It took the killings of their daughters to bring them together and to move beyond fear and hatred. Bassam Aramin is a former Palestinian Fatah fighter whose daughter, Abir, age 10, was killed in 2008 by Israeli police close to her school in Anata, just outside of Jerusalem. Rami Elhanan is a former IDF soldier who fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and is the son of a Holocaust survivor. His daughter, Smadar, age 13, was killed, along with three of her friends, by two Palestinian suicide bombers. Once enemies who despised each other, both men arrived at the same conclusion -- that violence only begets more violence. Thus, in 2005, was created a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization called, ironically, “Combatants for Peace.”
From New Hampshire
Combatants for Peace
by Will Thomas
Bassam & Rami