Interview with Riyad Faraj

Would you start by introducing yourself and telling us how you got involved in the Bereaved Families Forum?1

My name is Riyad Faraj. I am a refugee of 1948. That year my family came to Deheishe Refugee Camp.2 That's where I grew up. My family was one of the most harmed by the conflict. It was our fate to resist the Occupation3 in the period starting in 1978. I grew up to find my older brother in jail, and my other brother as well.

I was arrested when I was 14. The first intifada4 started in 1984, and we spent that period in and out of jail. I don’t recall a day between 1984 and 1990 in which we, the six brothers, were gathered in the same place. We are six brothers and a sister. We didn’t all see each other between ‘84 and ‘90 outside of jail.

In 1990, the first intifada ended and things calmed down.5 Then the second intifada6 started, but we didn’t take part in it. My brother Amjad was imprisoned and sentenced to six years. While imprisoned he got Leukemia, so they let him out, but he was already very sick. He died six months later. We tried to treat him in Hadassah Hospital7 but it didn’t help.

Exactly six months after that, during the invasion of the Bethlehem8 church,9 no one was allowed outside their homes.10 My father, at age 56, went out to get some groceries. My brothers and I were playing cards at home. We had longed so much to be with each other. We have local TV stations, and I was facing the TV and I read my father’s name on the screen--that he had been killed. We hadn't yet heard about it.

I’m telling you this now but I still don’t believe it. People had started calling us, and they were worried but didn’t want to tell us. They wanted to check first to see if we knew about what had happened. We didn’t have a clue as to why they were behaving like this until we read his name on TV. We went to identify his body but we couldn’t--he had been shot by 36 bullets of the 500 type.11 His body was ripped apart. It was horrible. This was only six months after my brother’s funeral.

To this day, in the eyes of Israel, I’m sure that my brothers and I are still considered terrorists--all of us were members of the Popular Front,12 even though we aren't active anymore, and we have done time for all the charges we were convicted of, despite the fact that all those charges were not proven with evidence or a confession.13

It’s not that we decided not to take part in the second intifada, it’s just that we figured that nothing good would come of it. We are the ones giving so much, while leaders like Sharon14 are sitting in their chairs. His son doesn’t get on a bus so there’s no way he could be harmed by suicide bombings, and Arafat’s15 child is in France16 and she can’t be hurt either, so it’s just us that are paying the price. It’s true that we might be more patriotic than they are, but as people we came to the conclusion that trying to engage in dialogue with the Israelis would do more good than bloodshed. Because everybody has had a share in the bloodshed: the prisoners and the martyred and the injured and crippled. I live on a street no more than 100 meters long and there are 13 martyrs on my street!There’s only a wall to separate our house from our neighbor’s. They have lost a martyr too, and so have the rest of the people on that street.

We are living in devastation and depression in Deheishe. There are no means of earning a living and having a decent life.17 That has pushed us in the direction of trying to find a better solution, since there are people from the Israeli side that are ready to listen to us and pass it on to their nation. We have the same on our side--people who are convinced by this idea but need support. Along came Khaled and the rest of the guys telling us about this [Forum], so we met and here we are.

What caused this change? What caused you to decide not to take the course of revenge? Was it your father’s loss that caused this change or was there a personal incident that caused this?

Let me tell you something: it’s not that they have silenced us by killing our father or brother or by torturing me in prison.18 On the contrary, it has only made me stronger and made me think more about what's best for me. Even if they imprisoned me for 50 more years it wouldn’t matter to me. The time I spent in prison adds up to six years and ten months and there’s nothing I haven’t seen.

I spent 36 months in the [prison in the] Negev19 and all I saw was sand. When a female soldier passed we thought she was an alien or something! Scorpions would mingle in our food. It was horrible what we saw there. They didn’t confine us, they only made us think about the future of our children. I mean, I paid the price. So did my brother and father. So that was the motive -- there’s no need for my child to have to pay the price as well. It’s not about giving up but about forgiveness. It’s about what’s good for the future. The Israeli that shot my father… My father was carrying a loaf of bread and some milk with him. He wasn’t armed. He was shot 36 times, so there’s no way that it could be considered a mistake. Had it been only for the purpose of scaring him, he would have been shot with one bullet, but there were 36!

