Ten years later, Skolnick, a former Israeli settler, who grew up in an ultra-orthodox household, and Abu Sarah, once a Palestinian militant, work together explaining both sides of the Middle East conflict to tourists.

They discovered the uncomfortable coincidence during a tour in Hebron for Mejdi, a dual-narrative tour company co-owned by Abu Sarah, where every tour is jointly led by Jewish and Palestinian guides.

Abu Sarah, 30, said: He (Skolnick) was talking about which houses he shot at, and one of the houses was my aunt’s.

Skolnick said of the revelation: I had shot at her house, and there had been shots fired from the house, but we were so glad we could share that with no judgment.

We have profound moments like that all the time on our tours because I used to fight Palestinians and some of them used to fight Israelis. Now we come together and try to find a solution.

Mejdi guides explain landmarks and historic sites from their personal experiences and those of their communities.

One of the tour groups from an American synagogue even spent several days on home-stays in a Palestinian refugee camp.

They formed incredibly close relationships, said Abu Sarah. When they left there was hugging, kissing and crying. It was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever seen.

Abu Sarah’s own journey from extremist to peace activist inspired his work.

He was 10 years old when his brother Tayseer died after being released from an Israeli prison. Tayseer had been arrested for throwing stones during the first Intifada and Abu Sarah says he was tortured in prison.

The experience turned Abu Sarah into an angry and bitter teenager and he became a youth leader of Fatah — a cornerstone Palestinian political party along with Hamas — at an early age.

He said: I grew up as an anti-peace activist. I had never met an Israeli or a Jew other than soldiers or settlers. I was as extreme as you can get.

The turning point came at the age of 18 when Abu Sarah realized he would need to learn Hebrew to further his career.

I had always refused because it was the language of the enemy, he said. After enrolling on a Hebrew course for newcomers to Jerusalem, Abu Sarah came face-to-face with Jewish people for the first time in his life and realized they could be friends.

Slowly I realized that there’s an emotional wall of fear that eventually becomes hatred, and from that moment my work was to bang our heads against that wall to bring it down, he said.

Skolnick, 30, grew up in an ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community and moved to a settlement near Nablus when he was 14.

During his national service in the Israel Defense Forces, Skolnick was sent to protect settlers from Palestinian militants.

He said: This was 2001 and there was serious violence. I protected Israelis from gunshots and suicide bombers. At the time, I just felt I was protecting people. It was special to feel you are part of history and defending your own people.

Now I have different feelings. I don’t feel regret, but I wish I had known more about the politics and the wider issues.

Abu Sarah said he started Mejdi tours, a social enterprise, 18 months ago to combat the propaganda spread by both sides during traditional tours. So far it has taken around 20 tour groups, mostly students, Synagogues, churches and interfaith groups from the United States, Europe and Australia.

He said: I realized that friends of mine who had come on Israeli tours hardly wanted to talk to me afterwards because they had heard the Israeli narrative, and others who heard the Palestinian side left almost anti-Semitic.

We don’t want to spread this hate. We have three million tourists come to this country every year. Imagine if we could transform tourism to spread peace instead of hate?

Shira Nesher, 23, a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of Mejdi’s social guides, used to be a tour guide in the Israel Defense Forces.

She said: I was the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors on both sides, so I was reminded every day that the Israeli state was the stability the Jewish people needed after the Holocaust. The Jewish story was all I knew.

In the IDF I gave talks to soldiers and main emphasis was on creating a will to make sacrifice for the state.

This was an eye-opener because I wanted to be able to hear both sides of the story, but I couldn’t do that in the IDF.

Palestinian Mazen Faraj, 36, has lived all his life in Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp near Bethlehem in West Bank, leads tours around the camp for Mejdi.

He was arrested for the first time at the age of 15 during the first Intifada and many times over the following years for being involved in demonstrations against Israeli soldiers. He spent three and a half years in jail in total.

In 2002, Faraj’s father was shot dead by an Israeli soldier while traveling from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, he said.

We just received a call from the hospital in Bethlehem to say they had his body, Faraj said. We asked the soldiers but weren’t allowed to go to the hospital because we were under curfew, so we had to wait until the morning.

You can’t imagine what that was like.

Faraj said he gradually became involved in peace work a few years later.

After this tragedy I had to find somewhere to put all the anger and suffering in my head, otherwise there’s just more violence and revenge, he said.

It was a long process. I didn’t just wake up in the morning and decide to talk to Israelis.

