Personal Transformation
Prof. Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ [I was] kept inside a prison cell with two soldiers positioned outside the door. The door had a single hole, no more than five centimeters in diameter. The soldiers called out to me and told me that there was a paper that I had to sign. The paper was written in Hebrew and, as I don't know Hebrew, I said, "No, I am not signing a document that I cannot read." He said, "I'll translate it for you." I replied, "Why would I trust you enough to translate it for me? If it states my charge and I sign it, then I will be admitting to that charge." So I refused to sign it […] When I was having this conversation with the officer, however, there was another soldier with him. That soldier asked the officer, "How can we make him sign a paper when he doesn't know what it says?" I'm not sure that I understood exactly what he said, but this is what I assume they were talking about. At that point it was as if the conflict was not between the soldiers and me, but rather between the soldiers themselves. I began to realize that even soldiers wearing the same uniform could have different opinions and ways of thinking. This is what being in prison gave me the opportunity to learn; that I should not look at others and assume that they are all the same. This was an extremely important experience.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Eliyahu McLean
The Sulha Peace Project, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Middleway
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Interview Highlights »
“ I was sent [by the Israel Action Committee on the Berkeley campus] to spy in on a class called Palestine, a class devoted to Palestinian history--'48, '67-- the Palestinian narrative. I started to hear the Palestinian narrative on everything I had been defending as an Israel activist. I really started to question a lot of the assumptions I was spouting.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ At that age I was highly motivated, so I began to read more and become more attached to politics. Despite my arrest, I continued my studies, and when I began my studies at university eight months later, I was arrested for the second time and sentenced for ten years, out of which I spent four years in jail. At that time, my mother was also in prison. She was arrested a few months prior to my arrest, and when I used to visit her, I couldn’t embrace her, because we were both prisoners separated by bars. Even the police officer that was present at the time couldn’t hold back her tears. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ I grew up feeling very strongly Zionist, very strongly Jewish if not Orthodox, but strongly a daughter of Israel. I moved here [to Israel] when I was 19. [...] There was gradual change [in my thinking], and then there was a moment of deep insight. The gradual change came because I married a man who was not Orthodox, and he had a profound effect on my thinking. He was a staunch Laborite, and grew up in "red Haifa" and believed very strongly that Labor Zionism -- socialism -- was the correct way. You know, I must say, through many years of my life I was not an independent, feminist woman. I certainly feel I am today, but when I married, it was more likely that I would be swayed by my husband's politics than vice versa, and that's what happened. I began to think that Labor was a better place to vote, and that's how it went in the early years.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Prof. Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ Later, when we were being transferred from Thahiriyyeh [detention center to the prison in the] Negev, one soldier insisted that we remain handcuffed and blindfolded while another soldier gestured as if to say that it was OK to take the blindfolds off and look outside. It was summer - July - and it was very hot and the way from Thahiriyyeh to the Negev is long. The officer had said that we could not go near the water faucet, so one of the soldiers forbade us from drinking. After the officer left, however, another soldier told us that we could go over to the faucets and drink. This was another personal experience that taught me not to assume that all people are alike. At the same time, it gave me the idea that dialogue and encounters could offer a better solution to the conflict than avoidance, neglect, or denial.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sami Al Jundi
Seeds of Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ As a Palestinian I used to think that the only way to achieve our national ambitions, independence and state was through war and armed struggle. Because the Israelis used violent ways to create their state and realize their dreams, I thought that the only option was violence…Many people still believe in this idea. As time goes on one begins to realize that our human identity is wider and more important than our national identity. I realized that the circle of our identity as Israelis and Palestinians is narrow, and if we confine our thinking to within this circle, we will never reach the wider circle- the global circle of humans as humans.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Tzvika Shahak
Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen Shahak, Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ Following [our daughters'] death we discovered her journals, in which she speaks about and asks for peace. The truth is that she worked for peace before we did... If you look at what she wrote about peace, you see that it is her will. Ordinarily, when a parent passes away, the children are left to fulfill what the parents initiated, did or wanted. In this case, we were left with her journals, which are actually her will, and we are working according to her wishes.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Inas Radwan
Building Bridges for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ All the programs that I've been to were about me talking about my pain, I didn't know and wasn't willing to hear that the other side was also in pain. I didn't want to listen to that, I didn't want to understand or imagine that. At first I felt like I was being forced to listen to them [the Israeli participants], I didn't want to listen. For example, the first time they said they wanted to talk about the bombings that happen in Israel, I said I didn't want to listen and nothing could make me. I only wanted to be there [in the program] just to show the world who I was. But I had to listen for the first time and eventually I came to realize that it's not fair for me to keep talking and not listen to them.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ibrahim Issa
