Yousef Bashir promotes a message of peace in Israel despite his adverse circumstances
Last year, when MJ Rosenberg ’72 attended a conference for the pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby group J Street in Washington, he expected to mingle among upper-middle-class politicians and peacemakers from the United States and diplomatic officials from the Middle East. Instead, Rosenberg spent time with someone who was neither an American nor a diplomatic official. Rosenberg forged a relationship with Yousef Bashir, a 20-year-old Palestinian who had been shot by an Israeli soldier at the age of 15 and was the only person at the conference from Gaza.
“[Bashir looked] like a prosperous, athletic Jewish kid; like any Brandeis student,” thought Rosenberg, who is a writer for Media Matters, “a web based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center,” according to its Web site.
Bashir began his college career at Suffolk University but transferred to Northeastern University this semester to study International Affairs. Bashir had dreamed of going to Brandeis but was rejected this past semester when he applied as a transfer. Rosenberg immediately took interest in Bashir as Rosenberg and his son hold Brandeis degrees.
Bashir wanted to go to Brandeis to prove to fellow Palestinians that Jews and Arabs can learn together in peace.
“I wanted to be a Palestinian who graduated from a Jewish school to go back and help his own people,” Bashir says.
Rosenberg was amazed not only by Bashir’s story but also by his positive perspective on peace considering the violence that once surrounded him.
“You don’t realize how incredible and overwhelming it is to grow up in Gaza until you get out of it. I used to, and most of the kids would collect bullets for hobbies,” Bashir says.
Bashir was shot in 2005 when two United Nations officers came to visit his home. They had to obtain permits from several Israeli soldiers who were occupying Bashir’s home at the time in order to visit. The officers received a permit for only 10 minutes. Bashir and his late father sat with them in their front yard until the Israelis used a microphone to ask the officers to leave the house.
“My back was to the soldier that afternoon. I was wearing a soccer shirt; the number 19 was on the back, a player from Argentina. All of a sudden, I fell to the ground,” Bashir says.
Medical technicians took Bashir to a hospital in Tel Aviv. Bashir had suffered a shot to the spine. It was questionable whether he would ever have the ability to walk again.
Bashir has not been back to Gaza since the shooting.
“That’s when my whole life took a different direction,” he says.
Upon regaining his energy and his ability to walk, Bashir began to take interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and politics.
“[Before the shooting], all I really cared about was soccer. After I was shot, I grew up,” says Bashir. “Instead of being 15, I became 25.”
Still, Bashir forgives the soldier who shot him and those who occupied his home.
“That bullet was supposed to kill me, and it didn’t. I cannot deny that fact, but it gives me enough power to forgive them,” says Bashir.
This ability to forgive comes from Bashir’s father, who passed away this past September.
“I remember the soldiers banging my father’s head on the wall one night because he forgot to gather [us] into the room. [Afterward], he said [the soldiers] are all children. They don’t know any better. He said it wasn’t a big deal,” says Bashir.
Bashir’s was motivated by an interest in politics and his father’s message of peace to interview for a spot at a Seeds of Peace camp in Maine. Seeds of Peace is an organization that, according to the mission statement on its Web site, “[empowers youth] from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence.”
In summer 2005, Bashir attended the camp with 12 other teenagers from Gaza.
The camp houses teens from all over the Middle East, specifically from areas of conflict. The camp also houses American students who are interested in learning about international conflict.
That summer Bashir lived in a cabin with Daniel Acheampong ’11. At the beginning of the summer, Acheampong said that he felt a lot of hatred among his peers in his cabin made up of Israelis, Jordanians, Palestinians and Americans. Bashir’s message of peace immediately transformed the feeling of animosity in his and Acheampong’s cabin.
“Speaking to Yousef and [hearing] his ability to forgive really inspired me,” says Acheampong.
Acheampong and Bashir are still close friends today and see each other often.
Bashir says, “He’s one of the first characters I met in the states. The first conversation I really had with him, [was about] our dreams and what would happen. We promised to be friends [after camp] because when you go back to Gaza, you usually don’t come back.”
After camp, Bashir decided to live with his aunt on the West Bank. “After one month, she kicked me out because I was in Seeds. [She] thought I was being brainwashed,” says Bashir. Not long after, Bashir enrolled in an American boarding school.
After a couple of years in the U.S., it was through Acheampong that Bashir discovered Brandeis. He had known of the University, but it was through his visits to Acheampong that the University caught his interest.
Acheampong says that he finds many similarities between Brandeis and Seeds of Peace, as they are both devoted to open dialogue and social justice.
Bashir feels, though, that anywhere in the U.S. is a forum for open dialogue when compared to his homeland.
“I had a hard time talking about my views [in Palestine], so I decided the U.S. was the best place [for me],” says Bashir.
With all the hardships Bashir has endured, he is hopeful for the future.
“Every hardship I’ve gone through has happened when I [was] young. It’s early. So I think when I’m older, my life will be better for it,” says Bashir.
In 10 years, Bashir sees himself investing in Gaza. “Schools, hospitals, anything. Hopefully, I have a career in Gaza somehow, but [I hope] in 10 years it will be different, and I hope the people in Gaza won’t even need me,” he says.
Even though Bashir is attending Northeastern and not Brandeis, he is grateful. “I’m a really lucky guy. There [are] few that [leave] Gaza. I appreciate what I have,” says Bashir. “Education is education; it has nothing to do with our disagreements.”
Read Tess Raser’s article at The Justice »