We have Palestinians that are not sensible as well. I don’t want to tell you that the Occupation is the only reason, and I don’t want to call a person who blows himself up a terrorist. There are reasons for why he does what he does. For example, he may go home to find his mother or his brother killed -- that is a motivation. Of course it’s wrong and I don’t support it, and in the end that is what caused the Occupation. All those are causes: if I go home and find that the electricity has been cut off, and my son has to study, how can he? If at the end of the day I want to go take a shower but I find that the water had been cut off [by the Israeli military]... It’s not fair that I shed my blood and serve time in prison, and in the end I'm not able to live a decent life. I just want to have a normal life. So I and other people who think alike started to look toward the distant future to try to make a change. It’s true that this might be far from reality, but we at least need to have hope. It’s a dream within ourselves that we awakened.

Tell us about your father’s death, how it happened and how it affected your life.

We never expected an old man like my father to be killed. We always thought that maybe one of my brothers or I might get shot, but not my father. He never feared the Jews. The tank would sit in front of the house but he never feared it. He used to work in Israel and he had a lot of relations there so we never expected him to go like this. One week before he died he kept talking about death and being a martyr. Of course that meant nothing to us at the time, but now we realize what it meant.

My father wanted to go stay with a friend of his in Aida Refuge Camp20and go to work the next day from there, so he took a shower and went to his friend’s. He called us from there and told us that he was going to come home and wouldn’t sleep over - he had decided that thirty minutes after he said he was going to sleep over. So on the way home he bought some bread and milk. There was a tank at a place called Bab Zqaq21 in Bethlehem. He was coming from the direction of the Qubba,22 which is 50 meters from where the tank was, so they ripped his body with bullets. If we hadn’t seen his ID we wouldn’t have been able to identify his body. No part of his body was left unhurt. You know the 500-type bullet23is 3 or 4 centimeters long, so imagine what it would do to an old man like him.

This exploded a lot inside of us; it nurtured a lot as well. We were just getting over the grieving period for my brother. We spent six months with him in the hospital knowing that he was dying. The doctors told us that he wouldn’t live for more than 6 months and so it was.

Early on, while growing up, we saw people’s fathers or brothers beaten up. We were humiliated in our homes. There was no educational atmosphere and no means for living. All of that generated the desire within us to improve our condition. There was no method we could think of to improve our condition through dialogue; the only way was to fight. So we got involved in political parties, my brothers and I, like Fatah24 or the Popular Front, but we were all involved in the same direction: we all wanted our land Palestine, we wanted some rest. It is our right to live in a better place than a refuge camp, to live like those who live in the heart of Tel Aviv,25 to see the sea. Those are simple dreams.

We faced a lot of trouble because of those ambitions, and because we worked for them, we were faced with opposition. Those were the Israelis. We were arrested often, taken for investigation, even shot. My parents were detained. My sister was taken to prison. We faced pressure so we wouldn’t be able to stay active. So we did face a lot of trouble throughout all this. That has changed. This all happened in the first intifada from 1984. But my brother Majed, the eldest, was involved before that--he was imprisoned in 1978. He was sentenced to four years because he held these same beliefs.

After the first intifada ended and the Palestinian Authority26 came in, people were hoping that the PA would give us back our rights, that it would at least give us a state. All of that influenced us positively, and we stared to think in a different way about the future. For example, I started to think about my future -- to get married, get a job and have a stable life, and not to harm the Israelis or for them to harm me. We started having good relations with them until the second intifada started, but even then we were not active in it as a family. My brother was in jail and he got cancer, and then he died. Six months later, there wasn’t anything to prevent us from being active but we continued to think in the same way, about the future of our children. We hoped that the intifada would come to an end soon and that everything would be better, until, six months after my brother died, my father was killed.

Even after my father was killed, we didn’t have a negative reaction. I met some friends that were suffering in the same way and we started talking about becoming members of the The Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum. I think I told you before that we did not go there to compliment the Israelis or to complain to them. We went there so that their voice would be louder to their government--to let us have a good life, and to convey that it is our right to live. We also wanted to tell them that we are not here [at a seminar in a hotel in Jerusalem] to escape our stressful lives, but because we are looking for a better life for our children.

Was it you that contacted the Bereaved Families Forum, or the other way around?

