post-victory poll numbers can't be taken that seriously. But I have 100 days left to write to you this year, and I want to make my last 100 letters count. In 100 days, I want to think that my country will be different. I want to think it will be stronger, economically, and that the Bush-era tax cus will be allowed to expire. I want to think that it will be a freer, and more fair country, where gay and lesbian Americans will be allowed to openly serve in our military and marry whomever they please. I want to think that our image abroad will be improved by the closure of Guantanamo bay, the end of combat in Afghanistan, and that truly fair-minded American leadership in the Palestinian/Israeli peace talks will help create a stable, free and secure Palestinian state. We might also be a greener nation, with an end to harmful agricultural subsidies, a robust new energy policy and heavier federal investment in making our national infrastructure more environmentally friendly. Every single one of these things is possible in 100 days. (I may also wish for socialized health care and higher education, but I recognize those things can't happen in 100 days.) All of this can happen. And while my cynical, realistic side believes that none of these things will be accomplished in so little time, the part of me that still hopes for a better future believes that your next 100 days can be just as important and productive as your first 100 days, or the 100 days that will come after December 31st. And, while I have 100 letters left to write, you can bet that I'm going to bug your more than ever about every single one of these goals.

2010 has been kind of a rough year for you and your presidency. But it's got 100 days left, and that's plenty of time to turn things around and change the way this year and your administration is remembered by history. I hope you make them count.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 260- SMART Grants, napkins and sea shores

Dear Mr. President,

Today has been a great day. First, I'd like to thank you for a bit of good news I received today. Instead of taking out the small subsidized loan I'd been offered this year, I've just been awarded a National SMART grant. This is incredibly reassuring. The loan I was planning to take out this year wasn't huge compared to my total debt, but I'm still happy to avoid borrowing at all. I know I am incredibly lucky to be given this grant, especially when so many other students in my situation are seeing their debt levels continue to rise dramatically. I'm so grateful for the help.

Also today, I received a letter from my friend serving in the Peace Corps. I miss hearing her voice and seeing her every day. I miss our pancake mondays, our walks around greenlake and our heated political discussions that usually devolved into a general discussion about how much we want to marry Jon Stewart. I love reading her letters and hearing the details of her life in Burkina Faso, but I think part of her letter to me was actually meant for you:




It says: "I stole you a napkin from the embassy =) There is a sweet picture of Obama hanging in the embassy. It makes me so happy to see it. I'm still proud he's our president."

I don't think I could say it any better.

The last thing that made today great was this story a friend sent me on facebook about Israeli women helping Palestinian women sneak across the border for illegal day trips to the beach. A quote from one of the brave Israeli women interviewed struck me as particularly moving. "We want more Israelis to realise that there is nothing to be scared of. We want more people to refuse to accept the ideology that keeps us apart – and to just refuse to be enemies."

There is nothing to be scared of. I refuse to accept divisive ideology. I refuse to be enemies.

These are powerful, wise words. And the simple act of taking these Palestinian women and their children to see the ocean shows how ordinary citizens can fight injustice through simple acts of kindness. I think maybe these women should replace Netanyahu and Abbas for the peace talks. Something tells me they'd make a lot more progress.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 245-Pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies

Dear Mr. President,

The night of the 2008 election, after my best friend shattered two glasses full of beer toasting too enthusiastically with the man who would, months later, become her boyfriend but before we joined the gleeful crowd of celebrating Seattlites in the 6-mile walk to Capitol hill, we went into a 24-hour QFC. We were there to take pictures with the arugula and to send them to every McCain supporter we knew. While there, Chev found pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies in the bakery section. To me, those cookies have tasted like election night ever since. They're only a seasonal offering at the bakery and these days they don't ever seem to be made properly, so I've developed my own recipe for whenever I need to remember that feeling.

Buying pumpkin outside of fall is an inexplicably difficult thing to do. Strawberries from New Zealand that taste like nothing can be purchased in December and yet canned pumpkin is a "seasonal" item at most grocery stores. Sometimes I really don't get our national food system. Anyway, I managed to find some and so I've been making pumpkin desserts for weeks now. I'm making them tonight, the memories they inspire lifting my spirits and making me miss my best friend more than ever. Also the fact that I can manage to smell cloves and cinnamon means my cold probably isn't going to kill me before it goes away.

I'm baking because I'm worried. Not about dying from a cold (because that would be silly, right?) but about the oil rig explosion, the poll showing that Dino Rossi has a pretty good chance at being the next Washington State junior senator, and the fragile peace talks between Abbas and Netanyahu. I'm worried and so I'm baking. I'm blending spices and chopping up chocolate and making a huge mess with my Kitchen Aid mixer. It's great. I have taken all of my anxiety over things I can't control and I'm making something that will make my writers group tonight a little sweeter. It isn't fixing anything, but sometimes keeping calm is the most I can ask of myself. My kitchen smells like election night tastes. Nothing against QFC, but I think that this version might be even better, actually. I'm not giving up on Patty Murray or on keeping the House or on keeping the White House in 2012. Winning just tastes too good.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Yes we can! Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Adapted from allrecipes.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 can pumpkin puree (15 oz)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8-12oz chocolate chips or chopped very dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, ginger and salt; set aside.
In a mixer, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter, maple syrup and sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients and then add chocolate.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.