Battle stories bring former enemies together

In the winter of 2005, Elik Elhanan and a group of soldier refusers found themselves riding the back roads used by the settlers, on their way to Bethlehem. The group had been invited to dialogue with former fighters from Fatah at the home of Suleiman Al-Himri, but it is forbidden for Israelis to travel to Palestinian cities.

"We had to wait in an olive grove in the dark for cars to pick us up," Elhanan recalled. "We were afraid. I remember thinking we were doing something that was just incredibly stupid. We were not at all sure we would come back alive. I later learned the Palestinians were also afraid the meeting was a trap, and they would be arrested or killed."

Inside Al-Himri's house, the two groups struggled at first with their antipathy. Then the Palestinians began to tell their battle stories, and Israelis began to tell theirs. Able to recognize parts of themselves in the stories of the other, everyone listened, and out of their listening came an opening. At the end of the evening, no one was arrested, and no one was betrayed.

"We continued to meet every two or three weeks," Al-Himri said. "We grew little by little. We decided to name our group Combatants for Peace. We are completely committed to working for peace together."

The group has grown to more than 200 members. They protest the demolition of Palestinian houses. They protest the wall at Bil'in. Recently, they protested the building of a new settler road at Beit Umar, whose mayor is from Hamas. They stood alongside the Israeli-Palestinian bereavement group, Family Forum, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Ta'ayush to bear witness against a planned road that will be forbidden to Palestinian drivers on Palestinian soil.

Invited to New York by Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (the Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice), a liberal Zionist group opposed to the occupation, Elhanan and Al-Himri told their stories to Jews at two synagogues on Jan. 10 and 11.

Elhanan grew up in Jerusalem, on the edge of the West Bank. Despite its proximity, he said, "The West Bank was a distant country. I had no idea there was an occupation. I knew nothing about the Palestinians. I had no idea we were doing something wrong."

Al-Himri smiled ironically at his young friend. He is 40, and graying. Elhanan is a boyish 29. Such illusions weren't possible on Al-Himri's side of the Green Line. When he stood in his doorway as a boy, he saw Jewish settlements and Jewish soldiers.

"A Palestinian kid like myself could tell you everything about the Israeli soldiers. We could describe their uniforms, their appearance, their behavior. We saw everything."

In his teens, Al-Himri became a Fatah street fighter, throwing stones at soldiers and tanks. At 16, he was imprisoned for a year and a half in Hebron. Six years later, he was placed under administrative detention and held at Ketziot Prison in the Negev for three years without trial.

He estimates that he and his brothers have logged 25 years in Israeli jails. His father, also a Fatah member, was imprisoned for nine years for throwing a grenade at a jeep in Jerusalem.

"My whole family agrees with what I am doing. They have suffered a lot. They are pro-peace. Like myself, they don't want to see that same suffering brought to the next generation of Palestinians."

Al-Himri reaches out within Fatah, especially to fighters and former fighters. Elhanan talks to any soldier willing to talk to him. The Combatants for Peace logo shows a fighter from each side stepping toward the other, throwing away their guns.

Al-Himri has invited members of Hamas to meetings, but they have not accepted the offer.

The two men also go to Israeli and Palestinian schools and community centers to speak. "We will speak to even three people in a room if they want to hear us," Elhanan said.

Elhanan served three years with an elite unit in Southern Lebanon in the mid-1990s fighting Hezbollah. He did shorter tours of duty on the West Bank fighting Palestinians.

A student, like many Israeli soldiers, of the absurdist wisdom of Catch-22, he applied Joseph Heller's logic to his situation in Lebanon.

"I am in Lebanon fighting Hezbollah because they shoot at us. They shoot at us because we are in Lebanon. Take us out of there, and they will have no one to shoot at." He observed that Hezbollah did not shoot at Israeli civilians unless the Israelis shot at Lebanese civilians.

It took two suicide bombers from Nablus on a morning in early September 1997, to detonate the last of his illusions. His 14-year-old sister, Semadar, had wandered too close to one of the suicide bombers on a downtown Jerusalem street and was killed instantly.

"The attack that killed my sister did not promote in any way Palestinian interests. The violent actions I committed as a soldier did not promote in any way the security of Israel. Seeing that brought about a change in me."

Like Al-Himri, Elhanan has the support of his family. His parents participate in Combatants for Peace actions, and his brother is a group member.