American Friends of Combatants for Peace

My grandfather immigrated to Palestine before the Second World War because he was a Zionist  He was the only member of his family to escape the gas chambers of Poland, and so I was brought up with the belief that Zionism literally saved my family It was not a theoretical concept

I believed that enemies who wanted to destroy us surrounded our Jewish state and that men like my father, who fought in the 1967 war, were there to protect us However, when my father came back from the Yom Kippur war in 1973, he was deeply psychologically damaged and from a very young age I was exposed to his trauma I went into the army wishing to fix things, but instead I got locked into the same cycle

I was drafted in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada I call myself an, “Occupation scholar” because I was sent

Growing up, my family was badly impacted by the occupation There was so much suffering all around me: my friends’ homes were being demolished, children were being put in jail without trial, lands were being confiscated and people were being killed There was suffering all around me My heart cried out for my people and I was determined to make a difference, but there was no peaceful way to do this; the only option was to join the violent struggle for freedom – so I did

In 1986, when I was just 14 years old, I informally joined the “Fatah” movement I threw stones at soldiers, wrote graffiti on public buildings, prepared Molotov Cocktails and more At the age of 15, stones were no longer enough; I wanted to find a way to get a weapon I decided to try to steal the guns from an Israeli soldier I went with

I remember when I was a young teenager, during the second intifada, wanting to travel and be independent – but terrified to ride the bus ‘Maybe someone will come and blow themselves up or put a bomb on the bus’ It was the reality we lived in If I boarded a bus and an Arab boarded after me, I used get off the bus because I was afraid

When I was very small, maybe four or five, I knew a few Palestinians: my father employed them, but as I got older my life became more and more segregated I had never seen or heard the other side and I had no idea what was going on just behind the wall

When I was 13 I decided to study arabic I wanted to learn the language of the “enemy” so that I could do something important to serve my country I was

My family is originally from Gaza, but I was born and raised in Jericho At the age of 15, decided I wanted to fight the occupation I joined the local Hamas movement, and raised Palestinian flags and threw stones at soldiers In 1992 I was sentenced to seven months in Israeli army prison as a political detainee During family I first learned of the Oslo agreements – I was amazed to learn that the Palestinian flag could now be flown freely It was in prison that I realized that there must be other ways to fight for liberation without risking death or lengthy prison sentences I started to see that violent resistance was not only ineffective, it was counterproductive I began looking for ways to help heal the conflict and end the occupation, while at the same time helping the people who are suffering

After my incarceration I finished my studies

My parents made Aliyah from Morocco in the 1970s, and after a period in a transit camp, they moved to Jerusalem, where I was born and raised on its beauties and its so-called “complexity” Politics was not discussed at home, but the conflict came into my life at a very young age I grew up during the second Intifada, and there was a lot of blood all around When I was fourteen years old, one of our school busses was bombed One of the kids in our school had been killed I remember all the parents and teachers trying to explain to us how such a thing was possible

When I was a young teenager I joined the scouts It was a place where we learned how to be good Israelis We visited all the beautiful places in Israel and were told that we had this land only because brave

I grew up in the biggest village in Palestine, but it was also very popular amongst settlers due to its proximity to the City of David When I was a child, my family lived in constant fear that we would be forced out of our home Families from our village were regularly forced to leave the village in order to settle Jewish families instead The first Intifada broke out when I was 15 years old Most of the men and youths in our village were jailed for various charges, throwing stones or even simply hanging Palestinian flags I was arrested and in-prisoned at the age of 15, as were all four of my brothers (aged 14, 13, 12 & 11) It was a very difficult and painful time for our family: humiliating and frustrating

Every Friday at 5am, my mother would wait for the Red Cross and ask for help

In my childhood, my grandparents (whose parents immigrated to Israel in the Third and Fourth Aliyah, 1919-1931), told me stories about their Palmach service and the establishment of the State of Israel I grew up hearing about how they planted the first orchards and raised the first generation of Hebrew-speaking children The feeling I got from both my grandparents and parents was that our family was an integral part of our country

As a child in the 1990’s, the air we breathed was full of hope At home and at school, there was the sense that peace was just around the corner I did not always understand what the excitement was about, but I knew it was something profound I remember one day, in the 4th grade, when Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement, and my mother stood in front of the TV with a kitchen towel in her

My family is originally from the village of Al-Qubeiba, which was forcibly evicted in 1948 My story and the suffering of my family starts from that year My family used to live in one of the most beautiful Palestinian villages, but as a consequence of the war, all of the inhabitants of the village ran away except for my grandfather He refused to run As a result, he was killed in his own home

After that, my family moved to the Palestinian City of Hebron because it was the closest city to Al Qubeibah, all the time hoping that one day they would return to their village But it did not happen, over the following years our suffering only worsened

In 1967 my family was evicted for the second time This time they ran to Jordan and tried to establish a new life there In 1971, I was born and opened

As a social worker in the second Lebanon war, I had close contact with many Israeli families who spent the war hiding in their shelters as well as with members of the Lebanese Army who came into Israel I saw everyone I also saw the various petitions by conscientious objectors that began circulating through the Israeli army

I was aware of the great difficulties facing soldiers in the Territories, and absolutely did not consider objection a worthy solution I believed that individual objection further burdens the soldier who is serving and already struggling When reserves duty was offered to me, I felt it was my moral obligation and I enlisted

