Acting out

One recent Friday, a group of actors presented an unconventional play. Their stage was the blocked road that ascends to the village of Shufa, not far from Tul Karm. It's unclear whether the village is in Area C or Area A of the West Bank. The scenery: olive trees and the houses of the settlement Avnei Hefetz. The audience: about 40 Israelis and 30 Palestinians, who sat on a rocky hill nearby. The play is seemingly banal: an old, ailing Palestinian arrives at a checkpoint, where a soldier tries to decide whether to let him through or detain him for an interrogation in accordance with procedure. A dilemma from an actual situation encountered by Itay Ashchar, a combat paramedic who served at the checkpoints.

The actors were Israelis and Palestinians from the Tel Aviv-Tul Karm group of Combatants for Peace, an organization that hopes to resolve the conflict and achieve peace through dialogue, including theater activities conducted by this particular group; the characters were two Israeli soldiers, a female settler, the sick old man and his grandsons. The Israelis played the Palestinian roles and the Palestinians played the Israeli roles.

After the play, a "forum" was held at the site, at which point audience members are invited to analyze the scene using the theatrical-activist methods of Augusto Boal (the Brazilian director who established the Theater of the Oppressed). "Everyone has to put himself in the other person's shoes," explained Chen Alon, director of the forum. "To play the other and to confront the same dilemmas." As part of the forum, a Palestinian from the audience played one of the grandsons and immediately became violent, pushing and striking out. An Israeli woman from the audience replaced an actor playing an Israeli soldier. When she assumed his character she threw away her weapon and tried to convince her commander to do the same. The officer, played by a Palestinian, vehemently opposed and did not allow the old man to pass through the checkpoint. "In order to safeguard the country's security," he said.

Alon stopped the scene and a discussion ensued. Did the violence or the refusal solve the old man's problem? "No," said the Palestinian who played the violent grandson. "I didn't solve a thing, but I restored my pride."

The short scene emphasized the gap between perspectives held here and reflected the essence of the various roles. It also clarified "how little freedom is left to me when they give me a role I didn't choose," says Alon.

And as though to reinforce his words, an actual army Jeep suddenly burst onto the scene and soldiers emerged, informing the group that the place was off limits. The entire audience burst out laughing: Reality served as a comic interlude. The soldiers got off the stage after the organizers convinced them they were mistaken about what they thought was permitted and not permitted in the area.

Much less amusing was when a car belonging to settlers from Avnei Hefetz blocked the group's bus at the end of the day. "At first they thought we were setting up a new settlement there," says Alon. "But after realizing who we are, one of the settlers said to his children: 'You see, children, those people are worse than the Arabs.'"

Childhood heroes

Combatants for Peace was established in 2005 by Israelis and Palestinians who had previously served in combat roles - the Israelis in the Israel Defense Forces, the Palestinians in violent military activities against the occupation in the areas of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Among the founders were the Shapira brothers, all peace activists. Yonatan Shapira organized the "pilots' letter" - from a group of airmen who refused to fly missions over Palestinian territories; Zohar wrote a similar letter for the Sayeret Matkal commando unit; and Itamar refused to do reserve duty in the Second Lebanon War.

The founders had reached the conclusion that a violent solution to the conflict is impossible, and therefore decided to operate in nonviolent ways to achieve cooperation and peace between the two peoples. There are currently about 600 members in the organization, including men and women who did not serve as combatants.

Within Combatants for Peace, there are five cooperative groups: Tel Aviv-Nablus, Tel Aviv-Tul Karm, Jerusalem-Ramallah, Jerusalem-Bethlehem and Be'er Sheva-Hebron. Each group has about 30 members, an equal number of Israelis and Palestinians. Activities include lectures, parlor meetings and the setting up of outreach groups that work among Israelis and Palestinians and abroad; an alternative Memorial Day service attended by both Israelis and Palestinians, which took place this year for the fifth time on the eve of Memorial Day, at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv; the creation of a binational bloc at non-violent demonstrations against the occupation, and more. The movement sees "two states for two peoples" as a just solution to the conflict.

One prominent feature of the group meetings is the personal stories that members, as former combatants, share. A month ago, members of the Tel Aviv-Tul Karm group gathered at a home in Tul Karm for a joint meeting. One participant was Mohammed Dahbur, 26, who had been released a few days earlier from an Israeli prison after seven years behind bars. He is not a member of the group, but is trying to decide whether to join. Meanwhile, he told his story. A resident of the Tul Karm refugee camp, Dahbur was born and grew up under the occupation. He saw people killed, and prisoners and shaheeds (Islamic martyrs, those killed in the armed struggle) were his childhood heroes. At the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, he was 16 years old.

"Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 had a great influence on us," he says. "They arrested old men inside their homes, men, women and children, and demolished homes. I came to understand that violence is the way, and I wanted to join the activity in the field. In 2003 they destroyed my grandfather's home, and from then on I went through a kind of militant process."

He joined the Iz al-Din al-Qassam brigades (the military wing of Hamas) and wanted to be a shaheed. He and other friends in his squad were caught with explosive belts before embarking on a suicide attack. "Some were killed in the battle with the Israeli security forces," he says.

In prison, Dahbur learned Hebrew and took his matriculation exams, and now he has plans. "There's no chance that I'll ever join violent activity again. After seven years in prison all I want is to reclaim my private life, and to keep it. To continue studying in the university, to raise a family."

Roni Segoli, 53, the national coordinator of Combatants for Peace, is a former member of the Shin Bet security services.

Is there blood on your hands?

"Not directly. Indirectly, yes."

A native of Jerusalem and currently a resident of Kfar Sava, he works in a high-tech firm. In his youth he was a member of the right-wing Betar movement - he went because of a girl he loved and stayed because of the ideology. He served in the Nahal Brigade in the Rafah Salient. After the army he worked in the Minorities Section of the Jerusalem Police, and later was drafted to the Shin Bet where he worked for 11 years, mainly in the territories. He made arrests, conducted investigations, and so forth. But then he began to change.

During the first intifada, he saw Palestinians for the first time as citizens who were rebelling against occupation, not only as terrorists. "We chased those who distributed flyers, and I realized that I wasn't defending the country, but serving as a pawn in a political game," he says. "The country wanted an occupation, and I was perpetuating it. With my background as a Betar youth who admired the Olei Hagardom [Jews who went to the gallows] who rebelled against the British, I suddenly saw people who stood before me, looked me in the eye and said: 'We are establishing a state,' and believed in it. And I was the brutal soldier.

"It was a process," he continues. "I spoke to someone who later became a minister in the Palestinian government. He was on his way to a meeting with the American consul in Jerusalem and was arrested at a checkpoint. He wasn't allowed to cross. He came to us with such confidence in his eyes and said: 'I was on the way to a meeting with the American consul; if you knew that and detained me, you're stupid. And if you didn't know it, you're even stupider.' I think that was when I finally began to understand."

Suddenly Segoli was upset by the disparities in his life - between work and home, between home and the territories, between his children and other children. "The very fact that I was fulfilling a role whose essence was causing harm to others, and then I returned home to the children, bathed and pampered them - that's a gap that is hard to bridge."

But you don't think about it most of the time.

"True, only when you begin to have doubts does the problem arise. It's like someone who works on a garbage truck and when he returns home he washes up and puts on clean clothes and does something else. He also experiences a disparity between what he's doing now and what he did there. As long as I believed in what I was doing, it was all right."

Did you feel dirty?

"In that sense, yes. I did things I'm ashamed of. I was at a parlor meeting in Rehovot, and just then an article appeared in Haaretz Magazine about the abuse of Palestinians by Border Policemen, and I said: 'I did such things, and now I'm ashamed of them - some as part of my job and some even for the fun of it.'"

Segoli joined Combatants for Peace in 2007, after returning from several years in China. "I was looking for an organization to join. The truth is that at first it was hard for them to accept me. They didn't quite understand what a Shin Bet man wanted with them. Some still think that I'm a plant."

Blinding art

Lina Yaser Hadida, 27, from the Tul Karm refugee camp, was arrested at the Jabara checkpoint in 2005, when she was on her way to stab a soldier. "The occupation was driving me crazy," she says. "My entire family suffered a great deal. I took a knife and walked to the checkpoint. I had already removed it from my bag and was waving it in the air, but then I saw the soldier, and he looked small and pathetic. I moved back. Suddenly I didn't want to hurt him. In court he said that he had nothing against me, that I had displayed humanity."

She was arrested and was supposed to be released after three months, but then someone said during an interrogation that she had planned additional attacks, and so she was sentenced to seven years. After three years in Hasharon Prison and Ramle Prison, she was released, and a year ago she joined Combatants for Peace. "I want to live the violence now. I didn't join only for myself, but for all the little children," she says.

Chen Alon of Tel Aviv, a founder of Combatants for Peace, grew up in a centrist Zionist home. His father fought in the Paratroops in the Six-Day War; there were victory albums in the house. Alon studied at the Alliance High School, was drafted to the Tank Corps during the first intifada and served in the territories. Today he is 40 years old, married and the father of two.

