Former Palestinian fighter chooses nonviolence

(The Christian Science Monitor) It was the year 2000, and the second Palestinian intifada had just broken out. Ali Abu Awwad was in Saudi Arabia, recovering from an Israeli drive-by shooting, when he received word that an Israeli soldier had shot his brother Youssef in the head at close range.

“He left us a son and a daughter and this huge package of pain and loss and anger,” Abu Awwad said, recalling how part of him wanted revenge. “Then you ask yourself, how many people shall I kill? What could be enough dead Israelis to heal this pain?”

Then his mother, a Palestinian activist who was close to Palestinian fighter-turned-president Yasser Arafat, received a group of bereaved Israeli parents into her home.