May 2002

The Pains of Peace

by David Rabin

It's March 13, and the image is extraordinary: Almost 400 coffins, in neat rows, stretched out in a central Tel Aviv plaza. At first glance, the coffins might possibly be taken as "real"; hundreds of people are being killed in the inordinate bloodletting that mars Israel and Palestine. But the coffins are empty, and they're made of cardboard.

A memorial to those slain in the latest intifada, the coffin display is a Middle East version of the AIDS quilt. It's the creation of the Families Forum, a coalition of Palestinians and Israelis who've lost relatives in the conflict. The coffins symbolize the more than 1,200 Palestinians and 400 Israelis killed since September 2000.

To the side of the coffins is a banner reading, "Better the Pains of Peace than the Agonies of War." The quote, intoned at various times, according to the Forum, by Israeli leaders as diverse as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin, is a kind of credo for the group. Its members have turned away from revenge and instead are asking the warring sides to stop, reflect, start talking, and end the violence.

What makes the memorial especially extraordinary is the presence, in its center, of a coffin draped in a Palestinian flag next to one covered with its Israeli counterpart. It took several Israeli Supreme Court hearings to get permission to show the Palestinian flag. A rightwing group argued that the flag represented the PLO and terrorism.

The Forum didn't get everything it wanted, however. It had intended to drape about 300 of the coffins with Palestinian flags, the rest with Israeli ones, but the police were afraid that the former would elicit an uncontrollable response from a volatile Israeli public. The parties finally agreed to one flag for each side.

Before any speeches are given, that single Palestinian symbol does provoke a negative reaction. Several Israelis spit on it. And two outraged Orthodox Jews manage to grab the flag. Security guards, after a long tussle, eventually pry it loose and block further attempts to remove it.

Having lost that battle, the protesters heckle from the sidelines. One of them, calling himself Yakov, says they're followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the slain leader of the banned rightwing Jewish Defense League, "may his blood be avenged soon." Yakov, an Israeli by way of New York City, says he'll protest as long as people, "traitors of the land, have the nerve to come here and bring enemy flags into the middle of Tel Aviv when people are being murdered." Yakov wonders "what would happen if someone went to the site of the World Trade Center and raised up bin Laden and Taliban flags."

The Forum knows full well there are elements on both sides of the conflict that have no interest in peacemaking. Yakov is one of them. "There's not going to be any negotiation," he says. He believes the Palestinians "aren't Europeans, they are not Western people. They don't understand negotiations. They understand fists, blood, and weapons." Yakov concludes: "Israel has to stop acting like it's part of the E.U. and start acting like it's part of the Middle East."

Israeli members of the Forum are in attendance, but no Palestinians. The Israeli government refused to grant them permission to travel from the Occupied Territories.

Palestinian member Ghazi Brietieth, reached later by telephone, lives near Hebron in the West Bank. Brietieth, a municipal electrician, says he's living under curfew and hasn't been paid in three months. He lost his brother at the beginning of the intifada. Brietieth says his unarmed sibling, a tractor operator and father of two, was gunned down by Israeli troops, at point blank range, after an argument.

Brietieth says the killings of close relatives have bound Forum members in a powerful way.

"Our loss is the same. We have to stop the bloodshed and make peace," he says. He hopes the occupation will end "so we can live in freedom and dignity, side by side, with Israel." He says the reaction from his neighbors has been mixed. "Some want peace and want to work with Israel to push the peace process," he says. "But some say I am a traitor."

The Egyptian chargé d'affaires to Israel, Ihabe el Sharif, says he especially appreciates a group of bereaved relatives who have ignored the impulse to take revenge. "This is an example that everyone must embody," he says. But Sharif is also shocked at the attack on the Palestinian flag. "They must understand that the Palestinians are their neighbors, forever," he says. "And if they think they can cancel their existence, it's not possible."

Israeli businessman Yitzhak Frankenthal explains what turned him into an activist in 1994.

"I had lost my son, Arik, a soldier in the tank force," Frankenthal says. "He was nineteen. He was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas."

Frankenthal responded by starting an Israeli group of bereaved relatives. The group eventually joined forces with a Palestinian counterpart, creating the Forum, which now numbers about 200 Israeli and 150 Palestinian families. The Forum isn't calling for a specific solution but rather promotes reconciliation.

Frankenthal believes the need for a group like this is enormous. "The current conflict has left both sides with a sense that peace cannot be reached," he says. "Moderate voices have been lost in increasingly violent waves of revenge."

The Forum aims to soften public opinion on both sides of the conflict, restore faith in the peace process, and generate a movement "to force our leaders to sit and find a peaceful solution," he says.

The Forum's campaign has included, in addition to the coffin display, billboard and bus-stop ads bearing the Begin/Rabin slogan. These were hung in both Israel and the Occupied Territories.

The Forum has also brought Palestinians to Israel to meet the prime minister, and, prior to Sharon's invasion of Ramallah, Israelis had met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They speak in one another's schools and hold joint seminars.

The group took an expanded version of its display to the United Nations the week after its Tel Aviv event. It brought 1,000 coffins, three quarters of them draped in Palestinian flags. The Forum then proceeded to Washington, meeting with members of Congress and the public.

"We need your help," Frankenthal says. "Unfortunately, the situation is so terrible that the international community has to step in and help create the possibility of peace."

David Rabin is a freelance reporter and radio producer in Washington, D.C.