Promise in the Pain
By Roger Cohen
The New York Times
"Awad Darawshe, shot in the abdomen, bled to death under the stage at the trance music festival that Hamas gunmen transformed into a killing field. A Palestinian Israeli paramedic, he died in a desperate attempt to save the lives of Jews...
"He 'felt compelled to help people as one human being to another,' said Mohammad Darawshe, a cousin who is himself a prominent mediator between Palestinians and Jews...
"Often marginalized, mocked as naïve and targeted as traitors, some of these
stubborn advocates of peacemaking now see an opportunity, however remote...
"'It is clear that war is not the solution and the status quo is no more,' said Rula Daoud, a Palestinian Israeli director of Standing Together, an organization that works for peace...'We need different voices'...
"'Without a peace track - and there has been none for way too long - bouts of escalation are easy to predict,' said Mr. Fayyad, the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, a moderate whose reforms fleetingly made Palestinian statehood look plausible a dozen years ago...
"'The trauma and pain have to stop,' said Gershon Baskin, a longtime peace
activist. 'One day a new generation will stand up and say enough.'...
"'I am a realist, and realistically two states are still possible,' said Mohammad Darawshe, the promoter of Jewish-Arab dialogue. 'It may be nice to dream of one shared homeland, but Israelis will not give up their state. And Palestinians also need their own state, with the two strongly interconnected'…
"That, in turn, he conceded, would require new leadership on both sides."
About Heart of a Nation
Heart of a Nation is working to empower emerging American, Israeli and Palestinian changemakers to improve their political cultures.
אנחנו מכנסים הוגים מובילים, פעילים חברתיים, ומחוללי שינוי לעתיד, אמריקאים, ישראלים ופלסטינאים, המחויבים לשיפור החברות שלהם.
نحن أمريكيون وإسرائيليون وفلسطينيون نبني ونكوّن روابط من أجل التعلم والتفكير والمشاركة معًا حتى نشجع الحلول التقدمية بشأن القضايا التي تهمنا جميعًا.