Israeli & Palestinian Combatants for Peace

Israeli & Palestinian
Combatants for Peace
featuring Bassam Aramin
and Elik Elhanan

Wednesday January 30,
Reception with light refreshments: 5:30p.m., downstairs, Vets Hall
Program 7:30pm., Vets Hall Room 23,
826 Front Street, Santa Cruz

Combatants for Peace was founded by former Israeli and Palestinian fighters who no longer see each other as enemies. They forswear violence and advocate an end to the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian West Bank & Gaza Strip. Bassam Aramin, formerly a Fatah fighter who spent 7 years in an Israeli prison, now heads the Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue. Bassam received the Bremen Peace Award for reconciliation work and the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle Eastern Journalism. Elik Elhanan, served as a soldier in an Israeli Defense Forces combat unit from 1995-98 and is now a military refuser. In 1997 a Palestinian suicide bomber killed his sister in Jerusalem.

On January, 2007, Palestinian girls were walking home from school in East Jerusalem. Israeli Border Police firing rubber bullets wounded and killed 10-year old Abir Aramin, Bassam's daughter. Combatants for Peace has joined other Palestinian, Israeli and International peace & human rights organizations to memorialize Abir to build ABIR'S GARDEN on the grounds of her school for her classmates to gather, play, and heal.

Elhanan & Aramin are part of a national speaking tour, one year after Abir was fatally wounded. Bassam's wife Salwa and daughter Areen will be present.

Suggested donation $5-$10 sliding-scale (no one turned away for lack of funds). Proceeds benefit Abir's Garden & Combatants for Peace. For more information, call 831-423-1626 or http://www.rcnv.org

Combatants for Peace is hosted in Santa Cruz by the Middle East Program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence and WILPF-Santa Cruz Branch. The Combatants for Peace national tour is organized by The Rebuilding Alliance and Women of a Certain Age. For more information and to support the Abir's Garden Project go to http://www.RebuildingAlliance.org