Hope Flowers School
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Interview Highlights »
“ [The] most painful thing for me as a child at that time was that I couldn't recognize the difference between a peace activist and a collaborator; it took me years until I did. And this is something that Palestinian radical groups also couldn't recognize, the difference between collaborators and peace activists. I was a child at that time but when I grew up I started to recognize the difference. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Kitty O. Cohen
Folklore of the Other: The Institute for the Study of Religion and Communities in Israel
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ The outbreak of the first intifada in 1987 was a turning point. Until that time, I had been concerned about the status of the Arabs in Israel. In 1987 the average Israelis, from their own living-rooms, were confronted with Palestinians face to face, as people and not merely as street cleaners, laborers or construction workers [....] There was excellent footage and very good reports (on the Palestinians). I became more aware than I had been before of our neighbors next door. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ Each person's development on the path of reconciliation is different. It takes time. I can see how I myself have grown over the past two years, the difference in the way I respond to questions now compared to where I was two years ago; it's completely different. I'm an ancient person but I'm still learning. This is a long difficult path of learning, of tolerance, of being able to dialogue with a settler and to dialogue with somebody who's very angry; you learn that. I've always been able to persuade people because I'm a good salesperson, but now I come from a much cleaner place.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yehuda Stolov
Interfaith Encounter Association
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Interview Highlights »
“ When I first encountered a Muslim prayer session I discovered a prejudice I never even knew about: that I associate Muslim prayers with violence. This is because I never encountered a Muslim prayer in reality. I'd only seen it as portrayed on television, where it's always footage from the Ashura in Iran with close-ups of the blood, or people leaving Friday prayers at the Temple Mount and starting uproars. That's what I knew about Muslim prayers prior to actually seeing it. I never encountered the gentle or spiritual aspects of this prayer and I wasn't even conscious of it, and this is something I only realized in retrospect.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Riyad Faraj
Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ I didn't have expectations because I didn't understand what was going on. I mean, it was a complete turn around for me -- a major leap. I may have once hated everything that was called "Jew;" I hate Zionism, but I respect anyone who acknowledges my right to my homeland, anyone who respects my opinion and anyone who thinks about my future as well as his. This is a reality that was imposed on us. We didn't choose it, so we may as well try to live with it and get used to it, or else go our separate ways. So we need to figure out a way to coexist.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Khulood Badawi
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Ta'ayush, Coalition of Women for Peace, Bat Shalom
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Interview Highlights »
“ There is a stage in life when one realizes that there are things that exist that one wasn't aware of. In this stage one becomes more aware of one's environment and the conditions one lives in. My awareness of these activities and movements began during my time at the University of Haifa. I started my studies at the University when I was 19 years old. From the beginning, I was an activist with the Arab students movement and especially with the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. I then became an activist with the Arab students committee that worked for improving the status of Arab students in the university.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Inas Radwan
Building Bridges for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ The Israeli participants [in Building Bridges for Peace] used to think that only the Palestinian fighters are the ones killed in those operations and I used to think that only soldiers carrying guns die in those explosions. It never occurred to me that they might be normal people, just like me.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Inas Radwan
Building Bridges for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ The first time I really felt that I was forced to listen, it really was a problem because I didn't want to listen. They insisted that they wanted to talk about their pain and what was hurting them. At last I gave in, not because I wanted to listen but because I became curious. If they wanted to talk, so be it, I didn't have to understand or feel their pain, I would just listen if they wanted to talk. When they started talking, I realized that they were saying the same things I say only from a different perspective. The way they talked was different; they were saying the same things I would say.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Majed Tbeileh
Nablus Youth Federation, The Future Generation Hands Committee
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Interview Highlights »
“ I was a member of a political organization during the first intifada, and was known for being involved in resistance, throwing stones and so on. I think that you learn more from experience than from universities and schools. For 50 years, the Palestinians have been convinced that the Israeli state, the Hebrew state, is going to vanish. […]I have reached the conclusion that the only way for us to end the occupation of 1967 is through dialogue. The armed resistance was not able to rescue us, to end the occupation.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
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Interview Highlights »
