Through my website, I have been in contact with some very interesting people.  Jerry Sorkin is the founder of TunisUSA, a cultural tour company whose foundation has been built on using tourism as a vehicle to bridge cultures and provide people-to-people encounters that breakdown barriers and hatred.  We share many ideas on how to overcome conflicts, so I thought I would post a recent article of his here…
I can vividly recall the images viewed hundreds of times over the years through news broadcasts showing horrific scenes within Israel; a school room filled with children, or a bus filled with people en route to work, or a restaurant filled with families dining…all getting blown away by a suicide bomber or a crazed group of extremists who sprayed their weaponry or detonated their explosives. Suddenly, the death and destruction that resulted was multiplied by the number of surviving family members who were left to try and make sense out of the fact that from that day onwards, their lives would never be the same; a child whose father will never come home again, a mother who will forever more be left to tell her children about their father who loved them, the brother or sister who will  never again be able to share with their sibling the joys of family, birthdays, graduations and life cycle events with the same level of joy they once did. Rather, their vivid memories will always be rekindled by the horrors and tragic losses they faced.
It is with this same sadness with which I and millions of people around the world are viewing the tragedy that continues to unfold in Gaza; a mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister screaming with the pain of just having seen their own loved one die as a result of a bomb or rocket fire, or the inadvertent collapse of a building that was attacked because it was the source of a mobile rocket launcher…
The cycles of violence, revenge and hatred continue, with the loss to a mother of her child in Sderot or Ashkelon being as painful a loss as the loss to a mother of her child in Rafah or Beit Hanun.

It is even harder to think for a moment, about how one can meet with the other side; sit with a brother of the soldier who fired the weapon; or sit with the parents of the person who shot the errant rockets from a mobile launcher, or sit with the mother of the suicide bomber who walked onto a bus or into a restaurant and released their deadly explosives? Yet, the only hope of salvation and of perhaps ending the ceaseless level of conflict, is by taking that very painful and difficult step of meeting with the “opponent”…those who unfortunately, also understand the deep and mutual sense of loss.
For more than three decades, I have tried to bring together people who in years prior, would never have considered sitting with the other. I have tried to find the shared symbols between these two cultures and people; Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians …the shared symbolism that can sometimes be found in the music, or in the food, or in the designs each has woven into carpets or etched into jewelry.

Unfortunately, these shared expressions are far too often drowned out and forgotten by the cycle of violence.

It is unfortunate that the shared symbols and attempts at mutual recognition and understanding that have slowly, brought some Israelis and Palestinians together in recent years, have been the mutual loss of a family member; families of bereaved Palestinians and Israelis have formed an organization together; Combatants for Peace, an organization made up of equal numbers of Israelis and Palestinians who have achieved their “membership qualifications” by having lost a loved one to terrorism, or having post-facto, recognized the horrors of having carried our an atrocity themselves.

NOW, more than at any moment, it is these shared symbols that each side must look towards, be made aware of, or raise a louder voice to help others find. It is at these troubling times when the feelings of anger and revenge are at their peak, that these moments of humanity must be recognized.

Imagine that a Palestinian oudist and violinist can sit with an Israeli cellist and make beautiful music together; that a doctor in Gaza can work with a doctor in Tel Aviv to cure or heal an injury or illness, only because they were both forced to do so, many times before due to conflicts; that an Israeli software designer can work with a Palestinian computer engineer to find that in fact, their respective technical expertise can bring them to form a successful software company together; or Israeli and Palestinian tour operators who find that they can work together to bring tourists to their shared land and hopefully, help each side and others, understand the horrors of the past and to better understand one another.
Yes, these stories are real, these people, organizations and businesses are on the ground in this Holy Land of conflict. Unfortunately, now the most prolific symbol shared between Israelis and Palestinians is the common ritual of burying their loved ones in the ground.

During the more than three decades that I have tried to utilize shared symbols to help create meaningful breakthroughs between people on the two sides of the conflict, there has never been a shortage of people to tell me how foolish I am; how they have no reason or desire for seeking understanding; how they can never trust the other side. Hearing this preaching, which comes from all sides of the conflict, I wonder how many more deaths and at what stage of loss will they finally see that there must be an alternative to violence?

Now, more than ever, the voice of the pragmatist is needed to rise out of the horror of conflict. It may take the courage of those who have already paid the painful price of loss, to help others find some sense of healing by understanding the pain of the other side. Whether a result of precision aerial bombings, errant Katuysha rockets or suicide bombers… the destruction and death that results from these will never be able to distinguish between those victims who believed in peace and those who insisted that escalating the conflict was the only way. Neither victim will ever come back!
So, let us hope that the stronger, more courageous voices can prevail and lay down their weapons in a cease fire, and hopefully, begin to speak to one another. No version of historical facts, from either the Israeli or Palestinian side, will ever prove that one can claim that they were entirely in the right and the other, entirely in the wrong. No version of history will ever allow the victims to rise from the grave.
It is time for both sides to say that the complex task of sitting and speaking with the other, is the only hope of relieving the conflict. It is with only this approach, coupled with time and understanding, can one hope to lay the groundwork for less pain and loss in the years ahead. It is a shame that in so many conflicts, it takes so much pain and suffering to finally make someone say…enough!