Palestinian Arabs, Israel -- Galilee, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Middle East 

"The Jews and Palestinians are brothers, blood brothers," said Father. "We share the same father - Abraham - and the same God. We must never forget that."

Despite his father's words of peace, Elias Chacour sensed, even as a boy of seven, the strange tension that riddled the hills of the upper Galilee in early 1947.

For countless years, the people of his small, Palestinian village of Biram had lived in peace with their Jewish neighbors, bartering, discussing news and Scriptures in a simple celebration of life in a rugged land. They were bound to the soil, to their orchards and flocks, and proud of their spiritual heritage which ran in an unbroken line from the first century Church.

Then, in a surge of violence, it was all swept away. And the world turned its back.Tens of thousands of Palestinians lost their lives and nearly one million were forced into teeming refugee camps.

In exile in his own land, Elias faced a shocking encounter with the horrors of violence. Then his father, brothers and most of the village men disappeared.

In the passing years, he struggled inwardly, hurt by the world's seeming belief that all Palestinians are "terrorists"; struggled with his love for the Jews, and with the popular opinion that Palestinians have no right to the land of Israel. He reached a crisis:

"How was I to respond? I could not join the violent bands who were now attacking the country. . . . But neither could I live in the passive ways of Father and the elders. . . ."

Then he was confronted by the simple, haunting words of the Man of Galilee taught him by his mother: "Blessed are the peacemakers. . . ." What did these words mean?

As Elias was about to begin a quiet life of service to the Church, a challenge opened before him - a difficult, risky calling that would lead him through the midst of the world's most bitter conflict.

A way of hope and reconciliation beckoned.

Taken from the inside flaps.