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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Activist Moves From Personal Loss
By Polly Summar
Journal Staff Writer
If anyone could have been immune from the bloody conflict in Gaza in January, it might have been Palestinian Izzeldin Abuelaish, an internationally trained obstetric gynecologist who spoke out for peace and easily navigated Gaza's checkpoints to deliver both Israeli and Palestinian babies.
But an Israeli shell hit his apartment and killed three of his children, severely injuring a fourth. Abuelaish, who was known as a friend of Israel's, picked up the phone and called a TV journalist. The incident quickly became an international story. The next day, a cease-fire was declared.
Killed were three of the doctor's eight children — his daughters Bessan, 20, Mayar, 15, Aya, 14 — and a niece who was 17. Another daughter, Shatha, 17, as well as a niece and two brothers, were severely wounded.
Bittersweet for New Mexicans was that Bessan had attended the Creativity for Peace summer camp here in 2003, and returned to the camp with her younger sisters, Shatha and Dalal, the following summer.
"It was the worst thing that's ever happened to our organization," said Dottie Indyke, executive director of Creativity for Peace. "It was our worst fear coming true."
But Abuelaish and his surviving children have not wavered in their commitment to peace. "To be angry, it would be difficult to continue forward," said Abuelaish in a phone interview Friday. "Thank God, my children were highly resilient, to understand that what has been lost can never come back, and to show that they would fulfill the dream of their sister."
Abuelaish offered to come to Santa Fe to speak. "He said he wanted to come and see where his daughters had been, he wanted to come for his daughters," said Indyke.
"I am going to speak about my daughters," said Abuelaish, "how I sent them to this camp. ... I fully support this camp. We have to look forward. We have to be bigger and greater for those challenges. They are not going to be the end and the last challenge in our lives."'
The talk, called "Forgiveness: An Engine for the Peace Journey," will be held at 7 p.m., Tuesday, at the James A. Little Theater, 1060 Cerrillos Road.
Today, Abuelaish and his children live in Toronto. He started teaching last month at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
"It's pain, not anger you feel," said Abuelaish, whose wife died in September 2008 from cancer. Bessan had encouraged her father to go back to work after her mother's death and shouldered the mothering duties for her younger siblings. "To be angry, it would be difficult to continue forward. Thank God, my children were highly resilient."
Creativity for Peace
Based in Santa Fe, Creativity for Peace has organized 11 summer camps outside the city since 2003, as well as ongoing gatherings for the 146 former campers in the Middle East.
The organization's mission is to nurture understanding and leadership in Palestinian and Israeli adolescent girls and women so they will aspire to take on significant roles in their families, communities and country that advance peaceful coexistence.
"Our camp constituents include Palestinians living in the territories — Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians living in Israel and Jewish Israelis," said Indyke.
When several donors gave Creativity for Peace funds to buy food and medicine for people in Gaza in 2006 and 2007, Abuelaish and his brother helped distribute the goods.
"Our girls are definitely very aware of the possibility of this happening to them and to others," said Indyke. "The whole situation in Gaza in January has had an enormous effect on all the girls .... How could it not? This is where these girls live. It's frightening and terrible and heartbreaking."
The former campers are planning a memorial service in Nazareth in January 2010 to mark the year anniversary of Bessan's death.
"Bessan was the most committed to others, to humanity, to understand others, to love others," said Abuelaish. "My children were committed to humanity, they were committed to be human. Once we are human, we are peaceful inside and outside."
Appearing here
Izzeldin Abuelaish, a well-known Palestinian physician, peace activist and 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will speak on "Forgiveness: An Engine for the Peace Journey," at 7 p.m., Tuesday, at the James A. Little Theater, 1060 Cerrillos Road. Reserved seats are $20. Tickets may be purchased at www.tickets.com or the Lensic box office, 505-988-1234.
There will also be a private reception with Abuelaish Monday. Tickets are $150 a person — which also includes the Tuesday evening talk — and can be purchased through the Creativity for Peace reservation line at 505-466-2700.
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