This week we received an e-mail from the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) which operates in the West Bank and whose permanent presence is necessary to prevent children being attacked.

In autumn 2004, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian schoolchildren from At-Tuwani. Because of international media coverage of these attacks, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) recommended that the Israeli military provide a daily escort for the children to go to and from school.

Between 22-27 July 2008 the army found reasons for not escorting the children to their summer camp. Initially only seven children were willing to risk walking alone and they informed the At-Tuwani CP team that at least eight other children did not attend the summer camp because they were too afraid to walk without a military escort. Three settlers, one of whom was masked and carrying a stick, chased the children while they walked unescorted to the summer camp. After escorting the children on 24-25 July, military personnel informed the At-Tuwani team on 26 July that the army would no longer accompany the children, while four settlers from the Israeli settlement outpost of Havat Ma'on shouted at the children. The personnel would not give the name and brigade of the commander refusing to provide the escort. When a CPTer explained the current, dangerous situation, the military personnel said, "I don't think the settlers will attack the children." 
At 1:50pm, on Sunday, 27 July, Israeli settlers attacked the 6 to 15 year old Palestinian children as well as Christian Peacemaker Team members Joel Gulledge (pictured) and Jan Benvie, who were accompanying them as they walked to their village of Tuba.

As the fourteen children and two CPTers were walking in a valley south of the Havat Ma'on settlement outpost, one masked settler came down the hill, hurling stones with a slingshot. The children and Benvie ran ahead, but saw other stone-throwing settlers approaching them from the opposite side of the valley. None of the stones struck the children, however, and they were able to run to safety.
When the masked settler saw Gulledge filming the attack, he began directing his stones at Gulledge. The settler hit him in the leg with a rock, inflicting an injury that made it impossible for Gulledge to run away. The settler then wrested the camera from him, and began beating him with a rock and the camera. After that, the settler ran off with the camera. Gulledge was treated for his injuries at a hospital in Hebron and then returned to At-Tuwani. 

A few months ago I wrote about a Palestinian Bassam Aramin whose 10-year-old daughter was killed by an Israeli soldier’s rubber bullet. Bassam founded a groundbreaking group, Combatants for Peace that united former Palestinian militants and Israeli ex-soldiers in a campaign to end the conflict.

After a children’s garden was built in memory of his daughter an Israeli playwright Idan Meir an ex-soldier was so moved by his story that he wrote a play based on the experience but insisted that a famous Israeli actor should play the central role. In this way he felt that the play would reach a wider audience

"I think it is time that we Israelis, should say the words of Palestinians, words that are screaming inside them," said Meir. As a soldier he experienced seeing his best friend killed in fighting. "The pain was one of the things that moved me to search for different ways of dealing with the enemy," he said. "When I met Bassam I wanted to bring his story to a place where people will hear and see what is going on, and show them the pain of the others is just the same as our pain."

So there is hope if only the voices of all those Palestinians and Israelis who can see beyond narrow prejudice can prevail and if our governments set their faces against the status quo, show some imagination and so make the world a safer place for us all.