It doesn’t mean I forget or forgive, but it does mean we can create a message of getting to know each other and wanting to change the situation.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/26/israel.dual.narrative.tours/

Syria’s closest ally, Iran, is calling on the government in Damascus to listen to the people’s “legitimate demands.”
The comments Saturday by Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi were the first such remarks from Iran since the five-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began.
Salehi warned of dangerous regional implications if the crisis in Syria was not solved peacefully. He said a power vacuum in Syria would have “unprecedented repercussions” among its neighbors.
But despite the widespread calls for peace, Syrian activists say forces loyal to Mr. Assad once again attacked anti-government protesters. At least two people were killed in the fighting in cities across the country.
However, the Syrian government has denied reports of protests in the capital. The state-run SANA news agency says foreign news organizations “fabricated” the stories.
In a separate development, the Arab League discussed Syria’s crisis at a meeting in Cairo Saturday.
The United Nations says more than 2,000 people have died in the country during the government’s crackdown on dissent. President Assad has blamed much of the violence on what he calls armed “gangs” and “terrorists.”
On Friday, rights groups and activists said security forces shot at protesters in the Damascus suburb of Douma, Dara’a province in the south and the eastern town of Deir Ezzor. They said at least three people were killed.
However, Syria countered by saying “hooded gunmen” opened fire on police in Deir Ezzor, wounding three officers. SANA said law enforcement officers responded by shooting and killing two of the gunmen. The news agency also said “gunmen” attacked a security building in Douma, wounding two guards.

Source: http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/27/iran-syria-should-heed-citizens%E2%80%99-demands/

Barak’s statement comes despite a report Friday in Haaretz and the British weekly The Economist that the defense minister said it was in Israel’s interest to allow Egypt to bring in larger forces to overcome the ongoing anarchy along the border with Israel.

Such additional troops would not be in accordance with the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, and following Friday’s reports, Knesset Speaker MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud ) said he would be looking into whether any alteration of the peace agreement would require Knesset approval.

Following the reports, Barak sought through associates to correct the impression that had been given. An official in his bureau said yesterday: “No request has been submitted by Egypt to augment troops and if such a request is made, it will be examined in the appropriate forums. There is no automatic approval and the forces that have already been approved will depart on the agreed-on date.”

The statement referred to the approval a number of times in recent months by the defense establishment for Egypt to deploy additional troops in the eastern Sinai Peninsula to restore order and protect the gas pipeline to Israel.

The security addendum to the Camp David agreements limits the numbers of security personnel and weapons that Egypt can deploy in the Sinai Peninsula.

Two weeks ago the Egyptian army launched a major operation in the El Arish area against Islamic terror groups that had attacked a police station. Israel allowed Egypt to bring in more than 1,000 soldiers and armored personnel to carry out the operation.

Meanwhile, Friday afternoon, eight days after the terror attack on the Israeli-Egyptian border near Eilat, GOC Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg decided following an evaluation to cancel the special instructions that had been issued to protect residents of communities in the south and near the border with the Gaza Strip following the attack and the ensuing escalation of rocket fire.

Among the prohibitions canceled, Eisenberg lifted the ban on gatherings of more than 500 people.

After Islamic Jihad agreed to the cease-fire declared by Hamas, the firing of missiles and rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip stopped almost entirely.

Two rockets fired Friday toward the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council caused no damage or injuries, and no rockets were fired at all yesterday.

In a related matter, the commander of the Golani Brigade, Col. Ofek Buchris, told the family of Staff Sgt. Moshe Naftali, who was killed in the terror attack on the Egyptian border, that preliminary findings indicate that Naftali was killed by friendly fire.

Speaking to the family at their home in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, Buchris said that the force, consisting of four soldiers from anti-tank company, commanded by Naftali, had arrived first on the scene and left their armored vehicle together to engage the terrorists, who were firing at passing vehicles.

One of the soldiers, who was aiming at a terrorist, hit Naftali by mistake due to the proximity of the four and their attempt to move quickly to return fire at the terrorists. The soldier who shot Naftali is not to be charged.

The investigation initially assumed that Naftali had been shot by a terrorist.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman said: “The investigation revealed that the forces dealing with the incident acted with determination and professionalism to bring it to a swift conclusion and take out the terrorists. The late Staff Sgt. Moshe Naftali led his soldiers courageously against the terrorists and in the coming days the probe will continue in order to learn from and to prevent such an incident in the future.”

source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/barak-no-more-egyptian-forces-in-sinai-peninsula-1.381064