Israelis, Palestinians hold joint memorial
American actor Richard Gere called for compassion, forgiveness and love to heal the pain of Israelis and Palestinians so they can move forward into an era of peace.
“We know that more hatred and more anger will never lead us out of this,” Gere said in a video appearance at the annual Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony to mark Remembrance Day.
The event, co-hosted by the left-wing NGOs Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle-Families Forum, featured bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who had lost loved ones either in war or in incidents stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Gere called on participants to create a world where children can grow up without fear.
“Until the Palestinians have a home, the Israelis won’t have a home,” Gere said.
Israelis and Palestinians recalled their stories, with artist Tamar Peikes, recalling how she lost her father in the Six Day War and her brother in the Yom Kippur War.
Layla Alsheikh of the West Bank village of Battir outside of Jerusalem recalled how her six-month-old son Qusay was overcome in their home by IDF tear gas in 2002.
His “breathing rate increased” and “eyes looked at me like a frightened bird,” Alsheikh recalled.
She and her husband got in their car so they could drive him to the hospital but soldiers had closed off their village and every road was blocked for four hours.
By the time they could leave, it was too late to save her son. She never got to buy him a bicycle or watch him graduate from school, Alsheikh recalled.
Instead “he lay alone in a dark cold grave away from the warmth of my lap. This coldness consumed everything in me.”
She called for an end to “injustice and hatred.”