“ I had an invitation to somebody's home to meet a Palestinian friend… I had never before had a conversation with a Palestinian. The woman was a professor of sociology at a Palestinian university. There was nothing in the previous statement that made sense to me. Palestinian professor? Palestinian woman professor? Palestinian who studied sociology? Palestinians have universities? And I walked in the room and sat down, and she was completely like me. She was articulate in English, she had a very cautious, temperate, and humane woman's analysis of the situation, about how her family is suffering under the oppression of the occupation. I had never before heard that said, or met a Palestinian.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sami Al Jundi
Seeds of Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ The time I spent in prison influenced my views. I suffered as a result of the conflict and my belief in the way of violence. This had a personal effect on me. Ten years of my life were spent in prison. Ten years is a long time. I also benefited personally from this experience. It changed my thinking by 180 degrees. During my time in prison I studied the experiences and history of different nations. As a result I realized that there are ways that suit us as Palestinians and also suite our human nature. The Palestinians are an integral part of humanity in the world. Studying different human philosophies and the history of nations strengthened my belief that the best way for the Palestinian people or any other people is the way based on respect.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yoa'ad Shbita
Building Bridges for Peace, Reut-Sedaka
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ During the first and second meetings I sat on the sidelines and observed. I noticed that everybody was grown up and at the beginning I wondered, what can I say? I'll probably say something silly. All those grownups-- high school kids-- and I'm nothing but a little girl. But in the meantime I'll come, observe, listen. And then, after, I saw that I was getting involved. I had to; I couldn't sit it out any longer.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Adele Zumot
All for Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ The first time I felt that I really needed to do something about the conflict was when I opened the Al-Quds newspaper and saw on the front page a picture of a little girl named Iman Hijjo, who was killed by a missile two years ago. I opened more pages of the same newspaper, and I read about a bus bombing in Israel. There was another little boy who lost his eye because of the explosion. I looked at the two children's stories and I thought to myself, “we have a problem.” There are children on both sides that are dying. As an individual Palestinian or Israeli, you won’t be able to influence the governments, but you can feel that you are being effective by being part of an organization or project that works to restore trust between the two peoples.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Khulood Badawi
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Ta'ayush, Coalition of Women for Peace, Bat Shalom
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Interview Highlights »
“ I realized there was a basis for cooperation between different groups that spoke different languages but had the same principles--even though there wasn't a real movement that did this at the time. This transformed my views about work strategies and about who is an actual partner. Is the work confined to Arabs or is the success of the work measured by the extent of the participation of different people from different cultures?” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gila Svirsky
Coalition of Women for Peace, Women in Black
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ I said, "Look, I have to see for myself." I started to visit the Territories and meet with people and talk to them, and go into their homes and see that they also have flush toilets and they're reading from recipe books and sharing novels with each other. It was an unbelievable experience for me, and then I began to think more seriously about politics, and began to involve myself more. I realized there was a big curtain of silence and concealment behind which an occupation was festering. Little by little I began to devote myself to addressing that.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ariel Huler
Seeds of Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ Even though you know, or you think you know, you can always know more. In my group [when I was a facilitator at the Seeds of Peace summer camp] there was one Palestinian kid who was once taken for an investigation at the police. According to his story he was treated very badly. I became more familiar on the emotional level with the issues of Palestinian prisoners. I got a sense then that way too many people are put in jail. This is the sense I got from people who were in my group. This was very strong to hear from the kids, they are 14-15 years old.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Meir Margalit
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
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Interview Highlights »
“ I fought in the Yom Kippur War and was wounded. I was hospitalized for a long period and had a lot of time on my hands to think. Gradually I understood that everything has its price and that the ideology of the complete Eretz Yisrael isn't really worth the price: taking lives, the deaths or the injuries. That is the toll, and every ideology has its price. I began a slow process of turning towards the peace camp.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Wafa Srour
The School for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ There are things that accompany your very development as a human being. I was born and raised on these political issues. When I left Elaboun, I did so out of a desire to leave such a politicized environment. I did not want to get involved in politics or in political parties anymore, but rather to work for an insurance agency. Clearly politics is a part of me, however, because I have chosen to work in this field even though I could have made much more money in insurance. I suppose that it is something that comes from deep inside my personality, and my worldview. This is something that I cannot change. I cannot sit and do nothing while we are at war. In this way, work in this field is an outlet for me. If I did not have it, I would suffocate.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica
