Siham Chalabi
Facilitator at Daliat El-Carmel Community Center
The Druze are conservative people who believe in one god. There are religious Druze and secular Druze. One of our principles is that wherever we are, in whatever country, we have to be loyal to that country. We are concerned not only with our own interests but with the interests of the country. We do everything “Israeli,” everything. We have people in senior positions and regular jobs in the government. Our children serve in the army. We are Arab Druze, but we have a good life with the Jews. We love our country. [..]
Ihsan Mohammed Turkieh
Comedy writer and actress
A checkpoint is a horrible scene, but as a comedian, I like to play the simple Palestinian lady. She says to the soldier, “Please, my daughter, she is in the hospital, let me go to see my daughter.” He barks, “Do you have a permit? If you don’t have a permit, you will not pass.” She pleads, “Let me go, let me go.” He yells, “Yallah, get away from here!” She curses the Wall and yells back, “I wish a tsunami takes the Wall, takes you. Then both of us will be at rest at the end!” The Israelis laugh, but it is very black comedy. [..]
Gita Hazani
Director General of Mosaica Center for Inter-Religious Cooperation
When the fears are gone and both sides say what they really feel, they open their hearts and say very difficult things. Someone says, “When you talk about your ownership of the holy temple, I feel someone put a knife in my heart and turned it. It’s so difficult to hear you talking this way about my holy place.” [..]
Rachel Aspir
Chair of NAAMAT for the Jerusalem area
I was born in Iraq, and arrived here at age four or five. It was traumatic, my parents fled from Iraq secretly. If I have a recollection of that aliyah, of that journey to Israel, it is of my father being separated from my mother. The men had to leave on their own, and my mother stayed behind with my brother and me. My brother was a baby in her arms. My parents never spoke badly of Arabs. Abdullah—I remember him as a nice uncle who brought us sweets—helped my mother cross the border to get my brother and me where we needed to go. [..]
Salwa Abu Lebdeh
Camerawoman and documentary filmmaker
I am a director. I try to show a picture that’s different from the one you see on television that depicts a nation being killed, a nation that lacks life—with only funerals and flags. I show our life: a people with a history, civilization, and heritage. [...]
Silvia Margia
Program director with women’s intercultural organizations
There are voices inside myself. Some can be very ugly. In the last war, I found myself angry with the Jewish people. Will they wake up and see that security is not about the army? Peace is about economic security, not about an army. I was shocked. How I am thinking this way? How did I give myself even permission to say these things? I want to heal myself of this voice of the wounds of the little Arab girl inside. Sometimes you need to meet the other side and say, “Help me to heal myself and I will offer my help for you to do the same.’’ [...]
Nira- just skipped one……….
My apologies to the avid readers of that blog, for skipping the yesterday one. Or maybe no one really noticed due to time differences. So what was there for me yesterday? Read an e-mail from Elana Rozenman that she sent a few days ago. She is the peacexpeace Israeli liaison. Than suddenly realized she is in India for [...]
Nira- Friday night is gonna be alright?
Finally Friday. Blessed Weekend. Cried yesterday, watching the news and this morning, reading the paper. Makes it difficult to think of peace when 125, at least, killed in terror attack in India and hundreds more injured. Especially India. The place on earth where I found quiet and quite a lot of myself when traveled there [...]
Nira- looking forward to weekend
Main thing that reminds me of Washington now is the jet-lag and not being able to wake up in the morning. Not quite just that. Actually, the pics that keep coming in, now from Patricia, make everything live again. Everyone is admiring the women’s beauty and energy coming out of the photos. Haven’t had the [...]
Nira- on lunchbreak in the Knesset
Funny. A new rutine started for me, and that is looking for peacexpeace e-mail correspondance first thing in the morning. This morning it was also there, reminding me once again that a real continuation to what we did in Washington is happening. Things straightened with Jumana, Patt looking forward to going on with Nabil Abuznaid [...]
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