'They Think We're Crazy': Holy Land Peacemakers

By Laura Sheahen

"At the beginning I thought, foolishly enough, that I could keep on with normal life. But nothing was normal anymore, and I wasn't the same person anymore," says Rami Elhanan.

But Rami is not your average person. Neither is his speaking partner, Mazen Faraj. Rami is Israeli; Mazen is Palestinian. Like thousands of people in the Holy Land, they have both lost loved ones to violence.

Yet unlike many bereaved Israelis and Palestinians, Rami and Mazen did not let their losses build up the psychological wall that divides the two groups as much as a concrete wall divides them physically. The journey that brought them together has been a slow and painful one, and anything but normal.

Rami's 14-year-old daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Mazen's 62-year-old father was killed by an Israeli soldier while carrying groceries; the soldier thought the groceries were something else.

In the year following his daughter's death, Rami thought, "I could go on with my life pretending as if nothing had happened." When approached by another Israeli about joining the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a group for grieving Israelis and Palestinians, Rami was skeptical. For Mazen, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem, the idea of talking to Israelis was utterly foreign.

"The only Israelis I had known were soldiers, settlers, jailers," says Mazen, whose brother was arrested in their home in the middle of the night and spent five years in prison. Mazen himself spent three years in jail for throwing rocks at the Israeli army as a teenager. "Most Israelis do not meet Palestinians ever," says Rami.

But friends kept pressing the men to join the Families Forum. Somewhat reluctantly, they agreed.

A Turning Point

When Mazen first heard Rami speak at one of the auditorium events the group holds, he says, "I looked at him and thought, 'What does he know about suffering, about pain, this guy talking about peace?' "

"Then he started to talk about his daughter and what's happened in his family. I was so ashamed that I had thought that," says Mazen. The meeting happened in Talitha Kumi, a school in Bethlehem; the school's name comes from Mark 5:41: "Little girl, rise."

Joining the Families Forum was a turning point for Rami too. "Meeting the Palestinian bereaved families, I saw Palestinians as human beings, not as caricatures in newspapers or articles or history items, but real people, coming towards me, shaking my hand for peace, hugging me, crying with me."

Mazen and Rami became more active in the forum, attending weekend workshops and traveling to Israeli high schools to discuss the conflict. They also became close friends. "The very sight of an Israeli and a Palestinian stepping into a classroom, calling each other brother, not fighting each other, not trying to compare the size of the pain, not trying to say who started what and who's to blame, is a shock for the students," says Rami. To date, the Families Forum has arranged over 1,000 visits to high schools.

Parents Circle-Families Forum has its critics. "People say, 'How can you go to Israel and sit with them, talk with them? They killed your father, they make your life harder all the time,' " says Mazen. "We're doing something that is not very popular," admits Rami. "Some people look at us in a very negative way. They think we're crazy, that sorrow has made us lose our judgment."

'A Way Out of This Endless Cycle'

The two men feel ambivalent about the word "forgiveness." "It's a very problematic word for me," says Rami, who prefers the term "reconciliation" for his situation. "I don't think you can forgive the killing of the innocent. You're not in a position to forgive. The only thing that you can do is try to find a solution, to think logically of a way out of this endless cycle of retaliation and revenge."

"When I first heard the word 'forgiveness,' I went on a website and looked it up, to find out, really, what it means. I don't know what it means exactly for me," says Mazen.

Both men have also struggled with bitterness. "After my father was killed, I had two choices: revenge, or to go another way," says Mazen.

"What you have to conquer first of all is your anger," says Rami. "Every morning after a long and sleepless night, you wake up and have to choose again and again: 'This day I will go this way and not the other way.' It's a battle you fight against yourself, against your heritage, against your psychology.

"You come to a point where you ask yourself, 'If I kill someone else, will it bring her back?' Of course not," says Rami. "So, through a very gradual and difficult process, you come to [another question]: 'What could cause someone to be so angry … that he's willing to blow himself up with 14-year-old little girls?' "

"And then, and only then, comes the most important question of them all: What can you do personally to prevent this unbearable, painful thing? There are only three ways for people in our situation: the way of anger and revenge, the way of reconciliation or the way of sinking down into depression."

One thing that keeps Israelis and Palestinians angry is sizing up who has suffered more. "[It's] a tool in the battle," says Rami. "What prevents the peace agreement is this accounting: The stacking up who suffered what, who's to blame, who started what, who killed more children, who did more suicide bombings, who did the checkpoints … it's endless."

'All of Us Have Paid a Big Price'

The Families Forum short-circuits that destructive dynamic. "In our forum, we don't make a competition for suffering," says Mazen.

"We're not political," he continues, "but in the end we will agree with any agreement between Palestinians and Israelis that will stop this circle of violence."

As part of the Catholic Campaign for Peace in the Holy Land, Catholic Relief Services is sponsoring Mazen and Rami on a speakers' tour in the United States. The two men will travel to churches in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., sharing their message of hope and reconciliation.

Real dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians is key, they say. "The minute you are able to listen to the pain of the other, you can expect the other to listen to your pain and then start this process," says Rami.

"The other side — all of us have paid a big price for this conflict," says Mazen. "If we have paid this high price, and can sit and talk and listen and make dialogue, all Palestinians and Israelis can do it."

Today, the two men joke and laugh together, clearly enjoying each other's company and their friendship. They hope their activism will keep others from suffering the way they have.

The memories of their lost family members do not fade. Rami's daughter was "vivid and sparkling and joyful, a very lovable and laughing person. She was a very good student and a dancer — modern dance and ballet," Rami remembers. "She loved to ride behind me on my motorcycle. We called her the princess."

Mazen's father was "my father and my mother, because I lost my mother when I was just 6 months old, so I didn't know her. He was so good to me," says Mazen. He remembers how his father would go to Jerusalem and buy him chocolate, or a jean jacket he coveted as a teenager. "I really miss him. The day I missed him most was my wedding in 2005. He'd been dead for three years. The one I loved was not there."

Laura Sheahen is CRS' regional information officer for Europe and the Middle East. She is based in Cairo.