by Amos Davidowitz

Introduction

Of the many books that have come out of Israel regarding war and its combatants "The Seventh Day", as an example consists of dialogues and monologues of soldiers caught in the reality of the Six Day War, and speaks of the "purity of arms" and coins the expression  "shooting and weeping" to describe soldiers caught in the moral dilemma of their task. During the past year (2001) I have served over sixty days active reserve service in the Al-Akasa Intifada and preparing for war. During the same year, I have brought young people from Albania, Brazil, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Georgia, Hungary, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lesotho, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Palestine, PDR Laos, Philippines, Republic of Ireland, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The USA, Togo, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Yugoslavia and others in peace leadership training and peace education training.

This book is an ethical will written by a father to his children just before he is about to go off, once more, to combat. It was prepared at the request of my wife, to leave for my children in case I am killed in combat. It sheds light on the moral world of the combat officer entrusted with the life�s of men. It speaks directly to our times as the USA, Britain and others mobilized their armed forces sending their men and women off to battle in Afghanistan. It is uniquely Middle Eastern, as it deals with the realities of this seemingly intractable conflict.

For many the success of the Alliance forces in Afghanistan seem like a dream come true. Where armies could not for millennia, the Americans have succeeded. Once more Israel has seen an enemy vanquished by the hand of its American ally. For me, the successful campaign against the Taliban was partially a nightmare. For now war seems once more a viable option to many. I have led men into battle, through battle and to the end of battle, but you can never lead men out of battle. It always stays with you. I fight because my country is at war, but I choose to labor for peace because I know war will solve nothing.  This book is about my life as a veteran combat officer and my quest to make peace around me. I do not fight for peace, I try to gently pick up the pieces of a world I shattered and mend them. This book is about what you do not read in the papers.  This book is about what I want my children to know when my luck runs out.

Five years ago I was a player in one of the little ironies of history, I was sitting with a Palestinian friend and peace co-worker thinking what the next step was to be. He is a descendant of the famous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Haj Amin el Hussieni. The Grand Mufti was the father and spiritual leader of the Palestinian nationalist movement and a supporter of Adolf Hitler. I am a descendant of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Kalisher the spiritual father and early leader of the religious Zionist nationalist movement. For two years we have been working together on encounters between young Israelis and Palestinians, trying to undo the Gordian knot our forefathers had created. 

We were sitting in the Orient House, the center of Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem, the bitterly contested capital of both national movements. His office was packed with computer equipment, part of the organizing stages of the fledgling Palestinian National Authority.

Sitting together, drinking coffee we felt we needed to change the dynamics of our people. "You know what the problem is? I said, The problem is we see ourselves as a problem, and as long as we do that we shall be stuck."

That thought was the starting point for a project we developed called The Youth Institute. Five years later, I am sitting in the community center of a church in Hanover Germany. I am here to participate in the global dialogue on poverty, part of Expo 2000.  I have been invited to provide a perspective on the connection between poverty, violent conflict and the role of civic society in dealing with these issues.

I am waiting for a colleague I have never met, to travel together to a meeting at the fair grounds. As I am waiting my mind wanders in free association about:

The irony of being in Germany, the country that all but destroyed my family, to lecture about peace.
Sitting in a church that clearly has seen better days and is now trying to restructure itself in a less religious time.
Taking in the differences in design of the neo gothic church and the newly built functional community center I am staying at.
 
As I sit and think I become aware of my companion coming down the stairs.  He is a dark skinned African man dressed in a light blue traditional long shirt and pants and is wearing a small turban of wrapped cloth on his head. He is Mr. Boubacar, from Burkina Faso a country in Africa, I introduced myself and explained that I was told we were to travel together.

Mr. Boubacar is a slight man, at peace with himself and spiritually at ease with a smooth paced glide, a calm serene face and gentle voice. He brought to mind water in a stream, clear, refreshing, yielding yet extremely powerful.  As we entered the taxi we exchanged cards and  within a minute or so we were deep in discussion about the ethical and spiritual aspects of our respective work. He spoke of his work as a veterinarian and his efforts to teach his tribes people, the Fulani, about how to produce healthy milk. He spoke of his efforts to develop cooperation between the herders and the farmers in his country and about how poverty was a state of mind, an illness that needs spiritual and material healing. Most of all he spoke with great wisdom of the interdependence of environment, spirit, personal health and community well being. I spoke of what I do as we effortlessly entwined our understandings illuminating for one another aspects of our work. We spoke at length of how we arrived at the work we do mixing both personal narrative and political realities.

Completely out of the blue he said to me: "You should write a book about what you do and your perspective, but write it not for yourself, write it for others".  I somehow felt that this meeting and this directive was not coincidental. I knew then that it was to be.

A decade later, as I was telling this story to a friend he said: "What an interesting character! Have you read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a thousand faces" the hero is often summoned to his journey by such a character, and Sufi stories are full of such characters. This scene is THICK with magic". I am not a hero, and Mr. Boubacar is a real person with a phone number and an e-mail address, it was not magic but it was mystical and potent.

The second incident that led me to writing this was the tension leading up to my reserve military service at the end of 2000. I am a Major in the reserves of the IDF and the commander of a mechanized infantry company. >From the outset of the Al Akasa Intifada I was put on immediate alert. I packed my bags, phoned my officers and started preparing for what was to come. These phone calls are always hard, because the wives are always worried. I cannot honestly say that their loved ones will return home safe. All I can do is promise to try. I can not explain why it is their husband being called and not the neighbor�s. I cannot explain all the political aspects of the situation and can not change it. They know that, but they want someone to provide some sense of security that their husbands, the father of their children, will return home. 

Three times I sat on my back porch, in uniform, my gear packed, with family and friends, waiting to be picked up. There is no excitement of impending battle or visions of glory. All I feel is an overwhelming encompassing responsibility that gets translated into a million details. By the time we finally went, at the end of 2000, the fighting was raging full force. This was not my first combat mission, but things felt different, more lethal. I prepared all the military things I needed and I decided to get my personal things in order, in case I did not return. I discussed things with Lisa, my wife. She knew that this was not normal times and asked that I write an ethical will for the children, that I leave them with a map for life.

I decided to do this within the framework of the virtual community I participate in, Brainstorms, run by Howard Rheingold. Brainstorms is an Internet based discussion group made up of participants from around the world. I thought handing a document to Lisa and my children before I left would be overwhelming, but I knew my friends at Brainstorms would get it to her and the kids, if I was killed. The format is letters to my children, for them to read after I was gone. The response I got from the Brainstorms community was completely out of proportion, in my eyes. All I felt I was doing was talking to my kids, but others thought there was wisdom in these words. A bit confused I decided to try to dismiss or validate the response and sent the letters to few other choice people, and to my family. The response was the same.

I am an American born Jew living in Israel for 30 years. Some of the details will be alien to you, but the essence is universal. If I fulfill with these words Mr. Boubacar's  directive, then I am truly blessed.