"A month ago my baby had meningitis," he says. "We rushed to Ichilov Hospital and at the gate I opened the window and shouted to the security guard: 'Infant to emergency, infant to emergency,' just so they wouldn't stop me. And at that same moment I remembered how many times at the checkpoints and the roadblocks a couple of parents like us arrived with a baby on their way to the hospital, and I unfeelingly stopped them and took my good old time; or when there was a closure or an encirclement and I didn't let them pass. At the time it didn't effect me in the slightest, but at the gate to Ichilov I thought that if anyone had stopped me, I would have run him over. Killed him on the spot."

Alon, who was a deputy company commander and the operations officer of a reserve brigade with the rank of major, did his job out of great conviction.

Did you do things you're ashamed of?

"In the first intifada I was a platoon commander. We were taken to Dir al-Balah [in the Gaza Strip]. On the first day we entered the sector, I went on patrol with my company commander and they threw a Molotov cocktail at us that exploded near the Jeep. A few days later I received an order to take part in the arrest of the attacker. We went out at night and entered a house, went from room to room, and in one of the rooms the Shin Bet man who was with us pulled a 10-year-old boy out of bed and said: 'It's him.'

"We took him out of the house, all sleepy and not understanding what we wanted. The Shin Bet man put him into the car and they drove off, and I returned to the base with the platoon and we went to sleep. I got into my sleeping bag, and a few minutes later I heard someone calling outside the tent: 'Platoon commander Chen, can you come out?' I went out and saw my platoon. They said: 'We can't sleep, he was only a kid.'

"I sat them down in a circle and explained to them that the Shin Bet knows what it's doing, and that it's all legal. Even though inside I knew that something wasn't right, in front of the soldiers I had to make those justifications because the following day we were supposed to continue doing similar things."

Do you have any regrets?

"I'm not preoccupied with blame or regrets; I take responsibility and turn it into action. I'm ashamed about the family home that I destroyed in the village of Al-Khader in 2001. That was terrible, in my opinion. When we finished demolishing the house all the officers in the brigade wrote a letter to the chief of staff (Shaul Mofaz at the time), that we were not willing to be pawns in the hands of the settlers who decide on policy in the sector. We received a laconic answer, to the effect that the demolition was carried out because of administrative problems with building violations. I'm familiar with thousands of other buildings like that in the West Bank."

Alon and his friends were joined by other officers, and in January 2002 they wrote the "refuseniks' letter." He decided he would no long accept reserve duty in the territories, and joined the Courage to Refuse movement. A year later he was called up for reserve duty in Gaza, refused and was sent to jail.

"That was a formative experience. The most significant period in formulating my refusal to serve," he says. "I refused a second time in the Second Lebanon War."

After the army, Alon studied theater at the Beit Zvi school of drama and acted for six years in the Be'er Sheva Theater. "It often happened that I was acting in a play, and afterward I would take off the costume, get into my reservist's uniform and go to the front in Gaza, two hours from there, and arrest people at the checkpoints. This contradiction, between a lofty artist who sanctifies the human spirit, an idealist, a man of culture, a citizen in a democratic country who acted in plays about humanism, on the one hand, and a soldier in an occupation army on the other, didn't seem problematic to me [at the time]. My refusal to participate in activity in the territories led me to refuse to participate in blinding, false and noncommittal art. I felt that acting in a repertory theater was like doing reserve duty, and I looked for a way to use my love of theater for my own path, rather than living a split existence."

He earned a bachelor's degree in literature and theater at Tel Aviv University, continued studying theater for his master's and is now working on a doctorate on the activist-political theater of Augusto Boal. Alon also lectures in the theater department at Tel Hai Academic College, works as a director and mentors theater groups like the Tel Aviv-Tul Karm group.

In Boal's theater, characters onstage are replaced by members of the audience in situations of oppression, in order to deal with the power balance between oppressor and oppressed. The theatrical process is meant to bring about a change in the participants.

"We're accused of being naive and not changing reality. It's true that the great masses of people who participate in violence have not yet joined us, but it's very important for them to know that there is an alternative. Within the chaos in which we live, in this dark period, there's an Israeli-Palestinian organization saying that not only are we opposed to violence, we refuse to participate in violence. Isn't that changing reality? I share the frustration that we have not as yet attracted hundreds of thousands, but that's no reason for us to give up."

The Palestinians don't really take responsibility for what they did.

"That's true. I'm not rushing to defend them. I refuse to engage in violence for many reasons, one of them being that it's immoral, but I won't ask a resident of the Tul Karm refugee camp, whose neck has always been under the boot, to choose non-violence for ethical reasons. That is colonialist and condescending. I always say to them: If you take responsibility for the violence, it will help you more. Our common struggle will benefit from that."

Shaken confidence

Riham Sheikh Musa, 22, from the Tul Karm refugee camp, was 15 years old when she went to the Taibeh checkpoint after school intending to stab a soldier. She hid the knife under her clothes.

