February 23, 2007
By Alexandra J. Wall

By the time they reached the Bay Area, members of a group called "Combatants for Peace" were almost done with a 22-city speaking tour of North America. But not without firing up some controversy.

When the two men, an Israeli and Palestinian arrived in Los Angeles recently, the Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch, had issued a report saying that not only are such tours dangerous in terms of how Israel is viewed by the world, but they are sometimes "bankrolled by Palestinian groups," as was quoted in an article in the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot.

In fact, this tour was sponsored by the pro-peace group Brit Tzedek v'Shalom that promptly wrote a letter in response to the Consul General.

And Shimon Katz, the Israeli on the tour, chose to bring it up in his talk Sunday, Feb. 4 at Oakland's Grand Lake Theater.

"We are not here to damage the way Israel is viewed," said Katz, a four-year-veteran of the Israel Defense Force. "We are trying to build bridges rather than justify our own opinion."

Katz served four years in the Israeli army in an elite unit, and then became an officer. He spent much of his time in southern Lebanon, and was released before the outbreak of the second intifada. Upon his release, he went to India, and ended up immersing himself in meditation, and reading the works of the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi.

And while he took in the concepts of suffering and compassion, he didn't realize how much it had sunk in until he was called to reserve duty upon his return to Israel. This time was during the second intifada.

After his second stint in reserve duty, he could for the first time appreciate opposing points of view. He realized that "this activity meant to bring security to Israel is counterproductive," and "using such force on civilians is only bringing more hatred."

He requested to be transferred to a unit where he would not have to be in combat.

"I'm not a refusenik," he said. "I believe I need to serve in the army as a citizen of Israel, but I don't feel I'm above the law ... I have no problem defending Israel from within its borders, but I will not take part in the occupation."

Souliman Al-Hamri was Katz's Palestinian counterpart, a Fatah supporter who is the Palestinian coordinator of Combatants for Peace.

Al-Hamri got involved in resistance to the Israelis in Bethlehem when he was 16. At that time, he said, "We were not allowed to raise a Palestinian flag or organize or demonstrate."

Members of his group were arrested when three of them stabbed an Israeli soldier. Even though Al-Hamri was not involved in the stabbing, he was sentenced to one and a half years in an Israeli jail. When released, Al-Hamri was branded a "terrorist" by the Israelis, and therefore not allowed back into school for fear that he might recruit his classmates. A friend told him about a Catholic priest, who took pity on him and allowed him into his private school.

Al-Hamri graduated second in his class and was awarded a scholarship from Jordan to study law, a field not taught in the Palestinian territories at that time, in Iraq. But again, his being a "terrorist" meant the Israelis would not let him leave the country.

He enrolled at a university in the West Bank to study social work and psychology, but when the second intifada broke out he felt he had to take part.

"We used to organize demonstrations, and different clashes with the army and the settlers," he said. When he was arrested again, he got a three and a half year sentence in a jail in the Israeli desert. "You were not allowed to have a pen, or a pencil, or paper, or any communication with your community. You are a hostage."

He said his turning point came when an Israeli officer came to the jail to speak with Palestinian leadership "since most of them were in jail then," he said. That officer was Yitzhak Rabin.

The fact that a former general was talking about finding a solution other than a military one had a profound effect, said Al-Hamri.

Al-Hamri felt compelled to talk to the other side, and in doing so met Israelis who had accepted non-violence as the way to solve the conflict. Combatants for Peace has been meeting since last year, giving former Israeli soldiers and Palestinians who fought against them a chance to tell their own stories and imagine themselves in each other's shoes.

At first, they met only in secret, and mistrust was high. But eventually, through listening to each other, they learned to empathize with the other side.

"We're pro-Israel and pro-Palestine," said Katz. "We're not anti-one or the other."

Or, as the group's literature says, "After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only through weapon sights, we have decided to put down our guns and to fight for peace."