Foreign Policy

• July 10, 2008

  Leo the healer: an untold story of Jewish/Palestinian medical partnership

  Originally published in Common Ground News Service
  

  WASHINGTON – It is the innocent victims of war that break our hearts when nations and groups cannot lay down their arms. We watch them bleed, we watch them die on a battlefield that is their home, and then we seethe with the outrage of Biblical prophets. But there are others among us who have no patience for impassive prophetic rage. They are the ones who sidestep the violence and, instead of shirking the bleeding of the innocent, replace the lost blood. They repair the bodies and thus embrace with both arms the ancient art of healing.

  There is a particular group of healers that share a common DNA. They are from two traditions, both tracing back to Abraham/Ibrahim, whose grave lies not far from the bodies that they repair. I speak of Jewish and Palestinian doctors who have partnered in their determination …