Word was spreading in Bethlehem that there were Israelis that were interested in talking with us, so the arrangement was to plan a meeting just to be introduced to each other.

How did you come to know about the Forum?

Through our friend Khaled. We discussed the idea and he listened to me and told me, "Since you have those ideas why don't you contribute to the creation of a better society?" We should empower our voices as Palestinians through the Israelis, because there are some Israelis who believe that it is our right to live. Who wouldn’t say that, after all? So this is how we came to meet them and talk to them, so that our voice would be heard.

I know you said you were there to tell them about what you went through, but what effect did hearing the story of an Israeli have on you?

Let me tell you something. It's sad what's happening to the Israelis, but let’s just ask them why this happens, and why a person would blow himself up like that. They should know that he has a tired soul, and it's not because he's bored with life and has no work or can’t find food. What he does is wrong because he kills innocent people, just like Israelis kill innocent people. Even the Palestinian that carries a gun here is innocent, because it's the result of pressures upon him. The Israelis that die in buses are innocent as well.

I want to get to your point. When someone goes home and finds his fiancé and his mother killed, what will he do? One of the bombings that happened was after the guy came back home to find his mother and his fiancé killed. So he blew himself up.It is not a justification for blowing himself up and I don’t agree with it, but the Israelis are the reason for it. It's true that we haven't been able to change our political leadership and create a leadership that represents us -- I mean, our leadership is making decisions for us without consulting us. But the Israelis can say whatever they want to their government.

Generally speaking, in Bethlehem for example, if I were to meet with Israelis for the purpose of normalization,27 I would face a lot of trouble. Despite that, I will still state my point of view because I want my son to live.

Do you consider your activities with the Forum normalization?

I don’t consider this normalization, generally speaking. This is my opinion and I'm free to say it and no one can deprive me of that. But the problem is that our society does not accept such things, not everybody does. Not everyone will comprehend that I would sit with an Israeli, tell him about my problem and listen to his. No one expects that I would have a relationship with an Israeli. They would consider it humiliating for me to tell an Israeli about how my father and brother died, and how my son is not living a good life, while the Israeli is. In our society you won't find a lot of people that can understand--you will find a lot of extremists. That’s why we will face a problem here with starting the [Bereaved Families] Forum.

What do you mean by extremists?

Did hearing the stories of bereaved Israeli families change anything in you personally?

Basically, I always thought that it was only us that suffered from what’s going on and that we were the sole casualties, but now I find that there are people here from the other side that have suffered in the same way. I talked to some of them during the meeting, and we couldn’t tell who the enemy is! The Israelis there [at the Forum] represent one percent of the bereaved in Israel and we represent zero percent of the bereaved Palestinians, so who exactly is our enemy? We talked about this a lot during the meeting and there was a debate about it. In the end we decided that we [the Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum] would be the neutral side among the two nations, and try to be the link between the Palestinians and Israelis who will make the decisions.

What did your friends and family think? Were you endangered in any way for doing this work?

No. On the contrary, everybody encouraged me to come here. I was a bit hesitant, but my family encouraged me. My friends were in shock, but it’s not because they oppose it. Rather, it's because they want to be part of it too.

What caused your hesitation about becoming part of the Forum?

I didn’t understand or have a clear picture of what it’s like. I didn’t feel the pain of bereaved families on the Israeli side -- ones that have lost their children in bus bombings or as soldiers. I think the media is to blame because it gives the wrong image of us and the wrong image of them. There was never a time before that we got close like this.

What were your expectations when you joined the Forum?

I didn’t have expectations because I didn’t understand what was going on. I mean, it was a complete turn around for me -- a major leap. I may have once hated everything that was called “Jew;” I hate Zionism,30 but I respect anyone who acknowledges my right to my homeland, anyone who respects my opinion and anyone who thinks about my future as well as his. This is a reality that was imposed on us. We didn’t choose it, so we may as well try to live with it and get used to it, or else go our separate ways. So we need to figure out a way to coexist.

Did you give up anything to be part of this Forum?

My troubles, my pains and sorrows. I can never forget my father or my brother or the time I spent in prison. Who is going to pay for all that? I will never accept any compensation for it. My only compensation would be to see my brother and my child living in peace.

What do you hope will come out of this Forum?

