THE TRANSFORMATION OF SUFFERING
At the end of 1994, I met a wonderful Vipasana teacher and spiritual activist from England - Christopher Titmuss. Christopher was teaching a course on spiritual activism and when I told him about my work in Nablus, he became very enthusiastic and offered to do a three-day workshop there on the "Transformation of Suffering" for Palestinians and Israelis. When I talked to Rawda about this, she too became enthusiastic and we each set about finding fifteen appropriate people for this workshop. I couldn't decide whom to approach and realized that the appropriate people would come to me. By the time Christopher returned to Israel six months later, a group of very special, wise and loving Israelis had come together.
We Israelis went to Nablus for three days where the Palestinian participants invited us to stay in their homes. Rawda has gathered together a remarkable group of Palestinians and the meeting between the two group was truly transformational. In our exchange of views on the situation between Israel and Palestine and in our emotional sharing of the suffering experienced by each group as a result of the conflict, a feeling of mutual understanding and compassion arose between us. The whole experience became even more meaningful when we were invited to participate in a peaceful demonstration in Nablus for the release of Palestinian prisoners. A heated discussion arose. Some Israelis felt they couldn't demonstrate for the release of prisoners who had killed Israelis. Other Israelis wanted to demonstrate with the Palestinians but were reluctant as they didn't trust the Israeli forces not to open fire and they weren't willing to risk their lives. I became very upset, not wanting the Palestinians to stand alone before Israeli soldiers it we were there and could support them. Rawda, on the other hand, was very supportive of the Israelis who felt undecided, understanding their feelings and stating that everyone should have the right to behave according to his own conscience.
In the end, all of us decided to attend the demonstration except for two mothers with young children. This was the last day of the workshop. We were all preparing to leave when Rawda sensed something was wrong and sent someone to make sure that the demonstration was proceeding peacefully as planned. Our waiting was soon interrupted by the sound of firing and the Palestinians who had gone on ahead came running back, the women in tears and all in outraged disbelief. It turned out that the Israeli forces had prepared an ambush, encircled the demonstrators and opened fire. Several Palestinians were killed and fifty injured, including one of the participants in our workshop. Most of the Palestinians with us hurried off to help the injured but some stayed to organize our immediate transport out of Nablus as the city had erupted in violence. My last memory of that unforgettable workshop is our running out to taxis, while our Palestinian hosts hurried after us with food as they had not had time to give us lunch.
At this point in my narrative, I feel it is important to relate to the element of danger that does exist to an extent in our interactive peace work. What I have said to help myself in confronting this danger is that I and all parents in Israel have agreed to send our children to the army, into the real danger of being killed or having to kill others. We do this for the sake of making war. I feel that if I could put my sons in danger then I cannot be in full integrity with myself if I can't put children on both sides. When I see this truth, my love and determination to fight for peace leave no space inside me for fear. I hope this viewpoint will help other people who want to participate in peace work but have found that fear prevents them.
After Christopher's "Transformation of Suffering" workshop, both Palestinians and Israelis felt they had experienced an in-depth process that melted down barriers of mutual fear and mistrust and raised flowers of hope and understanding. We all felt it would be very important to give other Palestinians and Israelis the same opportunity and since we couldn't wait for Christopher to do this, we decided to train ourselves to be facilitators for these workshops. About eight Israelis and eight Palestinians committed to this goal. Again the path opened before us and we very quickly found two teachers who volunteered to teach us dialogue and conflict resolution facilitation skills with a spiritual orientation. These were two Jewish Buddhist women from the States, psychologists who travel the world working with groups in conflict - Dr. Louise Diamond and Dr. Paula Green. They both came several times to Israel to train us. After about one and a half years of training, we felt ready to begin facilitating ourselves and about one year ago, we started giving two-day workshops in Nablus with a mixed Palestinian/Israeli team of facilitators.
This may sound smooth and simple but we had many difficulties in carrying our plan. The cultural differences between our two communities meant that often we had very different ways of doing things and different ways of understanding things and there were many misunderstandings. We constantly needed to accommodate to each others needs and ways of thinking. Another great difficulty is that the level of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians often escalates and it becomes impossible to bring groups into Nablus. We had often gone through the complicated process of preparing a workshop only to have to cancel it at the last minute.
In the process of organizing ourselves as a dialogue workshop facilitation group, we gave ourselves a name - "Face to Face" - and, in order to receive funds for our work, we joined a non-profit organization called "Rapprochement". This organization is also joint Palestinian/Israeli, encouraging dialogue and other projects between the two communities. Within this organization, we are greatly supported by Judith Green, a woman of tremendous heart and vision.
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