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Interview Highlights »
“ I had opinions I grew up with and I didn’t really ever examine them for myself; I accepted a viewpoint that was created by someone else. My conclusion is that the price that we’re paying to hold these lands is so high, it’s actually at the cost of Zionist existence in Israel. I think it’s worthwhile [to cede them] from a practical standpoint, not from a humanist or forbearing approach.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ I grew up in a leftist home, a moderate one I think, and I became very political when I was a teenager. I participated in all sorts of political movements. I feel it's interesting how views very, very slowly change, because when I was in the army I spent a year of my life in the Occupied Territories, as a soldier, as a fighter, during the first intifada. I opposed it, but it didn't bother me so much, I was one of those who felt that it was better that I was doing it than somebody else.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shwanesh Maniov
Seeds of Peace, Children of Abraham
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Interview Highlights »
“ There was a child of settlers [at the Seeds of Peace summer camp] and it was very difficult for him all the time. He cried because he couldn't understand how suddenly he had Palestinian friends. It was very difficult for him. Some might say that it's not a process, but to me, to recognize that the other side exists, and to cry so forcefully, signifies a change. It doesn't matter, that when he goes back to the Territories he will be on the powerful side again, he'll always have what he went through here.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shwanesh Maniov
Seeds of Peace, Children of Abraham
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ When I was a facilitator at Seeds of Peace I had an important experience while we watched a movie about what happened in South Africa. I'm sitting there during the film saying to myself, "Wow, how can they call the blacks 'terrorists' on the news?" (They showed parts of news broadcasts.) "How can they call them terrorists? They wanted their freedom, they want to live on their lands, why should they be called terrorists?" Suddenly I was against this strong government, in this case it was white, and it didn't seem right. And then we watched Jenin, Jenin half an hour later, and suddenly I was on the powerful side, the Israeli side, trampling the other. And I call people 'terrorists.'” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gershon Baskin
IPCRI (Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information)
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Interview Highlights »
“ …I had a big map of Israel on my wall next to my bed at the summer camp, and I had it marked in the different places that I had visited and things like that, and one day I was looking at the map and I noticed that someone had come in and drawn the Green Line on the map, which hadn't been there. I looked at the map and I saw my kibbutz up in the North, and Jerusalem in the center of the country. I used to travel through the Jordan Valley to get from kibbutz to Jerusalem, back and forth. I looked at the map and I said to myself, "That's interesting, how am I going to get to kibbutz?" […] And then all of sudden I realized that I had spent almost a whole year in Israel, and not once during that whole year did I ever talk to an Arab. All of a sudden it made me aware that something was very wrong.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ihsan Turkiyyeh
Arab-Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa
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Interview Highlights »
“ My husband spent his life fighting the Israelis, and he died for it. It's not so easy to make a 180-degree change. It has to be a process, that's what I believe. I don't believe anybody who comes and says, "Hey, I want to make peace with you!" No. I think he is a cheater, in one way or another. We are human beings and we have to go through a process, and in this process, you will cry, you will curse yourself, you will curse everybody. You will curse that you were born in this world, that you were born in this country. But in the end of this process, you will see the change. How? If Palestinians meet a good group of Israelis, there will be a change. And Israelis also, if they meet good, intellectual, nice people, they will change. But if it is the contrary, there will be no change. That is important. I was lucky.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ in 2000 I met a religious man, who is my age, and there was true dialogue and friendship between us that I consider real friendship. For the first time I began seeing things a different way. I began to view my previous perspective as ignoring something right in front of me, like colors you don’t want to see so you take them out of the spectrum of your vision, making yourself blind to certain colors. I’m talking about how I regarded the neighboring Arab population. I knew them not really as a group of people with their own lives, but rather as figures used for work – I saw them at work, as laborers, janitors, I saw them at school, as manual workers, doing the work that my parents and the rest of our parents didn’t want to do.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dimitri Diliani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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Interview Highlights »
“ Working with Dr. Sari opened my eyes to many things. It convinced me that I had been wrong when I decided to stay away from politics out of fear of corruption. I came to realize that my impressions had been incorrect. Most of our people are not corrupt. Most are patriots working for the good of the country. Yes, it's true that there is corruption. But we often exaggerate its extent. Besides, if all the people who are against corruption simply withdraw from public life, then corruption will spread and spread. If we leave, then those who are corrupt will be free to do whatever they please.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ During my experience at the Hebrew University, as a Palestinian student from Jerusalem who did not know a word in Hebrew but learned the language and received a PhD, I started to understand who this enemy is. I used to think that the enemy was the soldier that checked my ID at the checkpoint. I used to think that the enemy was the settlers. I discovered that there is a civilian side to the Israelis that we might reach an understanding with. The time I spent at the university changed my view generally and my perception of the Israelis. We, as Palestinians, really don't know at all who the Israelis are. We know the Israelis as the soldiers at the checkpoints, we know them by the Hebrew words used in the streets, but do we know the Israeli civilian life? No. That was the motivation for building a comprehensive relationship among civilians.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Majed Tbeileh
