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There was no ONE defining moment for me, but what struck my heart most forcibly were statements Palestinians made about personal loss: Monzer talking of his grandfather's Olive Trees being uprooted by Israeli tanks; Samah talking about her family in Gaza under the seige. These stories made me understand the importance of the right of return, and the pain individual families feel when they are under attack.

It really is no different to the pain and anger - and fear - that we Jews feel when we learn of anti semitic actions against our people anywhere.

Living in Israel , the concept of the Nakba is very threatening. I was reading a poem that Samah ' s father wrote and I read a line about longing for his homeland and it struck me as very similar imagery to prayers Jews say on Tisha B ' av which commemorates the destruction of the holy temple in Jerusalem in 70AD and the beginning of the Romans killing off and expelling the Jews from their land. It struck me that commemorating the Palestinian Nakba is like our Tisha B'av. Jews don ' t have the keys from their homes in Palestine from 2000 years ago but every year religious Jews fast partially to remember that we once had a home. It made me realize that our cultures and histories are more similar than we think.

I was delighted but not surprised to meet Jewish and Arab members of the group who share with me a common vision of humanity and Peace.

A Palestinian person (Monzer) indicated his view that the 'right of return' would NOT mean a flood of Palestinians into Israel. I understood that to mean that whether the final solution is a one state OR a two state solution, that both Israelis and Palestinians would live in a country (or countries) where no one is denied equality based on religion or ethnicity.

The opportunity to meet with Arabs & Jews seeking resolution of the conflict, rather than "victory" arose @ a heated meeting on the Situation. I realized that my community's best interests could be better served by working with like-minded members of the other community.

It was during lunch with an accomplished and widely respected Jewish-Canadian lawyer with whom I was discussing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In commenting on a statement I had made regarding the Palestinian Right of Return, he asked: "Don't you understand how important Israel , as a Jewish state, to Jews like me to feel safe?" It then hit me: Here I am with a man whom I thought would feel as safe as any other in this society in which he was very successful, but he needs Israel to be Jewish for him to feel "safe". That was my first true connection with the issue of "Jewish Fear" which is central to the conflict. Subsequently, I concluded that it is in the Palestinian people's best interest to find a permanent end to the phenomenon known as Jewish Fear. For the first time in my life, I could in my own mind see a common objective to the Palestinian and Jewish narratives; i.e. ending Jewish Fear as inseparable of reaching a justice-based settlement towards peace for all.

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Olly Wodin

There wasn't one. For the first few years each month I wasn't sure whether I would return again. Each month after the meeting I felt very uneasy about some of the discussion that had occurred. But I kept coming back. Then I started to get more involved with organizing public education events. Since then I've felt more “ownership” and commitment to Potlucks for Peace as a group. It is an on-going struggle to maintain the commitment to a group which challenges the righteousness of the actions of my “people”. It is more difficult, however, to do nothing.

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Dr.Safaa Fouda

The defining moment for me was when I realized that the right of return of the Palestinians to their home land is as legitimate as the need of Jews to have a safe haven. My hope is that both sides in the region come to that conviction.

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