Can you imagine peace?

The world wants peace. The world wants everyone to have peace. 

Why do so many want peace? The answer is simple:

People want peace because it's so hard to find. It's about as common as snow in a desert. 

According to one study, less than 7 per cent of countries worth looking at for peace actually have peace (Adam Withnall, "World peace? These are the only 11 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict", independent, August 14, 2014); and that was in 2014, when the world was a happier place (see below). 

Instead of peace, the world gets war and civil unrest (ibid). Virtually every week somebody somewhere is shooting up or blowing up someone else (ibid).  

For example, during the week ending September 30, 2016, Muslims alone killed 288 people and injured 291 others in 53 attacks inside 16 countries ("Jihad report, September 24-September 30, 2016", thereligionofpeace, retrieved on October 6, 2016). For calendar year 2015, Muslims killed 27,594 people and injured another 26,141 in 2,862 attacks in 53 countries (ibid, "List of attacks, 2015).

Peace isn't just rare. It's very rare; and the rarer it is, the more desirable it becomes.

Peace is going to remain desirable for a long time. The world has been getting incrementally less peaceful every year (Withnall, ibid).

The world wants what it cannot get. What's the world to do?

Here's a suggestion. If you want peace, start with imagination.

Here's a video. It's from isrealvideonetwork. It's only 1:55 long. It's called, "Imagine--the Israeli version".  

It's title and melody come from the John Lennon song, "Imagine".

It's about Israel. It's about peace. It's about living in place where you are surrounded by violence (there's a still photo at 1:31-1:32 which doesn't seem to match the song you'll hear; please focus on the words of the song):

Consider this tiny Israel. It's surrounded by hate. It's the unrelenting target of hate. 

It's surrounded by cultures where young people don't idolize peace. They idolize Adolph Hitler ("Bahraini writer: I was shocked to discover how many young Arabs idolize Adolph Hitler", MEMRI, September 22, 2016). 

Yes, young Arabs who surround Israel respect and admire a man who murdered six million Jews. How sick is that? 

With people like this, peace seems impossible. No wonder peace is so rare.

We Jews of Israel understand what is rare. After all, the Jewish people are practically rarity itself: we are less than 2 tenths of one percent of the world's population. That's rare, isn't it?

We are a rare people who live in a bubble of white-hot hate, the intensity of which you cannot imagine. We are constantly threatened with annihilation. We are forever surrounded by calls to kill us. 

Nevertheless, we--this rarest of peoples--think of peace. Ever the object of hate, we have learned from our persecutions. We know exactly what to do. We do the last thing anyone expects.

We sing of peace. 

Imagine what that means. 

Jews, the rarest of peoples, teach the world that peace--that rarest of human achievements--is possible. You simply begin with song. You begin with prayer.

You begin with, ‘imagine’.