I spent 21 days in the occupied territories It was a trauma I will never forget I was posted between an access road to a small Palestinian village, and another road for military and settler use only One day in particular,

I am well aware that I am an unusual phenomenon A Palestinian woman in an organization such as Combatants for Peace is uncommon; but the truth is, I found the movement through another woman: my mother, a seasoned peace activist who brought me to many meetings with Israeli peace activists

I admit that Combatants for Peace has been difficult for me at times When I first joined the movement I felt hate much more than I ever felt any desire for peace I only went to the second meeting out of curiosity, and the simple feeling that I needed to understand more After a short amount of time going to meetings, I left the movement for a long time and lived securely in my anger

I rejoined the movement a year ago, when I heard someone talking about Combatants for Peace’s activities I was curious to see what had changed since

When I look back today at my encounter with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think that most of my childhood was sterile in a sense: I saw Palestinians in the Old City market and in the news, or from time to time as a construction worker, renovating a house However, over the years there have been several points at which the conflict broke into my peaceful life: attacks that took place in Jerusalem, and acquaintance with friends who knew grief more intimately

Being drafted to the army was, for me, a stage that placed me far more directly in the face of the conflict The characters you see on television become the people I arrested, and almost every night I found myself arresting people in Nablus, Jenin, and the surrounding areas

Our routine was always the same We operated at night, almost every night, and then sleep in the morning By noon we

When I was 8 years old my cousin was killed by a settler, while working his land The murderer was never brought to justice, and nothing was done From then on, instead of playing “Cops and Robbers”, I used to play “Palestinians and Jews” This experience, more than anything else, shaped my views of Jews and the Occupation

Before the first intifada, I signed up to participate in resistance activities with Fatah From time to time I would go out into the settlements, cut their power, vandalize or set up various obstacles It was my small way of getting justice for my cousin I was then 15 and sometimes these actions felt more like a game or an attempt to get the girls’ attention

During the first intifada my activity became bolder I would throw stones, join demonstrations, set fire to tires and hang up posters saying, “Free Palestine!” My father

I grew up in a household filled with many contrasts My mother was born in Scotland to a mother who had been born and raised in Jaffa She was Jewish, but defined herself as Palestinian Her’s was an elite Jerusalemite family, and a rich, liberal and very left wing household

My father grew up in Morocco’s Rabat His father was an ardent Zionist and in 1956 organized the migration of 60 families from the community to the Holy Land My father arrived when he was 13, and all throughout his childhood he fought for his right to keep studying (unlike many of his peers in the moshav who were sent to work) Although faced with financial difficulties and poverty, he became the first doctor of Moroccan heritage in the Holy Land

When I was a child, I used to play with the Palestinian kids in Silwan, we rode donkeys together I did

As a child I fought the occupation by raising the Palestinian flag in our playground We never felt safe We were always running from jeeps to avoid the soldiers beating us Our homes were invaded and children were killed At the age of 12 I joined a demonstration where a boy was shot by a soldier I watched him die in front of me

From that moment I developed a deep need for revenge I became part of a group whose mission was to get rid of the catastrophe that had come to our town We called ourselves freedom fighters, but the outside world called us terrorists At first we just threw stones and empty bottles, but when we came across some discarded hand-grenades in a cave, we decided to hurl them at the Israeli jeeps Two of them exploded No one was injured but we were caught and in

I was born in Rishon LeZion My father was born in Poland and moved to Israel when he was one-year-old My grandparents were Holocaust survivors who had lost almost all of their family in the war My grandmother’s story deeply affected my identity and my worldview My mother and her parents were all born in Israel They fought with the Etzel in their youth

At home, my parents spoke of peace and about the need to reach a political agreement with the Palestinians We wanted peace, but we feared the Palestinians Even hearing Arabic would scare me; the images of the Palestinians on television who want to kill us, alongside the terror attacks that happened in my youth, confused me deeply At the time, the violence seemed one-sided to me

At the age of 15, I was at the peace rally where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated During the rally there was

I was born and raised in the Palestinian refugee camp, Tulkarem We lived in very difficult circumstances, and were not treated like human beings at all All around me there was violence, killings and arrests

In 1972 the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) arrested my father for possession of weapons, and put him in jail When I was 15, two young men were killed inside the camp After that I decided that I wanted to take part in the resistance At the same time it was discovered that the Israeli military had poisoned a girls school and pupils had become very sick The people of Tulkarem were outraged and many started to demonstrate I took part in the demonstrations and was arrested for the first time

In 1987, during the First Intifada, I finished high school and became a student at Birzeit University A year later they closed the university and I was

As a teenager, my family moved to a settlement called Sha’arei Tikva I worked alongside Palestinians in building the settlement: I was a high-school student from the Negev trying to earn some money, and they were residents of the nearby villages (Azzun-Atma, Beit Amin, Khares and other villages), trying to make a living Through work, I got to know them and their families When I was 18, I worked for about six months as a tour guide at the Ma’aleh Efraim Field School I knew the Nablus area and the villages around it These acquaintances made me think that maybe we could live together in the occupation as it is I thought it was all right

I wanted to contribute as much as possible and joined the Golani Brigade, an infantry combat brigade I went to the medics’ course and was a company medic I fought and treated the casualties on