{"id":407529,"date":"2026-04-20T01:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/407529\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T01:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:31:14","slug":"bereaved-israeli-and-palestinian-fathers-now-call-each-other-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/407529\/","title":{"rendered":"Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian fathers now call each other brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two bereaved fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, are using their friendship to campaign for peace between their two nations.<\/p>\n

Despite having fought for opposing sides as young men, Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin say they are now \u201cfamily\u201d and have dedicated their lives to building respect and understanding between their communities.<\/p>\n

The two men were in Dublin to speak at an event hosted by the charity Trocaire.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

They have visited the country before, touring the island and sharing their stories last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud that he considers me a brother,\u201d Mr Elhanan says of Mr Aramin.<\/p>\n

The 76-year-old veteran of the Yom Kippur War described a man who, aged 17, was jailed for throwing hand grenades at Israeli jeeps.<\/p>\n

Mr Elhanan\u2019s life changed \u201cdramatically\u201d following the death of his 14-year-old daughter in 1997.<\/p>\n

Smadar Elhanan was killed by Palestinian suicide bombers while shopping for school books with friends in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

The following year he was invited to a meeting of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli parents, set up by The Parents Circle \u2013 Families Forum (PCFF), a joint Israeli-Palestinian organisation for bereaved families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very suspicious\u2026 I was very reluctant and cynical,\u201d he said, but added that the meeting \u201cchanged my life, changed my mind, changed my attitude\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 47-years-old, and until today, I\u2019m ashamed to admit it was the first time ever in my life I\u2019d met Palestinians as human beings, not as workers in the streets, and not as terrorists, but as human beings who carry the same burden that I carry, who suffer like I suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He became involved in grassroots peace movements and met Mr Aramin through the group Combatants for Peace in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always said that I immediately fell in love with him the minute I met him, which is completely true,\u201d Mr Elhan said of Mr Aramin.<\/p>\n

That love was needed when, two years later, Mr Aramin\u2019s 10-year-old daughter, Abir, was shot by the Israeli military in East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ran to the hospital,\u201d Mr Elhanan said: \u201cWe spent two days by her bed until she passed away and for me, it was like losing my daughter for the second time, I knew this girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then the men have campaigned together, sharing their personal tragedies as a warning, and their friendship as a symbol of hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe proved that we can build a real partnership, we can live together all side by side,\u201d Mr Elhanan said.<\/p>\n

They say mutual respect and understanding between their two peoples is what is needed to bring the brutal conflict to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne word is essential, without it nothing will happen, the word is respect,\u201d said Mr Elhanan.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be able to respect the guy next to you exactly as you want to be respected, no more and no less and once you achieve this, all the rest are technicalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, he says, can be achieved by \u201cbeing brave, by telling the truth, by looking straight into your eyes, not being polite, not being not controversial, telling them from the river to the sea, everyone should be free, everyone should be safe, everyone should be equal\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the most difficult thing to trust your killer, your occupier, who stole your land, your house, who killed your daughter,\u201d Mr Aramin added.<\/p>\n

But he said learning about the \u201chumanity\u201d of those he considered the \u201cenemy\u201d has changed his perspective.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old said it was not until he met Mr Elhanan\u2019s father, an Auschwitz survivor, that he understood the horror of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

He said when he first heard about the Second World War genocide he thought: \u201cI don\u2019t care, it\u2019s not me, I don\u2019t know about anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you meet Rami\u2019s Father, it\u2019s hard, and he starts to talk to you about before he go to the oven.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you understand what\u2019s the name of the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Elhanan said some in his community claim grief caused him to lose his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost many friends, I lost many family members,\u201d he said, but added: \u201cI get new family members, new friends, and I\u2019m not afraid anymore the worst has already happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see the goal very clearly, very sharply, I know exactly where I\u2019m going, what needs to be done in order that children will not keep on dying in this Holy Land of ours, no Muslim children, no Christian children, no Jewish children, no children at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2020 novel Aperiogon, based on the pair\u2019s friendship and written by Irish author Colum McCann, was longlisted for the Booker prize.<\/p>\n

They compare coming to Ireland to a football team playing a home match, with Mr Aramin saying people in the country \u201cunderstand us, they\u2019re very supportive\u201d.<\/p>\n

They say they use the peace that has been achieved in Northern Ireland as a story of hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not written anywhere that we\u2019re going to continue killing each other forever,\u201d Mr Aramin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must end at one point, and I believe very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two bereaved fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, are using their friendship to campaign for peace between their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[179271,61,60,3410,43,4268,179272,179273,179274],"class_list":{"0":"post-407529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-bassam-aramin","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-rami-elhanan","15":"tag-the-parents-circle-families-forum","16":"tag-trocaire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}