How we can re-start Israeli-Palestinian relations | Mazen Faraj and Niv Sarig | TEDxMünster

Mazen Faraj (Palestine) and Niv Sarig (Israel) both lost a close family member in the conflict between their countries. Today they work together in the Parents Circle Family Forum to change the narrative of hate and conflict. They believe a re-start in Israeli-Palestinian relations can only be made by acknowledging the humanity on the other side.

Mazen Faraj is a 41 year old father of 3. He lives in Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, Palestine. Mazen’s father was killed by an Israeli soldier, mistaking his bags to something else. Mazen spent some major parts of his youth in Israeli prison. He learned there informally -politics, Hebrew and history of the Middle East.

Niv Sarig, aged 39 of Kfar Sava, Israel, married and a father of 3 boys and holds a Ph.D in Mathematics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. His eldest brother Guy was killed in Tul-Karem, on the eve of The Feast of Tabernacles in September of 1996, during the riots that broke out in wake of the opening of the Western Wall Tunnels, 2 months before Guy was due to be released from the IDF.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

My name is Mazen Faraj.

I'm from the Dheisheh refugee camp
next to Bethlehem.

I'm a Palastinian, I'm an Arab,
I'm a Muslim, but before anything else:

I'm a human being.

Tonight we will share with you,
Niv and myself, our personal stories

about bereavement, about violence,
about war, about conflict,

but the most important thing is,
what happened with us

after all, what happened to us.

I was born und grew up
in the Dheisheh refugee camp.

The minute that I opened my eyes
as a human being, as a child,

I started to ask only the question

that I have to face
everyday in my life;

daily life, family, school,
water, electricity.

Every single thing in my life
was a complicated story.

We were more than 75 students
in the same classroom.

As Palestinian students
we were, most of the time,

without water in the summer,

and we were, most of the time,
without electricity in the winter.

All this and more than that
it was for one reason

and the reason behind: it's our Nakba,
our catastrophe as Palastinians.

Since that time,

when my father was six years old,
he escaped from his original village,

running from the war,
the violence, and the death.

He found himself
in the Dheisheh refugee camp

by the help of the UNRWA,
the United Nations.

They just told him
it will be for a short time

and the short time was 70 years
since our Palestinian Nakba.

We are still waiting
for justice, rights, freedom.

And the most important thing is

to practice our humanity as human beings.

We never used to be choosing
anything in our life

and we have never decided
anything in our life.

Every day in the morning we wake up,

we don't know how long will the time

and the distance
between our school and homes,

and how long will be the distance and time
between our job and our homes.

It's not because we choose that,
and not because we decide that,

it's because of the checkpoints

and the Israeli army
and the Israeli occupation.

The most important thing is,
there is no state and there is no freedom.

There is no free movement
for the human beings.

This is how I grew up as a human being.

This is how I grew up
and continue my life until now.

I grew up with all this heavy history
and heavy narrative.

I don't know what to do with it.

I joined the first Intifada
when I was 15 years old.

Then I was arrested by the Israeli army,
by the Israeli occupation.

For the first time in my life
I was in an Israeli prison as a kid;

15 years old.

Try to imagine that:

What does it mean to be in the darkness,

to be at an unknown place,
on a different journey,

a different pain,
and a different suffering.

Try to imagine
what does it mean to be a kid

during a very hard investigation
by the Israelis?

Try to imagine most of that:
A kid that is far away from his family

and far away from his future.

Or to build a better future for him,

far away from my school
and far away from my life.

I spent more than three
and a half years in an Israeli jail.

I lost my education, I lost my school.

And trust me,

until now, sometimes I wake up
in the middle of the night

I'm just shouting

from this very, very bad experience
in an Israeli jail.

I continue my life, and until now I live,

but don't forget.

It was 14 years later,

we receive a phone call in 2002,

that our father, or the body of my father
was in the hospital.

We don't know what to do with that

and we just went to the Israeli army

to ask them to go to the hospital
to see my father or the body of my father

for the last time.

