Well, everything looks pretty normal, doesn't it? And you'd have to say that if they can do it here, then sworn enemies should be able to stop killing each other just about anywhere in the world, even in the Middle East, where, of course, of late things have taken a turn for the worse. Here's Sophie McNeill.
REPORTER: Sophie McNeill
38-year-old Zohar Shapira is a model Israeli citizen. He lives in a model Israeli suburb and he spent 10 years as a model soldier, commanding an elite unit of the Israeli army.
ZOHAR SHAPIRA, (Translation): Daddy's going to a meeting. I'll be back later.
But today he's travelling, alone and unarmed, deep into what most Israelis consider enemy territory, the West Bank. That's because two years ago Zohar decided to break the mould.
ZOHAR SHAPIRA: Israeli attack, Palestinian revenge, Israeli revenge, Palestinian revenge. And so on and so on, years after years. And I understood that I shouldn't be a part of this stupid endless bleeding machine.
On the outskirts of Hebron, Zohar is meeting other Israelis and Palestinians who feel the same way. This is Combatants for Peace a remarkable group of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters that Zohar co-founded in 2005. Until recently these men were trying to kill each other.
YOUNG ISRAELI, (Translation): I felt that I had rejected a basic value, a driving force in my life, which is respect for life and respect for mankind.
KHALIL, (Translation): The Israelis can't wipe out Palestinians and Palestinians can't wipe out Israelis. Israelis and Palestinians have to live together peacefully.
CHEN: You have to know what is the obstacle for your group.
38-year-old Chen Alon used to be a major in the Israeli armoured corps.
CHEN: Like I want to be fully committed to the Combatants for Peace but I have family.
He can't believe how much he has in common with his new Palestinian friends.
CHEN: We grew up in the same way - we wanted to contribute to our country, to contribute to our societies, to our culture. And both of us has, not the moment, but achieved... an insight or some kind of an epiphany of understanding that violence is not the way, violence just creates more violence.
Despite the common goals it takes a lot of hard work to break down years of ingrained suspicion and fear. The Green Line that marks the border between Israel and the Palestinian Territories is psychological as well as physical.
ZOHAR: In the beginning it was frightening, you know, to pass the Green Line without your gun. I was scared, like, you know I was terrified because you see them as enemies, you believe that all of them wants to kill you all of them, all the time, everywhere.
CHEN: What is the obstacle in your group?
It's a constant battle for the group, which now has more than 160 members, to maintain and expand its activities.
CHEN: OK, geographical problems, OK.
Many of the Palestinian members face heavy travel restrictions, while Israelis are often prevented from visiting many parts of the West Bank. Bassam Aramin is one of the Palestinian members who never made it to the meeting. His home town of Anata is cut off from the rest of the Palestinian Territories by army checkpoints and the separation wall.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): We need walls and bridges of love, peace and coexistence, not walls of racial separation.
Bassam was 17 when he was arrested for attacking Israeli troops.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): I think I was 20 years old in this photo. It's in Hebron Prison where I spent 7 years.
For Bassam, the turning point was when he formed a friendship with one of his prison guards.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): Dialogue between us was an exchange of looks of hatred and detestation. But once he was talking to me and he said, "I can see you're a calm, nice guy. You can't be a terrorist or a saboteur." I replied, "I'm not a terrorist or a saboteur. I'm a freedom fighter." And then there was dialogue, or conversation.
Tonight Bassam and Zohar are speaking at a kibbutz in northern Israel. Members of Combatants for Peace frequently travel around Israel and the West Bank telling their stories.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): I think we have the right to speak and people must hear us because we are the fighters. We fought each other on your behalf and came to the conclusion we are actually endangered your lives.
ZOHAR, (Translation): During the second intifada, our actions at times bordered on, or crossed the line of, war crimes.
BASSAM, (Translation): The most common question was, "You have all our respect, you are a good person, a kind person, but how many Palestinians are there like you out there?"
ISRAELI MAN: Ideas and personal stories will never change something in this world. It's not enough to talk.
Bassam and Zohar's commitment to non-violence was sorely tested at the beginning of this year when Bassam's daughter was killed.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): "This is where the child Abeer Bassam Aramin was martyred by the bullets of the occupation troops on January 16, 2007.
11-year-old Abeer was on her way home from school when Israeli border police started firing rubber bullets and stun grenades near the students. Abeer was hit in the head and died two days later.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): She was the brightest person. She wanted to be an architect. These are photos taken when she participated in a summer camp attended by both Israeli and Palestinian kids at a zoo in Ramat Gan where she started to learn some Hebrew words so she could communicate with her Israeli friends.
ZOHAR: And, you know, I stopped my life and I was for all of the week with Bassam in hospital, you know, in the police and everywhere. And it is as kind of friendship that I had with my partners in the team, in the squad that I was in the army.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): Zohar, I can now say that we are friends, close friends.
Abeer's funeral was held at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. An investigation into her death is still under way, but to this day the Israeli authorities have not accepted that border police were responsible. At various times police have claimed Abeer might have been killed by a stone, or by sound waves from a stun grenade. But an Israeli pathologist hired by her family concluded she was killed by a rubber bullet.
ZOHAR: It's not politically correct to say but I was full of revenge feelings. I wanted to find this soldier, to break his bones, to destroy the checkpoint, to, I was full of revenge. I couldn't believe in the first days, again, in non-violence. And finally, or tragically, I don't know how to say, seeing Bassam's nobility.. How do you say - nobility? Nobility. nobility in those days, affected me to calm down, to open my eyes again, to open my brain, and not to listen to the revenge here.
BASSAM ARAMIN, (Translation): I said I did not want to avenge Abeer's death otherwise the same cycle of violence will continue, more killings which won't achieve anything, we won't see an end to this deadly conflict.
ZOHAR: It doesn't matter how courageous things I have done as a commander of soldiers, I think the things we're doing now are much more courageous and needs more... needs brave people to do them.
Credits
Reporter/Camera
SOPHIE McNEILL
Producer
AMOS COHEN
Editors
WAYNE LOVE
Translator/Fixer
Qasem Sabagh
Subtitling
RUTH MOSS
DALIA MATAR