AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about the Israeli Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What was his response to the issues you raised privately?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: You know, he was sitting in front of me next to his desk. Under his hand was the newspaper from the last day, and the pictures of all the Israelis, both Palestinians and Jewish, who died in a terror attack in Haifa. It was back in October 2003. And he told me that he's trying to protect these people from dying, and I’m just cooperating with the enemy. So I asked him if he can think how come that this young lawyer, who was this suicide bomber in this attack, decided to sacrifice his life and to kill innocent people. How does he think that, you know, people, civilians, become suicide bombers? “Don't you think that maybe we have to think, maybe we created this crazy jail, while people don't have any other reason, and they just don't have reason to live, so they become suicide bombers?” And he said, "You know what? I don't want to talk about this stuff," so what can I tell?

AMY GOODMAN: And the rationale of the Israeli government in Lebanon, that Hezbollah has been raining down missiles in northern Israel and that they have to protect the Israeli people and protect them for all time by routing out Hezbollah?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: You know, it's insanity, and it's a lie because my government now is refusing to cease fire. How can you in one hand cry about missiles that are attacking yourself, you, your family in Haifa, in Afula, in Kiryat Shmona, and at the same time refuse to cease fire? The same aspiration, the same idea that you can just kill and annihilate all of Hezbollah is the same logic of Nasrallah, that will kill all Israel or this kind of nonsense. And there is a lot of mental disorder issues here. And that's why I don't think that the solution for this situation will come from within the Israeli politics. That's why we have to work both from external pressure and internal pressure. The external pressure will be led by Israelis and Jewish people around the world with all the other human rights activists, and the internal pressure will be led by soldiers who refuse to participate in these war crimes.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a fighter, a Palestinian fighter who is with you in the group Combatants for Peace. Before we go to him in East Jerusalem, can you tell us about this group? Who's in it?

YONATAN SHAPIRA: We decided that it's not enough just to say no. We have to find out what do we say yes to, and actually my brother, who is also a refusenik, he was in the commando unit. He initiated this group with us and with several other Israeli refusers and Palestinian former fighters. We were all part of the violent struggle of our people, Israelis, as well Palestinians. And we decided a year and a half ago that we have to meet together and find a nonviolent way to struggle against occupation and against the circle of mutual violence, and we found out that these guys have a lot in common with us. We were meeting for about a year in secret meetings discussing our political views and our own process of transformation. And now after our launching event in last April, we decided that we are ready to go all over the world, in Israel, in Palestine, but all over the world to bring our message to the people.

AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira, let's turn now to Bassam Aramim, former member of Fatah, served a prison sentence of seven years, arrested in Hebron when he was 17 years old, speaking to us from East Jerusalem. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Bassam Aramim.

BASSAM ARAMIM: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how you came to be in Combatants for Peace? In Fatah, you were a fighter in the First Intifada?

BASSAM ARAMIM: Yes, I was a fighter before the First Intifada. As you mentioned, from the Fatah movement and recently I'm involved in the new group with Israelis, Combatants for Peace, which is composed from both sides and it's open for anyone who looks for peace and settlement for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have the main principles of our group, our courageous and moral group, first of all to put an end for Israeli military occupation to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem; to be free from settlers and soldiers and walls and checkpoints; to replacement of killing and bloodshed by peace and reconciliation between the two peoples; to implementation of the two-state solution, living side by side in full cooperation and peace.

And we have an important message in this group. We want to say to the Israelis and to the Palestinians and to all the world that we have a partner. We are partners. And the Israeli government must stop saying that there are no partners, there are nobody to speak or to negotiate with in the Palestinian side.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the response of other fighters and former fighters to you; for example, the people you served time in prison with? You served from 1985 to 1992. You were a leader in the Israeli jail?

BASSAM ARAMIM: Hmm?