Sulaiman Al Hamri

Last night Brit Tzedek, a group that opposes the Israel lobby from within the Jewish community, staged a presentation by two members of Combatants for Peace, an organization of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters working for a two-state solution. About 60 people turned out in the basement of Beth Elohim, a Reform temple in Brooklyn.

A table was set up on the dais. I recognized the Palestinian at once. He wore a pressed blue shirt and khakis, had a trimmed mustache. Sulaiman Al Hamri walked with a steel crutch. A smallish Jewish kid pulled out a chair for him, a mophead in his 20s with a string bracelet and jeans and old beaten shoes. Now I waited for the kid to bring in the Israeli. Then he sat down next to Al Hamri and I realized he was the Israeli. Just a kid. Elik Elhanan.

Elhanan introduced them. "We are not professors or experts. We did not come here to tell you the truth or what is absolutely right. We came here to tell you our stories and opinions."

Al Hamri told his story first, about spending 4-1/2 years in Israeli prisons. I'll blog about this in days to come, I want to tell Elhanan's story now.

Elhanan is a student in Tel Aviv, 29. He grew up in Jerusalem and as a boy, he did not realize there was a conflict in the Middle East. For he never thought about it, and when the time came that he did, he didn't see that he had any part of it. "I have no problem with the Palestinians, no fight with them." At 18, he joined the Army for the usual reasons. Out of a sense of duty, and privilege, and wanting to be part of something bigger than himself.

His consciousness changed. Over the next three years, he realized, "I am part of this conflict, I can't escape it."

Several events had taken place that had "obliged" him to see the larger issues. In some, he had found himself "an aggressor." He didn't want to go into these events, he said dismissively. They had made him aware of the "discrepancies between the very lofty discourse describing what we are doing and the reality on the ground.

"But the most influential event, I found myself all of a sudden, a victim. On the 4th of September 1997 two suicide bombers left Nablus and killed five people in Jerusalem. 180 people were injured. Among those killed was my sister Smadari and her friend. They were going to school." A third friend was so critically injured she is still not the same.  read more »