Posted on Wed, Oct. 30, 2002

This is the story of two young men in the Middle East who overcame the millenary hatred that exists between their peoples to show the world that good can overcome evil, that despite the prevailing discord, there is hope.

THE JEW

• Yoni Jesner, a 19-year-old Scottish Jew, had postponed his medical studies in Glasgow to devote one year to deepen his knowledge of his religion in the Holy Land. In mid-September, on the eve of a Jewish holiday, he boarded bus No. 4 in Tel Aviv. Minutes later, a Palestinian suicide terrorist did the same and detonated an explosive that killed both.

Remembering Jesner's ethical commitments to Judaism and medicine, and after deliberating with doctors and rabbis, his family decided to donate his organs without placing any restrictions on who should receive them. Hours after he was buried in Jerusalem, Yasmin Abu Ramila, a 7-year-old Palestinian girl, received one of his kidneys. Yasmin was at death's door in an Israeli hospital, having waited two years for an organ that might rescue her from her congenital -- and terminal -- renal insufficiency. The girl is recovering.

''We are a single family,'' Yasmin's father told the press when referring to his family and the Jesners. ``They saved my daughter. Part of their son lives in her. We are a single people.''

Two other sick people received Jesner's other organs.

THE ARAB

• Some days later, Rami Mahamid, a 17-year-old Israeli Arab, was waiting for a bus in northern Israel when he became suspicious of another young man standing next to him, apparently a Palestinian, who carried a big black handbag and might be a suicide terrorist. Cordially, Mahamid asked the man to lend him his cellphone; he stepped away, dialed 100 and alerted police. Then he returned and engaged the man in conversation to allay suspicion.

Police rushed to the site to keep the next bus from stopping and asked the suspect to open the bag. When he did, the bag exploded, killing the terrorist and the officer who challenged him. Mahamid was seriously wounded in the blast. He could have escaped and allowed the attack to succeed, but instead, he frustrated it.

Two days later, Mahamid woke up in an Israeli hospital, tied to his bed and surrounded by policemen who suspected that he was an accomplice of the terrorist. After intense questioning, the officers concluded that they were wrong. The Arab youth became a hero.

''I feel I did what I should have done,'' Mahamid told the press. ''I would have done it even if it had cost me my life.'' His mother added: ``He couldn't tolerate the death of innocent people.''

Israeli authorities gave Mahamid a diploma for his extraordinary valor and for helping foil a terrorist attempt. And all of Israel hailed him.

At a time when warnings are issued about a war with Iraq, a bloodier war in the Middle East and possible terrorist attacks against the United States, and when we hear about massacres in Africa, racial strife in Europe and social hatreds in Latin America, the example of Jesner and Mahamid reminds us that, when God created man, He looked upon His work and -- according to Genesis -- ''saw that it was good.'' That is our true nature.

THE RIGHT TO LIVE

Although they came from opposite environments, the young Jew (through his parents' decision) and the young Arab avoided the whirlpool that has swallowed their societies. To them, it was not a matter of race, creed or religion, but of human beings with the right to live.

Regrettably, these humanitarian gestures that symbolize the ideal world to which we all aspire are silenced by the atrocities we read daily. Situations similar to that involving these two young men perhaps occur everywhere, yet we're unaware of them.

But to those of us who hear the story of their heroic deeds, Jesner and Mahamid -- without knowing it -- have given renewed hope.

Daniel Shoer-Roth is a staff writer for El Nuevo Herald.

© 2001 miamiherald and wire service sources.