I hope that it will expand, and I hope that the Israelis will realize that we are not insincere. I just hope that they pass along the message to their fellow Israelis that both nations are suffering from the Occupation. And I hope that our leaders listen to their people for once. The same with the Israelis--I hope that they feel for once that we are just as human as they are. We have feelings too and we don’t just want to kill. We want to be able to have a good life. And I hope that we can sit and talk about our joys rather than about our miseries and pains. That’s it.

For someone who doesn't know about what Palestinians and Israelis are doing together other than what they see on TV, how do you explain how this will contribute to peace?

As long as there's dialogue, as long as there are people who want to understand what's going on around them, they will be less extreme. I have some friends in Bethlehem University that are willing to sit and talk about this issue openly. They are ready to go to Israel to talk in schools, ready to host Israelis and talk to them. When you give hope to someone through such conversations, by talking about ways to improve our lives, stop violence, and have hope for the future, even if it is just a dream, I think this will give him a goal to work for. Right now we have nothing to aim for.

In 196731 we were trying to reclaim the lands of 1948, but they didn’t give us anything. Then we started reclaiming the lands of 1967, and today we are asking them to remove the roadblocks!32 We gave up asking for the lands of '48 and '67 and for removing the roadblocks; now we are asking them to remove the wall.33 Our dream is constantly shrinking, our claims are vanishing and we are not getting anything. We used to claim the lands of 1948. They said, well you can take the lands of ’67, but we refused. Then we started fighting to get the ‘67 lands but they said, you can only take 47% of the ‘67 lands, but we refused.34 Right now we are only asking them to remove the roadblocks so we can go to the village close by. See, our dream is gradually shrinking.

Why do you think your dreams are shrinking?

The reasons are that Israelis are getting stronger, our ignorance, our corrupt leadership which doesn’t care about anything but it's own interests. Someone like Abu Mazen,35 a Prime Minister, only wants to keep his cement factory running.36 He doesn’t care about a guy from Deheishe like me who can’t watch TV from 7 PM to 7 AM because the electricity gets cut off. He doesn’t care that my fridge breaks because the electricity is cut off, and that I have to slave away at work to buy a new one while he's living in his castle. Abu Amar,37 too, he doesn’t care. His fruit comes in a helicopter for him from Egypt,38 and we -- his people --are in very bad condition. The other day an officer in the Intelligence told me that in Asyon39 they held a survey among the Palestinians and they found that 85% of them supported Arafat.40 I'm 32 years old and no one ever asked me if I supported Abu Amar or not, so where was this survey? Who did they ask? This is the problem -- we had a big dream but it kept on shrinking until it vanished and we had a dream no more.

My wife is 27 years old. It's been 10 years since she's seen the sea. We can’t even go see the sea, can you imagine? My children have never seen it. They only see it on TV, but they don’t know what it is. Can you imagine not even having this dream? This is why when I talk with the guys and give them hope and ambition, there will be something to aim for--if not for them, then for their children. So when They're convinced, they will pass it along to the next generation, and so on.

So you think that what you are doing now is the solution?

Nothing else has worked. I mean, I fought and was in jail for 6 years and 10 months. I got nothing. Just the opposite -- I lost my dream. I lost my brother and my father and didn’t get anything. Another person will lose his brother and parents and will get nothing. Some have lost their children. So I started thinking of a way other than resistance. I started thinking of a way to convince my enemy to believe in my rights. If I keep thinking with the logic of resistance, there will be no one left to resist.

Were you active in the resistance before joining the Bereaved Families Forum?

I stopped being active in 1990. I got out of prison in 1991 and I started thinking about myself. I was tired of prison, tired of not being able to see my brother. I didn’t have a future. I had passed the Tawjihi 41and applied to go study in Russia to become a dentist. We were under Israeli rule at that time, so I applied for college in Russia and I booked a ticket, but the Israelis would not let me out. They gave me a choice of committing to stay out of the country for 10 years, or not going at all. I needed 4 years for my studies so why would I need 6 more years there? In the end I didn’t go and didn’t study. I started thinking about myself, about finding a job, and building a house. From that day on we were not active, but the Israelis would not leave us alone.

