BY FANNIE SUNSHINE
Adi Labadi was just 15 when he was shot in the leg while on a street in the Jenin refugee camp in Palestine.
Labadi, now 20, is well aware he could have made "bad" choices after he and a friend were caught in the crossfire of the Israeli Army, but instead chose to join the conflict resolution OneVoice Movement.
"After I was shot, I had anger," said Labadi, adding that his friend died. "At that age, you don’t know right from wrong. My parents were trying to keep me away from bad. And it’s really hard when you’re living in the middle of that."
Labadi and his Israeli counterpart, Smadar Cohen, spoke to York University students on Tuesday, Jan. 22 about their involvement with OneVoice, a grassroots movement working toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a two-state solution.
"When you lose friends, you become more angry, more aggressive," Labadi told The Mirror, adding he has friends in militias. "But my good friends try to keep me away from anything bad, even if they are involved with bad things themselves."
Life for Labadi in Palestine is vastly different from that in the western world, he said.
"You don’t really live a life, you just live," he said. "There are curfews, check points everywhere, you cannot really move freely and you see people getting killed."
Cohen has also seen her fair share of tragedies.
Her army commander was blown up in a bus outside the base. She’s lost friends in bombings and through army service. Her paramedic boyfriend was shot in Gaza while they chatted on the phone, surviving thanks to a bulletproof vest.
"Everyday life becomes harder," said the 24-year-old. "People are angry, resentful. In my opinion, Palestinian leaders have made problematic decisions throughout history and the Palestinian people suffer from it. We want to show both sides have suffered, but it’s time to look to the future. It’s not what happened, it’s what do we do now?"
Laurel Rapp, international education program manager at the OneVoice Movement, said the organization is not advocating for peace but simply conflict resolution.
"Each side faces particular challenges," she said. "We want the creation of an independent and viable Palestine that lives next door to an independent and viable Israel."