"When I approached the soldier, he began asking me questions," she recalls. "I looked too young to him and he began to become suspicious of me. He was without a flak jacket and his weapon was far from him. I had the opportunity to kill him, but I hesitated. The soldiers got scared and shouted at me to get back, they were afraid that I was wearing an explosives belt, and the officer gave an order to shoot me. They fired at me from both sides. I took one bullet in my stomach and one in my right leg. It was raining and I lay bleeding outside for an hour and a half. After searching me, they took me to Meir Hospital."

Musa was unconscious for 10 days. When she awoke, shackled to her hospital bed, she had "heretical" thoughts. "The doctor didn't behave like an Israeli," she says, "but like a human being. He insisted that they remove my handcuffs and shouted at the soldiers, and he took care of me."

She received a one-year sentence, which she served at Ramle Prison. After her release she returned to school, and is now finishing her law studies at An-Najah University in Nablus.

Three years ago she joined Combatants for Peace. "Had I succeeded in killing the soldier or had he killed me, we wouldn't have changed the situation and ended the occupation. The message I convey now is much stronger. We can solve the story of the occupation through persuasion, not through violence."

Do people in Tul Karm agree with you?

"Anyone who had an experience like mine thinks so himself."

Munir Hamdan, a 40-year-old taxi driver from Tul Karm, married with two children, also served a prison sentence - "because we did many things in the first intifada," he says. "But that doesn't accomplish anything, so I thought I would do something better." In 1991 Hamdan was a member of a group from Tul Karm that assassinated collaborators. "They were stool pigeons," he says.

Were you a killer yourself?

"No exactly. I was a guard, I used to bring things to the group, I helped them. Sometimes I was there when it happened. At the time I felt that it was all right. That they deserved it."

He received a life sentence, but served in prison for only four years. After the Oslo Accords he was released and decided not to return to violent activity. A year ago he joined Combatants for Peace.

How do people around you feel about that?

"They're very accepting. They don't put any pressure on me to leave or to stop the activity," he says.

Idan Meir, 34, of Tel Aviv, served in Shayetet, the naval commando unit. When his friends in the unit embarked on a raid into Insariye, in Lebanon, in September 1997, he was on leave. Twelve commandos were killed in an ambush, including his best friend, Guy Golan. His ideological and emotional world was turned upside down.

"The attitude toward the people who were rescued, the return to the unit - my confidence in the commanders started to be shaken," he says. "There were a million other events that weren't exposed, things you knew in secret, and the officers thought we were idiots, that we didn't understand what was going on. There were a lot of stories going around that it was an unnecessary operation. Someone's ego trip. The sin of pride. Today nobody would send [soldiers] out on such an operation. When you're 21 you still don't understand it, you only feel that something is wrong.

"From then until the end of my service, combat no longer interested me," Meir continues. "They took us out for provocative and very dangerous operations that were designed to heat up the sector in Lebanon. I remember traveling on a bus going north and asking my friends: 'Tell me, didn't anyone get up and say, why are we doing this stupid thing?' Then they would snicker, they called me 'the bitter one.' I didn't believe in what I was doing. It was clear to me that when you assassinate someone, immediately, with his children, the cycle of hatred continues, only more extreme. I had a hard time with it, even if I didn't pull the trigger."

After his discharge, Meir earned a bachelor's degree in theater at the Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers' College and a master's at Tel Aviv University. Today he coordinates the theater track at the Gymnasia Herzliya High School. He joined Combatants for Peace in 2007. While looking for material for a play as part of a course in documentary theater at the university, he attended a parlor meeting in Ramat Hasharon and stayed.

"There, for the first time, I met Palestinians who were not in my gunsights," he says. "That was after the age of 30. After I heard their personal stories, I understood my connection to them, because they were all fighters." Meir is now the Israeli coordinator of the Tel Aviv-Tul Karm group.

Is that how you want to make peace, with 70 people who come to see a play?

"I know it's only a drop in the bucket, and at the moment there are more urgent things like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan [East Jerusalem neighborhoods where Palestinians are being evacuated], where we have action groups. Our area here is naturally calmer and gives us the luxury, to a certain degree, to do theater."

In Tul Karm, not everyone is convinced that theater or Combatants for Peace are the solution, but they don't interfere with the activities that take place in their jurisdiction. "Most people say that our activity doesn't yield any results, and many refrain from cooperating with Israelis," says Abed al-Hakim, 46, of Tul Karm, another Combatants for Peace activist. He is married with eight children and the owner of an Internet cafe in the refugee camp. "Maybe more people would join peace activity, but cooperation deters them. They accuse us of normalization."

Is there social pressure to leave the group?

"No. We discuss our activity very freely and we aren't afraid. We aren't doing anything bad, so why should I be afraid?" W