Bereaved Women Urge Reconciliation

by Delinda C. Hanley

Two Bereaved women, Nadwa Sarandah, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, and Robi Damelin, an Israeli from Tel Aviv, discussed peace and reconciliation at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC on Oct. 21. Sarandah and Damelin are members of the Parents Circle/Bereaved Families Forum, a group of 500 Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones to violence in the current conflict. Grieving members work to promote reconciliation and understanding and seek ways to foster a peaceful end to the conflict.

Ambassador Philip Wilcox, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington; Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig of the Washington Hebrew Congregation; and Dr. Ziad Asali , president of the American Task Force on Palestine, each gave brief remarks before the women spoke.

Rabbi Lustig set the scene by telling a story about an Israeli father swimming with three young girls at a beach in Tel Aviv when they were overcome by a terrible current. Only one Palestinian heard their cries for help in Hebrew, and dove in to try to save them, although he could not swim. As the two men were losing their battle to save the children, the Palestinian yelled for help in Arabic. In moments a human chain formed with swimmers, Palestinians and Israelis and boogie boards, to pull the children to safety. This story gives him a glimpse of peace, Rabbi Lustig said. "There are heroes among us, not superheros, not Arabs or Israelis, just men." The rabbi charged the audience to come together to form a human chain to work for peace.

Dr. Asali briefly described the history of the conflict, which he said both sides should understand in order to humanize the other. One side's story begins with a people returning from exile, and the other begins by a people being exiled and scattered in a new diaspora. The task of the survivors of both diasporas is to reconcile and give their children a legacy of peace, Asali concluded.

Next the audience viewed a film clip about the Parents Circle/Bereaved Families Forum which featured a Palestinian family whose 12-year-old daughter was killed when their car was sprayed with Israeli gunfire at a checkpoint, and an Israeli woman whose 19-year-old soldier brother was shot. The film ended with scenes of conflict and resolution accompanied by John Lennon's song "Imagine" sung in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

Sarandah began her remarks by saying the film was too close to home; she couldn't watch it, she said, because "We're living it." Her sister, Nayla, who was determined to help her people, was killed after her return from the United States with a doctorate in public health. On Feb. 11, 1999-during the years of "peace"-Nayla was stabbed to death, most likely by an Orthodox settler, on an East Jerusalem street. Sarandah admitted she could not forgive until an Orthodox Jew, Yitzhak Frankenthal (see pg. 17) founder of the Parents Circle, whose own son had been killed by Palestinians, handed her a letter of apology and recognized the wrongs done to her family. While she now can forgive Israelis, Sarandah said, she cannot excuse their actions.

Sarandah asked Americans to speak in one voice with one message. "We've had four decades of suffering living that film," Sarandah said. "Don't take sides. Be pro-solution, for God's sake."

Next to speak was Robi Damelin, whose youngest son, David, was killed on March 3, 2002 in the West Bank. A member of the Israeli peace movement, David taught philosophy at Tel Aviv University when he and many of his students were called up to join the reserves. He was very conflicted about serving in the occupied territories, his mother recalled, but determined to "treat Palestinians with dignity." "The sniper killed the wrong man," Damelin said. Her son had the "Code of Ethics" in his pocket and was teaching morals to his fellow soldiers. "I understand the sniper did not kill David because he was David," Damelin explained, "but because he was a symbol of an occupying army."

That sniper was recently arrested, said Damelin, who wants to meet with him in hopes he'll give her some sign of repentance and agree that violence is not the way.

The media, Damelin noted, interviews the mothers of both settlers and suicide bombers who claim they are proud to have given their children for their cause, "But all mothers go to bed with the same pain after having lost a child," she said.

"We have the feeling you have given up on us," Damelin concluded. "Support Israeli settlers leaving and Palestinians creating a state. It's no good being pro-Israel. If you care about us do not take sides."

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This article was published in the December 2004 edition of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. It is used here with permission.