Violence destroys human bridge of reconciliation

Amid the hatred of weeks of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Zoher Hamdan and Amir Zohar worked to bring Arab and Jew together. Now Hamdan, a Palestinian, is in mourning for his Jewish friend Zohar, shot dead in the West Bank while fulfilling his duty as a reserve major in the Israeli army.
"My heart really hurts. To this minute I am confused," Hamdan said yesterday, hours after learning Zohar had been killed on Wednesday in a firefight with Palestinian gunmen near Jericho.
"Amir is not only missing to his family. We miss him also and I make no differentiation between Palestinians and Jews," Hamdan said. "He is our neighbour and every drop of blood that is spilled is a pity."
Age-old hatreds between Arab and Jew have resurfaced with a vengeance since the eruption of clashes on September 28 in which at least 168 people, almost all Palestinians, have been killed.
Since then, Hamdan and Zohar had worked to organise a special "Rose Day" gathering for Israeli and Palestinian children living in neighbouring areas of Jerusalem, Jewish Armon Hanatziv and Arab Sour Baher.
"Amir was really a great person...he wanted this (project) so much," said Hamdan, the Mukhtar, or leader, of Sour Baher.
Zohar was buried on Thursday, just minutes after a car bomb attack claimed by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad killed two Israelis in Jerusalem.
Zohar's wife, Orly, said her husband had worked for co-existence with the Palestinians.
"That is what is most painful because we simply believed in part of their fight, we simply believed they deserved a state. It simply wasn't the right person. He did so much for this," she told Israel Radio in a soft, broken voice.
Yehuda Ben-Yossef, the chairman of the community centre in Jerusalem that Zohar directed, said the 34-year-old father of three had made the "Rose Day" project his baby. "This was the last project he worked on," Ben-Yossef said. "This was his final goal."
Hamdan said he and Zohar were working to preserve ties as neighbours because they knew that when the shooting stopped they would still have to live together. He said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat were both to blame for failing to end the five weeks of clashes.
Hamdan now plans to pay a condolence call on Zohar's family with other people from Sour Baher who had known the dead reserve soldier. And he is determined to see Zohar's "Rose Day" project become a reality.
"After Amir I don't think there are any roses left," Hamdan said. "Next week...we will move forward with this project and prove that no stones and no petrol bombs will stop us."