The Israeli that sits in his house is not my enemy. My enemy is the one that makes decisions and doesn’t care about me or even about the Israelis. As I told you, Sharon's children do not take the buse so they won’t get hurt. Arafat too - -his house won't be shelled because his wife and child are in France. The decision makers are not affected. It is up to those who are not decision makers to revolt and do something about their lives. This is why it is important for us as Palestinians to do something -- not just to resist violence but to plan for our lives. Our lives are following the same pattern.

You've been involved in this work and you've seen the work of others in the same field. Where do you think this is going?

I don’t want anybody else to get hurt. I have a nephew who's wanted by Israel. He has a friend who was exiled to Gaza,42 another who was martyred -- actually two.43 One was exiled to Italy and one imprisoned. That was a group of friends. To this day the soldiers come looking for my nephew. I am very happy that I was able to change some of his ideas. I convinced my nephew that it wasn’t doing any good for him to keep shooting at the soldiers, and to be hunted all the time. There's no way to bring back your dead friend, no way to bring your exiled friend back from Italy, no way your imprisoned friend will get out until he has finished his time, no way to bring back your friend in Gaza. I asked him questions like: How can you find ways to limit this violence? He answered that they are the ones that are not leaving us alone, so I told him to leave it to me.

I'm telling you this story not because he's my nephew but because this is part of our work. I kept talking to him. I even made him stay in my house for a year even though he was wanted. They used to look for him everywhere in our family's houses but we were lucky that they never came to my house. Now the army is not looking for him the way they used to. They are not insisting anymore, because he's not active anymore. It's true that he used to be active before and he wasn’t charged for it, but now he has stopped his activity. If he had continued to fight and shoot at them then he would have been killed just like his friends. Today he regrets what he has done. He says he just wants them to leave him alone. This is part of our work, to let people know that violence is not the way. The dead will not come back. We need to look for decent a life for all. I want to be respected in my home, to think about the future of my child, and to try to give him everything that I was deprived of through our relationships with people.

The Forum is not only about meeting new people and traveling around. By only doing this I would not be giving anything to the Palestinians, or to the Israelis. I don’t want them to make me feel better. I just don’t want others to be hurt. This is the thing we believe in the most--that others won't get hurt like us.

What about the responses of people around you?

The anti-normalization movements? When I came back from the Forum, I turned this idea over inside myself. This was the first time that I took this issue of normalization seriously. Before I went to the Forum I consulted with my brother and I explained that I would go meet with Israelis. I really listen to my brother and I felt better after he told me that what I'm doing is the right thing. So I went to the Forum, and expected that people who had lost someone would have reservations or would hold back--I didn’t expect that kind of atmosphere. When I came back to town I was still afraid, a bit reserved. I didn’t want people to know about it [being in the Forum]. I talked to my closest friend about it, and I found him receptive. He even said, “I wish I had been with you.” That made me feel at ease. I talked about it with another person and felt even better. So now all my friends want to be part of the Forum. Some of them looked at it as an escape, others looked at it as something new they can do in their lives. Some saw it reflecting the small voice inside them that says, "We are tired of the situation, for our children and for us." They needed to do something new.

I felt that the general feeling around me was supportive, so I didn't care about those who would monitor me. I started talking about my experience openly. I talked about the time I spent at the Intercontinental Hotel,44 about meeting with Israelis, talking to them about my perspective and listening to theirs. They changed a lot of things in me. I went to Bethlehem University and talked to a number of students and I found some of them willing to sit and talk with Israelis and exchange ideas with them. Of course we do face some difficulties, such as lack of funding. I mean, I can't afford to buy a computer or even apply for a permit to get around.45 If there was no one to fund such an idea, it would be difficult to implement.

The people that oppose this idea are shallow people--they have nothing else to do. In our society people hate them because all they do is sit and talk about what this person or that person is doing. They think that they are prophets and have the right to judge people. If you evaluate them, you will find them the worst kind of people. If you sit with one of them who is strongly opinionated about something, you will find that you can easily change that idea. I once sat with one of them and was able to change his idea about me, and he was even willing to come with me to the Forum. But there are still a lot of people that oppose this idea, even if not openly. Don’t be surprised if some of them burn my house down. If someone could burn down a million dollar equipped center like Ibdaa, the only center in Deheishe for our children... The children used to wake up dreaming about it because they used to go there to read stories, play on the computer, and take courses on the Internet. For a child in Deheishe whose parents could not afford to send him to study, that was a big thing. But it was burned. So don’t be surprised if they burn my place as well. In the end I don’t care about them.

