Bassam Aramin

He is a Palestinian activist advocating for a peaceful and non-violent end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He studied History and holds an MA in Holocaust Studies from the University of Bradford (England). He is currently spokesperson and Head of International Relations at The Parents Circle - Families Forum (PCFF), an organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost family members to the conflict, which advocates that reconciliation is a prerequisite for peace. In 1985, when he was seventeen, he was imprisoned for his activism, and in 2007 his daughter Abir was murdered by an Israeli policeman as she was leaving school. Through The Parents Circle - Families Forum (PCFF), he met Rami Elhanan, an Israeli activist whose daughter was also killed in a Hamas suicide attack. Since then, Elhanan and Aramin have been working as a team to find a perspective for the future after their tragic experiences. Together they talk about the conflict and their grief, and advocate the attitude of conciliation, the ability to forgive and peace. This joint trajectory of activism has made them the protagonists of the novel Apeirogon (Published in Catalan by L'Altra and in Spanish by Seix Barral, 2021) by the writer Colum McCann.