Bereaved Families Promote Peace

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by Melinda Tuhus | Nov 28, 2006 10:46 pm

(1) Comment | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Arts

Families who have lost loved ones on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the ones who know each other’s pain most intimately. Five hundred of them have come together to call for peace and reconciliation, like Israeli Robi Damelin (pictured), who spoke at Yale Law School Tuesday night.

Robi Damelin is an Israeli whose son David was killed by a sniper while serving in the Israeli army in occupied Palestinian territory.

A while after his death, she wrote a letter to the parents of the Palestinian who killed him. She said doing so was cathartic for her, and cleared the way for her to become even more dedicated to acting for peace.

Click here to listen to her comment.

She joined the Parents Circle of Bereaved Families for Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance, which helps Israelis and Palestinians get to know each other and work toward a non-violent solution to the problems they face daily.

Ali Abu Awwad grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp. He said for most of his life he never knew an Israeli, even though he saw them every day. After his older brother Yusuf was killed by an Israeli soldier, members of the Parents Circle got in touch with his mother and asked to come visit. He said he thought that was a crazy idea, but his mother welcomed them. That’s when he saw an Israeli cry for the first time.

“They were guests in my house. They were not armed.” He said the experience “doesn’t mean I forgot my pain or that my days became more easy.” But he said he saw these Israelis as human beings first and foremost.

The members of the group learn each other’s stories and the other group’s history. For example, Robi speaks often of incidents in which Palestinian women are forced to give birth at checkpoints when they cannot make it through them in time to reach a hospital, and sometimes their babies die right there. The Palestinian members get a feel for how Israelis live with fear of suicide bombers.

The two visitors were brought to New Haven through the auspices of A Different Future, a non-profit set up by Yale professor Dr. Bruce Wexler, to amplify the genuine voices for peace in the Middle East as a counterforce to all the media coverage garnered by extremists on both sides.

Comment

posted by: David Feder on November 29, 2006 9:45am

This was a very moving event. I’m not affiliated with the group, but I can pass along their web address: http://www.TheParentsCircle.org. See also “Encounter Point,” the feature-length documentary in which Robi and Ali appear.

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