March 2, 2009
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General
United Nations S-3800
New York 10017
Your Excellency:
It is through the wonderful assistance of Virginia Swain, a member of the Association of World Citizens (an NGO in consultative status with the UN) and her Institute for Global Leadership, that our letter reaches you today.
We are deeply honored that the United Nations has invited our Courage of Conscience speaking tour to address an audience that will include 300 peacemakers of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths on Thursday, March 19th 2009 from 10am-1pm. Our speakers, Palestinian former fighter Bassam Aramin and Israeli former soldier Yaniv Reshef, will present a tangible way to stop the brutality between Israel and Palestine. We are writing now to request your support and the honor of your presence. We humbly ask you to present the Courage of Conscience welcoming address on March 19th and join us for their presentation.
These men are Combatants for Peace, now over 600 former Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian fighters, working together without revenge to build justice and peace. Israeli Yaniv Reshef, whose home is in range of Gaza missiles, was a foot soldier in a sabotage unit of the Israeli Army – and chose to fight no more. Palestinian Bassam Aramin served seven years in jail for planning an attack against Israeli soldiers – and chose no more violence. He is a co-founder of Combatants for Peace. Just two years ago, Bassam lost his ten year old daughter, Abir, to an Israeli soldier’s rubber-coated bullet. At the request of the Aramin family, the Rebuilding Alliance partnered with Combatants for Peace to help them build playgrounds in memory of Abir.
The Courage of Conscience Speaking Tour is being sponsored by September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Peace Abbey, and the Rebuilding Alliance. Our tour began on Feb. 27th in Boston and continues throughout the East Coast until closing in Washington DC on March 27th. Speakers Bassam Aramin and Yaniv Reshef are being awarded the Courage of Conscience Award by the Peace Abbey in Sherborn MA on March 13th. An exhibition entitled “Piecing the Peaces” by noted textile artist Amelie Porter will open at the Peace Abbey then rejoin the speakers at a formal reception in Congress’s Rayburn Foyer on March 26th. Funds raised on our speaking tour will help Combatants for Peace build the Abir’s Garden Playground at the Si’ir Girl’s School near Hebron where Abir Aramin’s cousins attend school.
I am including a detailed description of Combatants for Peace, a bio of each of the speakers below, and an overview of our organizations. We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Donna Baranski-Walker, Andrea LeBlanc and Dot Walsh
Donna Baranski-Walker, Executive Director of the Rebuilding Alliance
Andrea LeBlanc, Cofounder of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Dot Walsh, Program Director, The Peace Abbey
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Combatants for Peace are a group of Israeli and Palestinian individuals who were actively involved in the cycle of violence in their area. The Israelis served as combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinians were involved in acts of violence in the name of Palestinian liberation. They all used weapons against one another, and looked at each other only through weapon sights; however today they cooperate and commit themselves to the following: 1) They no longer believe that the conflict can be resolved through violence; 2) They believe that the blood bath will not end unless we act together to terminate the occupation and stop all forms of violence; 3) They call for the establishment of a Palestinian State, alongside the State of Israel. The two states can exist in peace and security one by the other; 4) They will use only non violent means to achieve our goals and call for both societies to end violence.
Yaniv Reshef, 37, as an active member of Combatants for Peace, works with former Palestinian and Israeli combatants in the southern Israel / Hebron area. Mr. Reshef lives in Israel, just 19 km from Gaza in an agricultural community that suffers frequent missile attacks. He believes that Combatants for Peace offer a tangible way for people to stop the brutality – and he helped organized C4P meetings in the neighboring large town of Sderot so that townspeople could hear his Palestinian and Israeli partners first hand. Formerly a foot soldier in a sabotage unit of the Israeli Army, he served in Lebanon and in the Occupied Territories between the years of 1991-1998. In 1999, he said enough and chose not to sign into the army reserves. Mr. Reshef, a historian by education, has worked as a newspaper editor and web-designer most recently for a nonprofit in nearby Sderot, providing services to people with disabilities and children. He is now building his house in Nir Akiva (lit. Akiva Meadows) the agricultural cooperative where he was born. Until 1948 this area was the Palestinian village of Kawfakha.
Bassam Aramin, 40, was awarded the 2007 Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle Eastern Journalism by Search for Common Ground in NY and the Bremen Peace Award, in Germany. Born in a Palestinian village near Hebron, he is a former member of Fatah who served a 7 year prison sentence after being arrested at age 17 for helping to plan an armed attack against Israeli soldiers. As he has written in the Jewish Daily Forward, “But as I served out my sentence, I talked with many of my guards. I learned about the Jewish people’s history. I learned about the Holocaust. And eventually I came to understand: On both sides, we have been made instruments of war. On both sides, there is pain, and grieving, and endless loss.” Mr. Aramin is married and had 6 children, including his late daughter Abir who was 10 years old when she was killed by an Israeli soldier’s rubber coated bullet. The investigation of her death was closed without charges despite 14 eyewitnesses and an independent autopsy. Besides being a founding member of Combatants for Peace, Bassam Aramin heads the Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue in Jerusalem and is a director at the Palestine National Archives in Ramallah. He has been accepted into the Masters of Peace Studies Program at Bradford University in England and looks forward to moving his family to Bradford this summer to pursue their studies in English.
The Rebuilding Alliance is a 501c3 American nonprofit that rebuilds war-torn communities and works to make them safe. Starting when they rebuilt a home for the family the late Rachel Corrie sought to protect in Gaza, their partnership with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme has expanded to help the Unity Club Soccer Field install a first aid station, collect gently worn sports shoes for young people in Rafah, Gaza, and establish a “Doors, Walls, and Windows” program to help Gaza neighborhoods repair their damaged homes. These initiatives urge an open Gaza and are moving forward with the assistance of the Other Voice peace group in Sderot, Israel and the Free Gaza boat from Cyprus. In the West Bank village of Al Aqaba, the Rebuilding Alliance helped build a kindergarten that now serves 130 children and they are coordinating with dozens of NGOs and governments to save the village from demolition and assure its right to issue its own building permits. The Rebuilding Alliance hosts a weekly teleconference program called “Sweep Down the Walls,” linking peacemakers in Palestine and Israel with peacemakers throughout the U.S. and Europe. The Rebuilding Alliance has partnered with Combatants for Peace to raise funds for “Abir’s Garden: A Safe Place to Grow" and is encouraging U.S. constituents to call their elected representatives to urge the reopening of the investigation into Abir’s death to bring those responsible to justice.
September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is an organization of family members of those killed on September 11th who have united to turn their grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating nonviolent options and actions in the pursuit of justice, they hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism. Acknowledging their common experience with all people affected by violence throughout the world, they work to create a safer and more peaceful world for everyone.
The Peace Abbey is dedicated to creating innovative models for society that empower individuals, communities & religious organizations on the paths of nonviolence, peacemaking, and cruelty-free living. They offer a variety of programs and resources that teach, inspire and encourage one to speak out and act on issues of peace and social justice. Faith in action is the cornerstone of their fellowship and activist pacifism is their creed. The Peace Abbey will be presenting the Courage of Conscience Award to Combatants for Peace, which is given to honor courageous individual works and humanitarian causes that promote the causes of peace, justice, and nonviolence. Past recipients include the Dalai Lama, Dr. Paul Farmer and Maya Angelou.