Spent the evening at a vigil for Vittorio Arrigoni at Bethlehem's March 15 Youth Coalition "unity" tent. There were calls for perseverance and there were calls for blood. There were tears for Vittorio and for Juliano Mer Khamis, from those that knew them and those who did not.

The parents of Rachel Corrie, the American student who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer during the second Intifada, arrived halfway through the proceedings. Her mother spoke and quoted Coretta Scott King, gently urging everyone to remember that while at this moment "the pain is sharp and overwhelming, the cause we are fighting for is larger than the grief caused by the death of our loved one.”

A colleague of mine delivered a eulogy in short bursts, as another speaker translated her words from across the circle of mourners. “Vittorio was a big person, in every sense of the word. He was a tall, strong man. He used big words. He had a big smile. And a big heart.”

“He did his work under the banner: ‘Stay Human.’ For him this meant to always be struck by injustice, to be moved by it, and to act against it. We will not be deterred from continuing the work that he did—certainly not by this crime, which does not at all represent the Palestinian people.”

A doctor in the crowd, a native of Palestine who spoke to us all in English, ended his tribute to Vittorio with a crackling voice as he began to talk about the recent murder of another famous peace activist, his friend Juliano Mer. He suddenly spoke very slowly, and the candle in his hands started to quiver: “We will continue to do our best, to end all the violence here...to win ourselves a normal life,” until his features withered and he began to sob, “so we can finally stop things like this, from happening anymore.”

Finally, one man, when he was asked to speak, did so without tears: “I am not going to be as nice as everyone else here. I am not going to light a candle. I want blood.”

“In the second Intifada, anyone around who killed a fighter or a resistance figure, they would be hanging from a street lamp the next day. That is what happened. That is what the murderers of these men deserve. And that is what they will get.”

It is another dark night here. I’ll be at the bar.