YouSaid · the spoken record

Damelin

lines on the record
9
first
2022-05-26
most recent
2022-05-26
sittings or episodes
1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Imagine what that is like for an Israeli who has never heard a story like that to be exposed to it. By the way, 200,000 people tuned in online to that ceremony. This is a very important step for us to make and for people to listen to. The Palestinians in our organizations joke that if Hamas kidnaps them, they would be returned in half an hour because they talk so much. I am grateful for this small opportunity to brief the Council, but it would be so much better if its members could listen with empathy.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  2. “We started a parallel narrative course this week. There are many things happening on the ground that many people are probably not aware of. I wish that instead of sitting around this table, everyone would take themselves off and come to understand that there is hope, because I can confidently say in this Chamber that if there is no hope, there will never be peace. It is a remarkably important equation for any peace-seeking work. Please look into the work of any of so many organizations. Two weeks ago, we organized a memorial ceremony on the official memorial day for Israeli soldiers. But we conduct an alternative ceremony, with Palestinians and Israelis coming to tell the stories of their losses. One Palestinian whose son had been killed donated his son’s organs to Israeli hospitals.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  3. “I asked those women then what they loved to do, what their passion was. One of them liked to arrange flowers, another to style hair, another to sew, another to take photographs, another loved being an accountant. I said: “Let us open a wedding planning business”. And guess what? The light suddenly came back into the eyes of those women. Do not forget that any Palestinian who belongs to the Parents Circle is already a leader working against the tide. Imagine the light that comes into a woman’s eyes when she knows she has a future profession. Last week, 14 women started to take a course to get certified and then, to have a profession. Imagine how joyful that is in these terribly dark times. We will do two weddings for brides who cannot afford to pay, as a beginning to this programme. That initiative brings hope.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  4. “What also happens is that they join the Parents Circle. And it is not only for bereaved people. We work mainly on the ground with parallel narratives that many of the countries —as I look around me — could well learn from some of our projects. I want to bring hope because I listen to youth talking, and all that I can sense is a comparison of suffering and a lack of hope. I want to tell the Council a short story about hope. We have a very active women’s group in the Parents Circle. I came to talk to a group of Palestinian women one Saturday morning and asked them: “What is it that you really need?” They said: “We need money. We want to earn our own living”. I ask Council members to consider that it is not very easy to be a peacemaker if one does not have money to pay for school for one’s children or for food to put on the table.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  5. “And yet they have never met a Palestinian. They have never met the humanity in the other. And suddenly, they hear a story of transformation, of loss, of somebody who got up at four o’clock in the morning and faced the indignities of going through a checkpoint to come to their school to talk about non-violence and change — to talk about their own story. Suddenly, there is a human being. And, by the way, they do not all become Martin Luther King, but they do have a sense of who is on the other side. I often go into many homes in the West Bank — and not only me. I am here as a person, but I represent 600 families. When I go into a Palestinian home, they look at me quite aggressively in the beginning. But when I tell my personal story, there is an emotional breakthrough because they suddenly see the humanity.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  6. “So if a person cannot be a part of the solution, I would urge that person to leave us alone. Come to Israel and Palestine, come and see what is happening on the ground. Listen with empathy. Come and watch one of our dialogue meetings or one of our women’s groups. Go into an average Israeli school of 17-year-olds, a Palestinian and an Israeli. Normally, I would have sat next to the Palestinian. I found it rather strange that we had to sit separately, because that is the way that we work. If one were to go into an average Israeli school of 17-year-olds and ask the children who has ever met a Palestinian, the answer would be nobody. Or if one were to ask who speaks Arabic, the answer would be maybe one person in the whole class. Or if one asked who has been overseas, the answer would be maybe 80 per cent of the kids.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  7. “I joined the Parents Circle after I had been to a weekend in East Jerusalem with other bereaved Palestinian mothers. I looked into their eyes and, I suddenly realized that we shared the same pain and that I stood over the same grave for my own child as Bushra stood over for her child. The tears that fell in that grave were the same colour. And if we together could stand on the same stage and talk in the same voice for reconciliation, for non-violence and for getting out of the occupied territories, would that not be the most powerful statement and an example to others? Making political statements is all very well. It is all very well being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, but what are people doing with that? They are importing our conflict into their country and creating hatred between Jews and Muslims.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  8. “When the army came to tell me that my son had been killed by a Palestinian sniper, one of the first things that I said was: “You may not kill anybody in the name of my child”. That has been the work I have been doing ever since. I joined the Parents Circle-Families Forum, an organization of more than 600 families that have all lost an immediate family member to the conflict. What we see as a vision is to create a framework for a reconciliation process to be an integral part of any political peace agreement. We signed all kinds of stuff on the White House lawn. Everybody held each other and it all looked very charming. But the people were never involved. We have to do something to bring the realization that without that reconciliation, there will never be peace. At best, there can be a ceasefire until the next time.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source

  9. “Ms Damelin: I did not come here to bring dialogue, show PowerPoint presentations or make wonderful statements about intellectual ways to end this conflict. I came here to speak to the hearts of one and all because that is what I can do. I am one of the victims, but I do not call myself a victim. I have become a victor of what is happening in a conflict that should have ended long ago. We could sit here and give a comparison of suffering, and I could give counterarguments. But the fact is that people are dying. Sixty-eight children died in Gaza. Who will remember their names? Does anyone here know any of their names? It is very difficult for me to sit here and not talk about the reality of what it is to lose a child.”

    2022-05-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9046 (2022) · source