The most powerful weapon against the occupation?

Last week I cried – in public – for the first time in a long time. Years of working in the field of HIV/Aids and access to healthcare have made me tough, perhaps even cold. But as Robi, Ali and Rami recounted their stories of loss, the tears flowed. I wasn’t alone.

Robi Damelin is a beautiful woman. She emigrated from South Africa to Israel many years ago and today runs the public relations work of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, an organisation of “bereaved Palestinians and Israelis … [that] promotes reconciliation as an alternative to hatred and revenge.”

In March 2002, Robi’s son David was one of ten soldiers and civilians killed when a Palestinian sniper opened fire on a checkpoint north of the Ofra settlement in the occupied West Bank. He was only 28. At the time he was called up for reserve duty, David was studying for a post-graduate degree in the philosophy of education. A member of the peace movement, he did not want to serve in the occupied territories.

According to the well-respected Israeli human rights organisation Peace Now, much of Ofra is built on private Palestinian land. Established in 1975 as the first settlement in the northern part of the West Bank, it is home to a few thousand religious settlers. At the time of David’s death, it was home to just over 2 000 people.

Ali Abu Awwad’s brother Yousef was also killed at a checkpoint during the second intifadah. At the time, Ali was in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after having been shot in the leg by a settler. His brother’s death – at the hand of an Israeli soldier – took place at the entrance to their village of Beit Ummar. Home to about 12 000 residents, the village is on the main road between Bethlehem and Hebron, not far from the settlement of Gush Etzion.

Rami Elchanan’s daughter Smadar was only 14 years old when she was killed by two Palestinian suicide bombers in downtown Jerusalem. It was the first day of the new school year in September 1997, not long before the holy day of Yom Kippur. Smadar and two of her friends had been shopping for schoolbooks. All three died. Two other civilians also lost their lives that day.

When I listened to Robi, Ali and Rami last week, the true horror of the conflict hit home – a seemingly endless cycle of violence that is fuelled by the occupation and its settlements. For them, the political had become the personal.

Rami, whose father survived Auschwitz, believes there is no way other than reconciliation – “because the other way leads nowhere”. “It is not our destiny to kill each other in this Holy Land”, he explained, recognising that it is not about “whose pain is bigger.” Instead, it is about active citizenship and accepting responsibility to change the way each side sees the other. For this gentle man, “standing aside is a crime”.

Robi, who insisted that her organisation is “not about flowers and rainbows and bad poetry”, recognised the impact of occupation on the occupier and the occupied. It’s “destroying the moral fibre of my country”, she explained, as she too spoke about the need for and the possibility of a reconciliation process.

For Ali, whose eyes seemed to glisten with tears, resistance to the occupation is not about “trying to normalise a situation that is not normal.” For him, “non-violent resistance is the most powerful weapon against the occupation.” And perhaps a reconciliation process grounded in justice – and not revenge – is the most powerful form of resistance of all.