JERUSALEM — I know what I’m thankful for today. The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
My cameraman husband surprised me this morning with a text saying he’s on his way home to Jerusalem from Gaza City on Thursday afternoon after a cease-fire was announced Wednesday night in Cairo. Earlier, he had said maybe he’d be home Sunday, so this was a nice Thanksgiving surprise.
It’s been a hard eight days in this region. Many people have died in this latest conflict.
It’s actually our anniversary today. The one we celebrate, anyway, since it’s an easy one, Thanksgiving. Hard to forget. We met 34 years ago today at a Thanksgiving dinner in Rome. So happy anniversary to us 
An Israeli police officer fires a tear gas canister towards Palestinian stone-throwers during clashes at Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.
(MARKO DJURICA - REUTERS)
too.
We’re nothing, of course, in the grand scheme of things here. Don’t think I don’t know that. But it’s been stressful enough just for us. I can’t even pretend to understand what it’s been like for the people involved in this decades-old conflict.
So much blood has been shed here, in the Holy Land. When will it end? And how?
Can we dare to hope, on this Thanksgiving Day 2012, that some kind of settlement that ends all these decades of horrific violence on this hauntingly beautiful land could actually come about? That this cessation of violence now leads to a more lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
Now that I’m a temporary resident of the Holy Land myself, I sincerely hope so. For everyone who lives here.
I canceled my turkey order the other day when the violence seemed to have no end, so I won’t have a turkey roasting in the oven when my husband gets back.
I better go to the supermarket now and find something quicker to put in the oven. Everything’s open here in Jerusalem, of course. Thanksgiving isn’t anything here.
I’ll be with you in spirit though. Giving thanks here just the same.
Daniela Deane, a former Washington Post reporter, is a freelance writer living in Jerusalem.
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