Rutie Atsmon
61
How do you feel after all that planning, and then the bombing and having to cancel?
Of course there is a disappointment, but it's not the first time, so we are used to it. We are used to working very hard and then at the last minute something happens and you cannot do it. About a year and half ago we were planning a huge meeting-- we were planning to bring about 100 people from the Tulkarm area to a 3 day meeting with about 100 Israelis. You can imagine how hard we worked to make this happen. The day before, there was a targeted assassination in Tulkarm. It happened just in front of the house in Tulkarm where we held a summer camp for Windows kids. There was some fighting, shooting, and tear gas, and some of the kids had to be taken to hospital. Some people were killed-- none of our kids, but among them were their friends and their neighbors. In Tulkarm they made the decision not to come to see us the next day. After that it was hard to get permission once more to arrange something like that. A couple months later we held a meeting, but a small one with about 30 kids from Tulkarm, not as many as we planned to. So whatever we do here, we always know that there is a big chance that it will not happen. If we try to invite people when we hold a lecture here, will the lecturer be able to cross the green line and come? You never know. Uncertainty is built into our work. So we are disappointed, and we are sorry, and of course after you work day and night to make something like this happen, you have this feeling of... you know, we're angry. But the feeling, and this was also true for those we phoned both here and there to talk, is "it's not going to stop us, whatever happens, we will continue. This is what is important for us, to keep working together." This is the main thing. Whatever happens, we will keep working together.