They just said, it's not allowed;

you have to wait until the morning.

I cannot imagine

that anyone can wait all this long night;

eight long hours,

but that is what we mean by "occupation."

You cannot choose and you cannot decide

and all the time they try
to belt inside yourself

the culture of "not allowed."

Forbidden. Everything
is not allowed for you.

Not allowed to be free,
not allowed to be human.

The most important thing is

you are not allowed to exist
as a person with a Palestinian identity.

We wait all this long night.

My father came back
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem

came back from his work
and the Israeli army starts to shoot him,

and they kill him without any reason.

Maybe there is a million reasons behind

which is the occupation, the conflict,
the violence, and the war.

Because this is what we call it;
to live in the middle of the conflict

all your life and all the time.

After three days
of what happens to my father

according to our tradition as Muslims,
we have to wake up in the morning

and continue a normal life.

But trust me, there is nothing
normal anymore,

since that time until now.

We don't know what to do, especially me.

My father was a father
and a mother, too.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I don't know what to do with my anger

and I don't know
how I can continue my life.

For more than two years,
I withdrew back into myself.

A big conflict, big questions;
What can I do as a human being?

All of us, when something
happen to us,

immediately, we will think about revenge,

we will think about reaction
to redress yourself.

But I never think about revenge

because our case, as Palestinians,
it's about justice, it's about rights,

it's about freedom.

It's not about revenge
and it's not about violence.

And there are other people,

just dying slowly, with their memories,

without doing anything.

Or maybe some people
will choose another way

or a different way.

When I met for the first time in my life
Rami Elhanan, an Israeli,

he lost his daughter, Smadar, in 1997

and I discovered the humanity of my enemy.

I discovered the humanity
of the other side,

which I have never seen in my life before.

All my life as a Palestinian,
I know the Israelis very well;

as settlers, soldiers, and people
they treat us so hard inside the jail.

I never met them as human beings.

In 2005, for the first time in my life,
I met Israelis as human being,

or maybe my new picture
of the Israeli society.

The first time in my life,
it was an Israeli who respected me

as a human being
or respected me as a Palestinian.

The first time in my life
there's an Israeli that recognize

that there will be freedom
for this man, for his rights,

and all the Palestinian society.

The first time in my life, I met
an Israeli who is against the occupation,

which I what I was looking
for all my life:

For a partner, for the partnership
with the Israelis.

Today, after ten years,

I just can tell you the new way
and the new journey

of reconciliation with the other side

doesn't mean to forgive and forget.

I will never forget what happened to me.

I don't have a right to forgive
what happend to my father.

But in the middle,
there is a way of dialogue,

understanding, knowing each other,

understanding each other
and the most important thing,

respect each other

and that is actually what is missing
in our conflict, in our land,

respect and humanity.

We can find the human side
in this conflict,

which is what no one cares about;

all the politicians and all the people
around the world;

they don't care about it.

Today, together in the parents circle,
the bereaved families forum, yes we are.

We are the people that pay
the highest price in this conflict.

We can sit, we can talk,
and we stand with each other.

And this is our mission, our holy mission,
and it will be forever.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Hello everyone.

My name is Niv Sarig.

I'm 40 years old. I'm an Israeli.

I live in Israel
with my wife and three sons.

I also want to tell you about my life.

The story of my life and how my life
got changed twice.

The first time was when
my elder brother, Guy,

he was an infantry officer,

got shot, got killed
in a Palestinian city, Tulkarem,

only 15 kilometres
from our home in Israel.

Yes, losing Guy
changed my life completely

as expected, changed my parent's life,

my sister's life.

Grief, sadness.

I personally miss
what could have been done

if Guy hadn't been killed.

I have three sons.

My sister has three kids as well.

And for sure, Guy would have two,
two and a half, maybe three kids by now,

and we would be a much larger family.

But I miss what could have been done,
if Guy hadn't be killed.