Nablus Youth Federation, The Future Generation Hands Committee
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Interview Highlights »
“ I started to see the importance of having meetings with the Israelis in 2001, especially after the invasion of Nablus in 2002 because I realized that even if we manage to destroy a tank here or explode a bomb there, we still don’t have the military capacity to stop an Israeli invasion. The only way to cause the Israelis to withdraw to the 1967 borders is through political dialogue.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Walid Salem
Panorama
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Interview Highlights »
“ Since 1974 I was a political activist in the Palestinian political parties. I spent five years of my life in prison. As a result of my time in prison and my political work, I started to discover, after 1994, the importance of working with the Israeli people. It is not enough for us as Palestinians to work against the Israeli people from the outside; we need to work with the Israeli people from the inside in order to achieve equality. We need to talk to the Israelis, because the Israeli media doesn't present a true picture of what is happening. We need to talk to the Israeli people and present to them the true picture of our reality and at the same time look at the reality from their side. We should be influenced by the other side as well as influencing them.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Michal Zak
The School for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“It's a long and painful process. It's not simple. I don't think it was any one thing. I think it was dealing with and facing all kinds of very basic assumptions, and coming to terms with the fact that there's a big gap within the Israeli left-wing, and I'm a by-product of it, something that's very much about declarations and liberalism, "we're so good, we're so very in favor of all kinds of things…" But in applying it to daily life, to working in a communal and equal routine, it's very difficult. You need to let go of some basic assumptions that you may not even know you have. For example, the issue of thinking we're better, that we're actually better than they are, culturally or ethically - I never thought I had those assumptions, but to be honest, that's how we were. These beliefs were ever-present when I was growing up. It's very hard, it's a harsh and painful awakening.
” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ I never imagined I would ever be a member of this circle [the Parents' Circle/Bereaved Families Forum]. I never thought I would work and sympathize with them, but the occupation demanded I become a member of this forum. The imperative began on the 14th of May 2002, when my husband became a martyr. On the same day my husband became a martyr, Arab friends of mine from inside the lands of '48 knew about what happened. An Israeli newspaper called me and asked what my response would be as a peace activist and whether my activities would change as a result of my husband's assassination. I replied honestly and from all my heart that I would continue working and fighting for peace for the benefit of our children and for a better future for the future generations who deserve a better life.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ There is an alternative language to violence. You can convince humans when you talk to them logically. I said that I understood their feelings. I don’t accept their feelings and don’t accept living under occupation as the price for your feelings, but I do understand that you are human. This language is very effective. A Palestinian woman once said that I am a traitor of my people who aims to stop them from fighting. I answered her in her own language and told her that if you feel that the Palestinian airplanes and tanks are locked away in a warehouse and I am holding the keys, then you can kill me. I told her that I am not stopping you from fighting. She was confused.[…] I wouldn’t have answered her in such a way if I wasn’t involved in this work. The Ali I was a year ago would have answered her differently. Our belief in what we do increases as a result of our work, and we are really inventing a new language that wasn’t heard previously. I never before heard an Israeli say that the occupation is unacceptable and that the Israelis are the ones who should resist it. I didn’t hear this from any Israeli; I heard this from Israelis who lost sons and daughters. This made me believe that there is an alternative language. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Khuloud Dajani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy
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Interview Highlights »
“ Lately, and through working in public health, I became totally convinced that peace and a viable means of living are basic to survival. Diseases, such as cholera and malaria are not what threaten human beings. The inability to solve the problems of occupation, oppression, and continuing violence are what threaten our people today. Therefore, I became active in the fields of public diplomacy, public social work and peace making, since peace is essential to the basic life of human beings everywhere and here in particular.[...] Also, I had to work in cooperation with our enemies, with whom we want to be friends.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Aziz Abu Sarah
