Nour Shehadah lives with his wife in Tulkarem in the West Bank. Aged 40, he is now a social worker, but was previously a wanted man in Israel and leader of the local Fatah party. Today he is the Palestinian Coordinator for Combatants For Peace. I was born and raised in the Palestinian camp of Tulkarem. We lived in very difficult circumstances, not like human beings. All around me I saw violence, killings and arrests…when I was 15 two young men were killed right here in the camp. After that I decided that I wanted to take part in the resistance. In 1987, I became a student at Birzeit University. A year later they closed the university and I was arrested and beaten for my resistance activities. The intimidation was relentless…I ran and kept on running. While on the run I became responsible for the political and military wing of the local Fatah party. We would fight the occupation in any way to get freedom for the Palestinians….On the day of my wedding, in 1989, the IDF disguised themselves as women and came to arrest me…I escaped with my bride to a mountainous area…For the following six years I did not sleep in my own bed….I was caught and spent the next five years in prison. This was an extremely difficult time, with beatings, intimidation and mind games. The mental torture was worse than the physical violence. For ten days I was locked in a tiny, dimly-lit room with nine other people, all of us sitting with our hands and feet tightly bound: if you needed to go to the bathroom you had to do it on yourself. After my release I worked to help the Palestinian Authority take control away from Hamas. The violence escalated when Dr Thabet Thabet, a senior member of Yasser Arafat's movement and a man who believed passionately in the peace process, was shot dead in his driveway. …I also lost four of my best friends. It was around this time that I began to ask myself, where is all this violence getting us? Then, a woman who used to teach me at the university, asked me to head up a non-violent movement. As nothing else was working, I thought I would give it a try, and I gathered 20 people for a workshop and training. It wasn't easy convincing people to get involved, but the more I studied the writings of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, the more certain I became that this was the only way. I knew that non-violence would work better than violence. A lot of people in Tulkarem disagreed and called me a traitor, but I refused to listen. I've been involved in the movement from that day on, and through the years I've brought friends round to my way of thinking.

Erez Krispin is a high-tech entrepreneur, strategic consultant, and the co-founder of GurusFeet.com. He lives in Tel Aviv. Erez was an officer (reserve forces) in the Israeli Army, ranked Captain. He is an active member of the Nablus – Tel Aviv group of Combatants for Peace, special projects coordinator of the movement, and a member of its steering and management forums. Erez is also the co-founder and co-chairman of the Forum against Occupation of the Meretz party. I grew up in a family from a kibbutz with political leanings towards the right and so my early years were shaped accordingly - I believed that all Arabs ultimately wanted to chase us out of Israel ("They would throw us to the sea if they could…") and that the only option for us to survive was by being strong and aggressive in terms of military force ("The Arabs only understand force…"). I tended to believe that the territories occupied in the 1967 war were an integral part of the land of Israel, were essential to Israel's security and that we had the right to control these territories and the people who lived there. I was drafted in 1987 and enrolled in the officer's course. During the first intifada my cadet unit was sent to the Gaza strip…Every night we raided Palestinian houses in search of wanted people, especially in the refugee camp of Dir el-Balach, turning the houses upside down and arresting people. I could not overlook the great distress and helplessness on the faces of the people and the great humiliation they felt. I was especially shocked by the horrible conditions the Palestinians of the refugee camp lived in….There was constant tension in the air on both sides and a feeling that we did not belong there. This firsthand encounter with the realities of occupation and its consequences served as a catalyst for transforming my views. My second significant and influential encounter happened a few years later. I was summoned to serve as a co-judge in a military court in Ramallah. … These were the days of the height of the first Intifada and dozens of Palestinian detainees were brought to the court one after the other. Most were not given any opportunity to present their cases and many were not brought to the court at all and their detention was prolonged in their absence. …When I couldn't bear it anymore, I started to try to intervene in the speedy systematic process. I was then repeatedly silenced harshly by the presiding judge who stared sternly at me as though I was a trouble maker. I was furious at the legal circus in which I was ordered to take part…I was then immediately sent back to my home base. Only many years later did I decide to take a stand and act. I decided to meet Palestinian people in person and not through gun sights. That shattered completely my veil of ignorance about the conflict. I couldn't see then any option other than to make every effort to shatter other's veil of ignorance too, and in that way, save the shattering of more lives and hopes. That's precisely what we, Combatants for Peace, try to do. .