“We refuse to be enemies”<\/p>\n
Dear MSKv Interested Parties,<\/p>\n
Imagine this:
\nFrom two ethnic groups in a confined space, after more than a century of fighting as enemies over
\nland and recognition, “connected” by growing hatred, women and men
\napproach each other, shake hands, bury the hatchet, make friends!
\nIn the Israeli-Palestinian organization Combatants for Peace, you will find these
\npeople:
\nFormer IDF soldiers together with Palestinian fighters \u2013 both sides with blood on their
\nhands \u2013 exchange views on their own history and that of their respective cultures, which
\ntaught them to hate the others.
\nExemplary here are the co-founders of Combatants for Peace: Rami Elhanan, a Jewish
\nIsraeli, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian fighter. Both have lost their daughters through
\nacts of violence by the opponent: Rami’s 14-year-old daughter was killed in a suicide bombing
\nby Hamas \u2013 an act of retaliation against a new settlement in East Jerusalem – in 1993;
\nBassam’s 10-year-old daughter Abir was fatally hit by a
\nrubber bullet fired by the Israeli border police on her way to school in 1997.
\nWhat helped the two men to change direction, to find the path to peace?
\nBassam had time in prison – for throwing stones at Israeli tanks – to understand
\nIsraeli society and realized that the shooter himself was “a victim of his
\neducation, his society, the Israeli occupation regime” and that acts of revenge
\nnever alleviate the pain.
\nFor Rami, who had only served as a tank mechanic in the IDF, his
\nbasic attitude towards humanity and justice had already prepared the ground on which an energy of powerful resistance could grow through
\nanger and pain and be used against the hostile
\ntrend of leading political circles in Israel. He, too, does not see
\nretaliation, but conversation, the sharing of fear and grief as a path to peace.
\nIn the group, they have learned to listen to each other, to see themselves reflected in the other, to feel the other’s pain
\n.
\nAnd they have realized:
\nOnly by being open to the other side, by being willing to understand the other, can the
\nvicious cycle of retaliation be broken.
\nHow about inviting the Combatants for Peace to the Munich Security Conference?<\/p>\n
With kind regards,
\nMechthild Schreiber
\nMember of the Board of the Project Group
\n“Changing the Munich Security Conference” e.V.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“We refuse to be enemies” Dear MSKv Interested Parties, Imagine this: From two ethnic groups in a confined space, after more than a century of fighting as enemies over land and recognition, “connected” by growing hatred, women and men approach each other, shake hands, bury the hatchet, make friends! In the Israeli-Palestinian organization Combatants for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,27,1,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities","category-denkmail","category-nicht-kategorisiert","category-publications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mskveraendern.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}