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News from the Region
2007 Olive Harvest Delegation

Report #5, Part 2 of 5
Bassam Aramin, Combatant for Peace

By Carlie Numi & Kathleen McQuillen

Bassam spent seven years, from the age of 17, in an Israeli prison for his participation in planning an attack against Israeli forces.  While in prison, one of his jailors told him that Jews came to liberate the country, “so why do Palestinians hate us?” This led to their sharing personal stories and perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict with each other.  (In the process Bassam learned to speak fluent Hebrew.)

Bassam Aramin, leader of Combatants for Peace. Fighters from both sides have joined to bring an end to the occupation and promote a two-state solution.

In 2005, many years after his release, Bassam was invited by a friend to come to a meeting with some former members of the Israeli Defense Forces.  Bassam agreed to come with considerable trepidation.  When he got to the meeting of a few Israelis and a few Palestinians (all former combatants), Bassam wondered why he had let himself get into this situation.  What if these guys were agents looking for an excuse to put him back in prison?

The Israelis began talking about things they had done to Palestinians who had been under their direct control.  Bassam said to them “You are the terrorists!  You are the torturers!”  The Israelis said, “yes, that is true.”  Bassam was stunned and uncertain how to respond.

This was how Combatants for Peace began, with a group of only four Palestinians and seven Israelis who had the courage and honesty to reach out and trust each other to work for reconciliation and a nonviolent solution to the conflict that is destroying both of their societies.  It has now grown (in less than three years) to 300 members.  The primary message is that the occupation is the enemy.  Members understand that after 40 years of occupation and fighting “Israel is not safe and Palestine is not free.” They concentrate their outreach on youth.  They go in pairs (an Israeli and a Palestinian) wherever they are invited to speak.

IFPB delegates meet with residents in Bil'in where creative non-violent demonstrations have occurred weekly for several years.

Aramin’s commitment to nonviolence has been deeply tested in recent months with the death of his daughter. In January 2007, Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, was killed by an Israeli sniper as she left school.  Bassam would like for the killer to be brought to justice.  Thus far, the investigation has been a farce, even trying to blame the child by saying she was carrying a weapon that exploded in her hand.  (Her hands were not injured.)  He knows that the desire for revenge is a natural, but not an appropriate response.  So he continues working through his grief and anger for a nonviolent solution to the continuing tragedy that is Israel-Palestine today. “I chose nonviolence before her death. I did not change… The violence has not worked,” Aramin said softly.

On the day we visited with Aramin, he was scheduled to speak at a peace gathering honoring Yitzhak Rabin, “another combatant,” Aramin noted, “who turned from war to peace.”  He is also to receive an award at Colombia University for his writings after his daughter’s death. He is not certain he will be able to leave Israel or enter the US.

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