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News from the Region

Combatants for Peace Call for Ending the Cycle of Violence

By Paul Pierce, Quaker Service, Jerusalem staff

On the afternoon of Monday, April 10, an unusual group of people gathered in the shadow of the Separation Wall outside Jerusalem. Former fighters from both sides of the conflict expressed their commitment to end violence in the first public event of their organization, Combatants for Peace.

Combatants for Peace meeting in the shadow of the Separation Wall. Photo: Paul Pierce

The Israelis, who had been combat soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces, and the Palestinians, who had used violence in the name of Palestinian liberation, told of their transformations from warriors on opposite sides of a violent conflict to their present partnership to struggle nonviolently against the Occupation and for peace.

In his presentation of the group, Palestinian, Bassaam Aramin said, "The occupation is the main source of violence and it invokes more violence and armed resistance in return. This violent Palestinian reaction serves at times as fertile ground for continuing the oppression and siege, and for the deception of the Israeli people – just as it deceived these young men into believing that the Palestinians want to kill them and don’t want peace.…We should not follow the model of the occupation."

The Israeli and Palestinian former fighters have been meeting since the beginning of 2005 to talk about their personal histories of violence and the turning points they experienced which led them to see the limits of such violence.

Zohar Shapira addressing the first Combatants for Peace public event. Photo: Paul Pierce

Israeli Zohar Shapira told his story: "In March 2002, I stood at the site of a terrorist attack on King George Street in Jerusalem. In between the scattered bodies and limbs, I tried to resuscitate a six-year-old boy who was severely wounded in the head. Several weeks later I was called to participate in operation 'Defensive Shield'…One night, in the yard of a house in a village near Nablus, I found myself shooting over the head of a seven-year-old girl who stood ten meters from me.

Only the temporal proximity of these two events made me realize that Israeli violence brings about Palestinian violence, and thus a vicious cycle of blood and revenge is created. I realized then that in order to stop one war crime, I should not commit another war crime. [So I said] 'No to the oppression of millions of innocent Palestinians, no to the denial of their rights, no to the useless cycle of violence.'"

The group established Combatants for Peace to work together to end the cycle of violence in which they once participated. Their goals are to raise consciousness in their respective communities regarding the hopes and suffering of the other side, to educate towards reconciliation and non-violent struggle in both societies, and to create political pressure on both governments to stop the cycle of violence, end the Occupation, and resume a constructive dialogue.

In his speech, former Israeli soldier Noam Hayut told the audience, "Despite the fact that this [the Occupation] is their [the Palestinians'] reality, they, like us, have chosen the non-violent struggle against the occupation and for co-existence with dignity. They and all those who have gathered here today are living proof that the hypocritical Israeli slogan, 'there is no one to talk to,' is a lie."

Combatants for Peace chose to hold their first public event, called the Liberation Gathering, two days before the Jewish holiday of Passover and a week before the Palestinian commemoration of Palestinian Prisoners' Day. The members expressed that their chosen date emphasized that one people’s liberty cannot be fulfilled at the expense of another's.

Quaker Service-Jerusalem staff members attended the Combatants for Peace event and were impressed by the hundreds of people present, the number of persons in attendance who were also at the National Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem, in Dec 2005, and the commitment of both Israelis and Palestinians to reach out to "partners for peace" in a tangible effort to build bridges and stop the violence.

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