Bereaved Families Forum, All For Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ The only thing that was clear to me was that my brother was killed and the soldiers were the ones who killed him. Because of this, I grew up thinking that my goal in life was to seek revenge. Of course, I could not stand anything Jewish. I did not learn Hebrew, and even when we had Hebrew classes at school, I used to run away from the class... I joined [the Fatah] youth movement and a while later I was a member of their Administrative Staff and slowly I became head of the Cultural Committee there concerning writing and their youth magazine in Jerusalem, and those kind of things. While doing that, I thought that it was highly possible for me to get revenge through what I wrote, to influence others and to say what I thought... The more extreme I was in my writing, the more people enjoyed reading them.... The more I wrote the angrier I felt, and I realized that that did me more harm than good!” [Source in Complete Interview]
Melisse Lewine-Boskovich
Peace Child Israel
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Interview Highlights »
“ I used the same slogans as everyone else, "the only good Arab is a dead Arab," etc. There was something in my psychological make-up as I grew up, things that happened… my personal development gave rise to a strong need for that kind of involvement. I needed to be able to nurture something in a way that I felt I hadn't been nurtured myself. Some of that had to do with my weight and the responses it had evoked in my family. I wanted to be nurtured, and I hadn't been, and that wasn't a very happy thing. And so my involvement was very natural. I needed to feel I was giving love to something, so I gave it to the Jewish people. […] My parents, my rabbi, and my synagogue went to Selma, Alabama during the race riots, so I had that influence. I was involved in all the moratoriums, and I remember the day we ended the dress code in my high school. I was against the Vietnam War. So there was sort of a conflict in my mind. It wasn't straightforward. A process was sort of on hold. I always said that the thing that made the real transition was when I gave birth. Once I realized that instinctual, hormonal connection of a mother towards a child, I couldn't justify ever wanting to see anybody's child go through any kind of pain.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Prof. Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East)
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ Being in prison, however, made me think in a different way. I realized that denial could not help me, or anyone else for that matter. What had the potential to aid understanding was not avoiding or ignoring the other, but rather discovering, speaking with, and coming to know him. For Palestinians, and for me as one of them, it can be difficult to differentiate between an Israeli as an occupier and soldier and an Israeli as a civilian. It is difficult to differentiate between the settler and the soldier, and so forth. This causes a problem for Palestinians and for me, personally. If I talk with an Israeli, is he the same person who was once a soldier arresting me or demolishing my home with a bulldozer? Or perhaps he is a settler or a former soldier or a soldier-to-be? It is this diversity, this range of the different faces of Israelis, that makes it difficult for Palestinians to understand precisely what you mean when you say 'Israeli.'” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica
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Interview Highlights »
“ After passing the checkpoint I saw a little girl and an old man sitting on the floor, they were being detained.[...] suddenly the stereotype was shattered but it was a result of discussion and an examination of reality followed by seeing such an image. It was a hot day, the man and girl were suffering and at once I understood the meaning underlying the example of that elderly man and little girl: the majority of the Palestinians live in such a harsh reality. I wonder, what would I do if I were them? Would I want to change places? I don't want to be responsible for this reality. This reality is only meant to bring security, which is a good purpose, but inside this apparatus a lot of injustice is done, and I don't want to be responsible for it. I can only imagine myself in that situation. I would give up; I would be in despair, especially if I was an elderly person. Younger people still have a distant future and hope for things to improve but I think older people don't see the change that could come so they struggle less for change.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yafit Gamila Biso
The Olive Tree
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“ As an Israeli who paid a high price for coming to Israel, I care; I care to see the State of Israel as exactly what I envision. Obviously I don't expect a state according to my personal characteristics or desires but it is important for me that Israel come across to the world as a democracy and truly humanitarian - but not only nominally, or in quotation marks-- not a democracy of Jews over Arabs. I think that contradicts the laws of nature and humanity. I got involved with our Palestinian neighbors - I call them my brothers-- and I felt that they were being discriminated against. That's how I slowly became involved in this work.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ It is a challenge for me because I've always been a very independent person. I was my own boss; I did whatever I wanted and if I made a decision that's what would happen… Now I have to work in a team. That's a huge lesson for me. I can't just wake up tomorrow morning and decide to do a project without consulting with anybody else, which is something foreign to me. I have to sell it to them, so they understand. That's a very different way of working. I also have to listen to what other people say all the time, which is another exercise for me: to sit in meetings and listen for hours to what other people have to say, when I'm very impatient and want to do everything now. That's my nature…. It's different when you're working with other people to create a dream, which is a shared dream. It's not just my dream anymore.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Melisse Lewine-Boskovich
Peace Child Israel
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“ I questioned how much one would have to forfeit in order to be involved in resolving the conflict. I also questioned how to go about letting go of the anger, letting go of the fears, and letting go of the mistrust. But also, I had the sense that I was going to have to admit that everything I had always believed in was wrong, which is not a simple thing for anyone to do, on any kind of issue. So it took some time.” [Source in Complete Interview]
