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One Thousand Coffins Text and photos by David McReynolds
There, in the space where on other occasions thousands have rallied for various causes, were more than a thousand coffins—800 draped with Palestinian flags, 250 with Israeli flags. I am a hardened radical, but as soon as I saw the neat rows of coffins my eyes filled with tears. I walked down the rows. I looked at the banners posted on all four sides of the square, reading, “Better Have Pains of Peace Than Agonies of War.” I met some friends. I spoke briefly with a young Israeli woman who had lost her son to a suicide bomber. I thanked her for the action; she apologized for making me cry. I spoke briefly to a Palestinian mother holding up a photo of her child lost to Israeli fire. And then I walked away from the small crowd, found a concrete bench and broke down.
The coffins spoke to me. If I broke down after seeing them, it was because sometimes my anger is so great I forget that the seeds of life are what radicals must nurture—in this case seeds of life glimpsed in a sea of flag-draped coffins.
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the afternoon of March 20 I went to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United
Nations to see the coffin display arranged by Israeli and Palestinian
Bereaved Families for Peace. (Two groups cooperated on the project, the
Parents’ Circle of 200 families in Israel and National Movement for Change
in the Palestinian Authority). 