Do you consider that a challenge? What are your challenges?

Now that I have an idea I believe in, I can either protect it or sit at home and do nothing about it. As I told you, I don’t want to feel better. I want to defend and protect my beliefs in a way that will not bring harm to me or to those who think it's not right to sit with Israelis. Either I have the ability to convince him of my beliefs, or at least he shouldn't be in my way. This is how I foresee the future of my children.

Do you think fear plays a role?

For me it doesn’t. What I've already seen in my life, which was the complete opposite of what I'm doing now, is worse than what I'm going to see as a result of being involved in a good cause. The Israelis imprisoned me for 6 years and 10 months, but they couldn’t change what I believe in. I changed when… I changed my beliefs when the Israelis convinced me, not as a result of force, but because I was convinced that there was no other way than to do this. If someone writes about me, calling me a traitor, I do not have a problem because I can defend myself.

Did you ever have doubts that you are doing the right thing?

I thought deeply before I talked about it, because when I talk about something, I believe in it.

How did this work change your life and how did it affect your family, friends, etc?

It didn’t change the lives of those around me, but I've tried to convince them with my idea. The more I believe in it the more I'm able to work with it. For example, my brother-in-law got his PhD in political science, and when he came back he decided to open a student service center or institute. There will be a lot of students coming to the institute, which will specialize in directing students to schools abroad. Through the institute, I can impart my idea to those students. This is a very important opportunity.

This idea needs to be taught to a mature person, one that is effective in his community. The student has the most significant role in our society. This is the most important sector of society and they need to know more about non-violence. I think if we succeed in spreading our ideas in schools, it's as good as liberating Palestine.

Is it rare to be involved in this way?

It's rare and dangerous. Socially, one would be afraid to lose all one's relations, relatives, community, friends. I mean, people over here used to swear with my life. I was interrogated for 80 days but I didn’t breath a word, so everybody knows me as a respectful man. The only thing that changed is that I used to think with my muscles, and now I think with my brain. I need to protect myself, not by shooting at anyone who invades my house, but by being respectful and making him not hurt me. So I started thinking about the Israelis on the other side. I mean, if I go to road number 6046 and shoot at an Israeli there, that Israeli is neither the one who killed my brother nor the one who took my land.

If I go back to thinking about history I will go back to being an extremist. It is a reality that was imposed on us to live with the Israelis. There's no way that the Jew who came here from America will go back, and there's no way that you will get out of Deheishe Camp and go back to Ras Abu Ammar.47 I just want to have a better life. I can have a country and an existence without killing an Israeli. The idea has become to start thinking and stop fighting.

Did you feel that your sense of belonging changed with this work?

No, it got stronger, because I understood more. I used to think only with my muscles, which made me kind of crazy. People who only think with their arms are retarded.

There was no one to direct us. For example, I used to gather 500 prisoners and speak to them, but no one ever came up to us and said: let’s think about something other than the language of force. It was only at the end of the first intifada that a few people started to think about the possibility of dialogue, to think about the people who are suffering. This is a reality that was imposed on us and there's no other way than to accept it. There's no way that they will leave this country and there's no way that we will leave either, so why don’t we look for a common factor between us: to coexist without hurting each other?

No one thought in this way before.48 Now we do, and I think we are more mature because we tried all the methods, and so did they. The Israelis must get to a point where they understand that they will not defeat Riyad by demolishing his house. On the contrary, that will make me more insistent. Violence creates more violence. I tried all kinds of violence and I didn’t accomplish anything. The opposite -- I lost my health. I am a person who didn’t finish his education. When I speak, I speak out of the anger and humiliation I saw in prison. I read all the books in prison, but in the end I have no certificate. I got shot, I lost my father and my brother, I lost my neighbor and the neighbor of my neighbor, I lost my friend… They emptied us from the inside. We do not have substance anymore. We wake up, eat, go to work and that’s it. There's no vision for our lives. All this pressure inside us is what pushed us to look for a new life -- not the pressure from the Israelis.

Who do you blame?

Wow, that's a hard one. I don’t really know. Your question is difficult.