Myth – “A popular belief or story that has become associated with an … institution or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.”

The following is a collection of short stories about my own myths and those of others I’ve encountered; those of Jews and those of Arabs; and finally, their causes and their consequences.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like most others, is adversarial. The issues involved raise a barrier between the two sides (sometimes metaphorical and ideological, sometimes very real and physical). We deal with the ‘enemy’ when necessary, but it’s always impersonal and generalized. It’s never ‘Walid’, always ‘the Palestinian from the village’, never ‘Tomer’, always ‘the soldier at the checkpoint’. No names, no faces, only uniforms and keffiyehs with an increasingly sinister expression. Epithets and stones are hurled over the barrier, and we shake our collectively clenched fist in a gesture of frustration and refusal to just go away…