Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace Cry Out – Enough!
A Special Human Rights Day Event: Together we call out with force
In honor of the 2018 Human Rights Day the Forum organized a special event, at which Forum members, Israelis and Palestinians, raised their voices to demand the end to bloodshed and violence and they called on leaders from both sides to act for real change.
The event took place on Friday, 14/12/2018 and started with a special conference, “Turning Point 2018”. Graduates from the Forum’s Narrative Project were invited. Despite the difficult days that preceded the conference, when people from both sides were killed and times were tense, the hall was filled with 300 graduates, Israelis as well as Palestinian. During the conference, there was a panel discussion on the topic of human rights and social activism. The panel discussion took place at Einav Center and was moderated by Nivin Sanduka from the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). Speakers included: Michael Sepharad from the organization “Yesh Din”; Sarit Michaeli from “B’Tselem”; Usama Aliwat from “Combatants for Peace”.
The session opened with a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the past several days as well as the victims of the ongoing conflict, recognizing the shared pain and praying for a stop to the bloodshed and a change to the current brutal reality.
A unique video was prepared for the event (thanks to BBR Advertising Agency for producing the video):
At 1:00 pm hundreds of participants gathered in Rabin Square, for the climax of the day: Forum members and Narrative program alumni, Forum supporters, partner organizations and human rights supporters, all cried out together: Enough! Enough violence! Enough racism! Enough hate! Enough corruption! Enough Occupation! Enough bloodshed! This joint event was led by the Bint El Funk group and the rapper Saz. Both General Managers of the Forum spoke at the event – Rami Elhanan, the Israeli co-CEO who lost his daughter, Smadar, in a terror attack in 1997, and Mazen Faraj, the Palestinian Co-CEO who lost his father in 2002 when he was shot by Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada.
From the remarks of Rami Elhanan: “Today was a difficult day. So was yesterday and the day before, and apparently tomorrow will be as well. Unfortunately, the media and the public are determined to look at reality through the narrow peep hole of the last event . . . they are unable to distinguish between the pain of yesterday and the pain of two days ago… the price for ruling over another nation, the price of occupation! So, from today, from here, from the place where a Prime Minister was assassinated, one moment before it is too late, the time has come for us to put all of our pain together and shout out together. One moment before the cycle of bloodshed will start again and will bring us all to the awful abyss of pain that knows no relief.”
