Bereaved mother: Trump's aid cuts kill hope
US decision to cut funding for Palestinians harms coexistence initiatives like joint Israeli-Palestinian bereaved families forum working for reconciliation.
The latest move by the Trump administration to cut funding to the Palestinians, including aid to organizations involved in coexistence efforts, will negatively affect the Parents Circle Families Forum, a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members to the conflict.
"It is heartbreaking to think that Trump will halt the last civil aid for NGOs operating on both sides of the border,” said Robbie Damelin, a bereaved mother who lost her son, David, when a Palestinian sniper shot him while guarding a checkpoint near the settlement of Ofra while doing reserve duty in 2002 during the second Intifada.
“Why would anyone think that something good can come out of causing the Palestinians to get down on their knees? Ending the aid to joint initiatives on both sides of the border will kill the last shreds of hope left between Israelis and Palestinians,” she continued.
Damelin is a member of the forum, a group of 600 Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families who have lost their relatives to the conflict and are now working to understand the narrative of the other side in the search for reconciliation on the road to peace.
Cutting the funding to organizations such as the forum is the recent step in a series of actions taken by the American administration against the Palestinians. The American government gave the forum a little over a million shekels per year.
The cessation of funds will severely impair the activities of the forum and will lead to the cancellation of meetings and activities.
US special envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, tweeted "I continue to believe in the importance of building relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, particularly kids. But Palestinian and Israeli kids will lose, and these programs will be meaningless, if the PA continues to condemn a plan they haven’t seen and refuses to engage on it. Hopefully the PA will lead... let’s see...”
Mazen Faraj from the Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, lost his father who was caught in an exchange of gunfire between the IDF and the Palestinians in Bethlehem during the Intifada.
"In recent decades the joint activities of Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families have given me hope that reconciliation could be achieved between the two sides," he said.
"The meetings in which everyone tells their story bring the participants to an understanding that we are all victims of the same reality," Faraj added.
"If we who have paid the ultimate price, and have all the reasons in the world to feel hate and revenge, can work together for a better future, then everyone can," he continued.
“President Trump's decision to cut the budget for organizations working for coexistence is a serious blow to the reconciliation process. This will deepen the feeling of despair on the Palestinian side, deepen the extremism on the Israeli side, and hurt us who only want to see a better future for the children of both peoples," Faraj concluded.
