The mountain of Israeli-Palestinian friendship
Coordinates: 66 ° 0 ′ S , 65 ° 0 ′ W
The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship ( The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship ) is a 997 m high mountain peak near the Bruce Plateau in Antarctica . It was established in 2004 jointly by an eight-person team consisting of four Israelis and four Palestinians , climbed and named.
Background and preparation
The expedition was arranged by the Breaking the Ice organization . The founder of this organization, Nathaniel Heskel, wanted to show that Palestinians and Israelis could work together, despite the never-ending unrest in their homeland.
The members of the expedition sailed together in Tel Aviv and trained for about two months in the French Alps before setting off from Chile to the Antarctic.
Team members
Israeli team members
At the time of the expedition, Nathaniel Heskel was 40 years old and was a building contractor in Germany. He has served in the Israel Defense Forces for ten years .
Doron Erel was 44 years old at the time of the expedition. He is one of the best mountaineers in Israel and was the first Israeli to climb Mount Everest in 1992 . He later climbed the Seven Summits , the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. In 1990 he took part in the search for survivors of an avalanche accident in which 43 climbers were killed on Lenin Peak. He served in the elite Sajeret Matkal unit of the Israeli army. His parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland.
Avihu Shoshani, a lawyer, a former elite commander who had spent four years with the Israel Defense Forces, was 44 years old at the time of the expedition. He was part of the right-wing extremist political scene in Israel.
PhD student Yarden Fanta was 33 years old at the time of the expedition. At the age of 14 she emigrated from Ethiopia to Israel via Sudan . She was illiterate at the time . She spent the first 12 years of her life in a small Ethiopian village called Macha. There she helped her family look after the cows.
Palestinian team members
Football coach Nasser Quos was 35 years old at the time of the expedition. He spent three years in an Israeli prison for an incendiary attack on Israeli troops in the first Intifada . He later worked as a bodyguard for the PLO representative in Jerusalem Faisal Husaini .
Suleiman al-Khatib was 32 years old at the time of the expedition. He was a member of the Fatah party and was imprisoned in an Israeli prison for ten years for fighting against the Israeli troops. He was 14 years old at the time. While in prison, he studied Hebrew, English, literature and history.
At the time of the expedition, Ziad Darwish was 53 years old. His brother, a member of a radical Palestinian movement, was killed in a 1982 raid by the Israeli army. His cousin was the well-known Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish .
The journalist Olfat Haider was 33 years old at the time of the expedition and was the only Palestinian woman on the Israeli national volleyball team . She worked as a gymnastics teacher.
The expedition
The expedition started on January 1, 2004 in Puerto Williams in Chile , where the participants boarded the ocean- going yacht Pelagic Australis . The yacht steered around 600 miles in the most dangerous seas, including around Cape Horn and through the Roaring Forties .
After arriving in Antarctica, it took the tour group a week to reach the base of the mountain. In strong winds and poor visibility, in an area with many crevasses, they began their ascent. They set off in two mixed groups of four, with crampons on their boots and ice axes in their hands. The Israelis and Palestinians took responsibility for each other's life. After climbing over a glacier, they reached the summit at 4 a.m. on January 16, 2004.
On the summit, the three Muslim men knelt down in prayer towards Mecca . The Israelis opened champagne to everyone. Ziad Darwish was moved to tears. He said, “This moment is so nice to see Israelis and Palestinians doing these kinds of things together. But it also makes me think of all the terrible things we do to each other at home. ”(“ This moment is so beautiful, seeing Israelis and Palestinians doing this kind of thing together. Yet, it also makes me think of all the horrible things we're doing to one another back home. ”)
13,000 kilometers away from their home in the Middle East , the troop made a joint summit declaration that all eight had previously agreed:
“We, the members of Breaking the Ice, the Israeli-Palestinian expedition to Antarctica, having reached the conclusion of a long journey by land and sea from our homes in the Middle East to the southernmost reaches of the Earth, now stand atop this unnamed mountain. By reaching its summit we have proven that Palestinians and Israelis can cooperate with one another with mutual respect and trust. Despite the deep differences that exist between us, we have shown that we can carry on a sincere and meaningful dialogue. We join together in rejecting the use of violence in the solution of our problems and hereby declare that our peoples can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship. In expression of these beliefs and desires we hereby name this mountain The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship. "
“We, the members of 'Breaking the Ice', the Israeli-Palestinian expedition in Antarctica, came to the conclusion after a long journey over land and sea from our homes in the Middle East to the southernmost corner of the earth, now we are on top on this unnamed mountain. In reaching its peak, we have shown that Palestinians and Israelis can cooperate with one another with mutual respect and trust. Despite the profound differences that exist between us, we have shown that we can have sincere and meaningful dialogue. We unite in rejecting the use of force in solving our problems and hereby declare that our peoples can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship. In expressing these convictions and desires, we call this mountain The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship. "
The preparation of this summit declaration had led to heated debates a few days before the ascent of the mountain. Finally, the members had agreed to reject any trace of violence in their joint declaration. Despite the bitter differences of opinion about everything, about politics in the Middle East, the expedition members were nevertheless connected and helped each other during seasickness and poor weather and visibility conditions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Peace mission achieves its goal: "Like a stone that gets rolling". In: Spiegel Online. Der Spiegel, January 16, 2004, accessed on May 29, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c Israelis, Palestinians scale Antarctic summit . Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel) . January 2004. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ↑ a b c d Our peoples can live together in peace and friendship . The Guardian . January 19, 2004. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ↑ Breaking the Ice ( Memento of November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Mid-East rivals seek polar harmony (PDF; 69 kB) BBC . September 22, 2003. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved on December 20, 2010.
- ↑ Konrad Watrin: How fruit flies promote peace in the Holy Land. In: webarchiv.bundestag.de. The Parliament, No. 32–33, August 8, 2005, accessed May 29, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d Mid-East rivals seek polar harmony . BBC . December 28, 2003. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ↑ a b c d Team members for the 2004 antarctic journey were chosen from Israel and the Palestinian Authorities. . breakingtheice.org. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ^ Doron Erel - Jewish Mountain Climber . J-Grit.com. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
- ↑ NEW IMMIGRANTS . eretz.com. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