What was unexpected was how my life

changed so profoundly for the second time

when I joined the Parents Circle
Family Forum,

many many... Lots of years later,

after Guy got killed.

I don't think you can understand.

Or for me it was very important,

to deliver a perspective of why
this type of transformation

doesn't happen anymore
or happens so rarely.

You need to understand

that in Israel,
there is a great segregation

between the Jewish Hebrew
speaking society, and the Arab society,

which has become natural.

There are very few connections
between people,

very few joints
between institutes, for example.

It is very common
to look at the other side

in a very flat color,
frightening and despair.

Between Israelis and Palestinians

in Palestine, not inside Israel,
it's even more extreme.

I think there are very few Israelis
and Palestinians met each other

that not across aims,

either military aims or political aims
towards peace and reconciliation.

By not knowing the other side at all,

you make yourself some picture
of the other side,

that probably helps you
to live your life as you are.

I was born in the winter of 1977,

in a village in Israel
called Hibbat Zion,

which is translated, no less,
to "fond of Zion."

I grew up for 19 years
till Guy got killed

as any other Jewish Israeli
Zionist kid, I know.

On the evening of the Feast of Tabernacles

just like now, by the way,
in Islam and in Judaism

now we have the new year.

It got connected this year, by the way.

In September 1996,
after two weeks of new year,

we have the Feast of Tabernacles

and just couple of days before that,
riots began out of the opening

of what we now know
as Western Wall Tunnel riots

in Israel and Palestine,

where 17 Israelis
and more than 100 Palestinians

found their death.

And Guy was an officer
in what was called "joint patrols"

between Israelis and Palestinians.

You nneed to understand that after '93/94
when the new agreement of Oslo took place,

there was a beginning of collaboration
and these joint patrols were one of them.

Guy was an officer in Tulkarem
and after the riots started

he was shot by a sniper in his head
and was killed on the spot.

As I said before,
it changed my life completely.

Many years later,
I managed to do the same step

that my parents did, much, much before me

and joined the Parents
Circle Family Forum.

After knowing Mazen for example,
or other Palestinian members

or any members in the forum,
I found a new perspective on life.

A new perspective that is out
of this fear that we live in.

I am in Germany.

So, the Jewish Society,
we have perspective:

past, present, future.

In the past we have
this 2,000 years of persecutions;

so many places around the world.

In the near past and present,
there is my personal story

though not that personal,

because I don't know any Israeli
that is not close to someone

that lost someone close to him
in the conflict.

And to have a hopeful future,

what we do in the PCFF,
the Parents Circle Family Forum,

we go to schools and other organisations,

we meet pupils, or students,
or general audience,

and we tell our story.

And this magic
happens every and each time.

Something opens in people's hearts
and minds and bring them to listen,

and even to action.

In Israel and in Palestine,

I believe and I feel

that it does bring hope to the situation.

The Israel society and this segregation

brings a lot of ignorance
and a lot of fear.

This fear comes
from our need for security.

And I want to have Mazen
with me again here.

Because our message
is very unique and very important.

So Mazen, please!

I think and I'm sure and I believe
that we share the same aim,

maybe for a different reason.

He lost his brother, I lost my father.

And actually we, both of us,
we are the people

that pay the highest price
in this conflict.

And more than 600 families
in the Parents Circle

we are calling everyone around the world,

especially the Palestinians
and the Israelis,

to look to our experience
and learn from it.

Try to imagine: What does it mean
to lose someone in the conflict?

Try to imagine the way and the decision

that we, both of us, take in this path
of peace, hope, and reconciliation.

There will be no security
for the Israelis without my freedom.

There will be no freedom
for the Palestinians

without security for the Israelis.

And it's in our hands
to show the humanity of the other side

to get in touch, to connect,
to look each other in the eyes,

and to understand
that the pain is universal,

and the loss is human,
and to look beyond the fear.

And to look for freedom for one
and security for the other,

but together.

Niv Sarig: Thank you very much.
Mazen Faraj: Thank you.

(Applause)