If it doesn’t serve love

‘So Maya is also a terrorist?’

This is the first time they have had a conflict. After seven years of spending almost every day together. Usually they operate like a small two men army. They run a very succesful catering business together. So succesful they have bought a small building with six apartments. Instead of taking two and letting the four other housing units, the two of them occupy all six. Each has one apartment just for living. One apartment they use for parties. One is basically a wharehouse. One is a gaming room and one is their private fitness studio. Not bad for two guys in their early thirties. But the two founders have stumbled upon a few road blocks now.

Maya is Bart’s girlfriend. They have been dating for three weeks. Maya wants to be an artist. She’s also an IDF soldier.

Aaron says: ‘Yes, she is is a terrorist.’

Bart is visibly shocked on the skype call.

‘I don’t know what to say. If you could just meet her. She is such a sweet soul. She paints, she draws. Have you seen her paintings? How can you call her a terrorist?’

‘Hitler also painted.’

‘You are comparing my girlfriend to Hitler?’

‘Bart, she serves in the IDF. The IDF is the biggest baby killing entity in the world. She is a member of that. I don’t care what she does there. Maybe she only folds clothes for her superior officers and makes coffee for meetings. I don’t care. It’s a terrorist organization and she’s a member.’

‘She is in intelligence gathering. She’s been through standard infantry training. She doesn’t fold anyone’s clothes.’

‘I don’t care. She’s a terrorist. The IDF kills kids on purpose. It’s super obvious. They use white phosphorus on them. Do you know what that does?’

‘Should I send you images from October 7^th?’

‘Some of that was also bad, but what Israel does is a million times worse. And now that I see what Israel is doing I am reaching the point where I think October 7^th was totally provoked and justified.’

‘It was justified to beat Thai workers to death? They didn’t even have anything to do with it.’

‘They could have gone anywhere in the world. Why take a job in a baby killing state?’

‘Lots of Palestinians come into Israel to work here.’

‘They don’t have any other options.’

‘Right, maybe let’s get back to business.’

‘Let’s. I think we should never talk about this topic again.’

‘Kinda hard to do now that am seeing Maya. I am in Israel right now.’

‘Remind me. How did you meet her?’

‘I told you. I went online to play my guitar on Twitch, she got in touch, we played some music together. I flew over to jam. One thing let to the other. Playing music together really creates a bond.’

‘Right. Well, if you can live with the fact that she serves in a baby killing organisation I won’t stop you. Does she write songs about setting dogs on little kids?’

‘This is very unlike you. You’re the most gentle person I know.’

‘Yes, until I see kids being blown up. That’s kinda where my gentleness ends.’

‘Ok, am gonna try to respect your views. How do we not let this affect our business and our friendship?’

‘By never talking about this topic again. Is that acceptable to you?’

‘What other option do I have?’

‘You respect my choice to never talk about this again and I will respect your choice of dating a terrorist.’

‘She plays music. She paints. She’s an artist.’

‘Yes, and you’re infatuated and delusional, you will play Israel’s most stubborn lawyer from now on, only to justify that you are dating an IDF soldier. Let’s talk business now.’

They have never spoken about it again. Their business is doing relatively well, but it’s not growing as fast as before.

Both of them have started spending more time doing other things. Bart plays a lot of music these days and is learning Hebrew. Aaron has evening classes of Arabic and is translating The hundred years war on Palestine from Englishto Danish.

It keeps them up at night, but the priest at the little Church they go to every Sunday often tells his flock: ‘If it doesn’t serve love, don’t speak it’ and they both try to live by that rule as much as possible. 

So far they haven’t turned that idea on its head and gone: ‘If your silence doesn’t serve love, speak up.’

(I was looking for some picture to illustrate this story and I found this very beautiful painting which can be purchased here: https://pixels.com/featured/relax-during-a-busy-day-natalia-baykalova.html I don’t have any ties with the painter, I just like how it looks)