Juliano Mer-Khamis

Juliano Khamis (later Mer-Khamis) was born in Nazareth, the son of Arna Mer-Khamis, a former Palmach combatant who had turned communist and joined the Maki on experiencing disenchantment with Zionism after having participated in operations to drive Bedouin inhabitants out of parts of the Negev, and Saliba Khamis, an Israeli Arab of Eastern Orthodox Palestinian Christian descent who was an intellectual as well as one of the leaders of the Israeli Communist Party in the 1950s.

He was called Sputnik Hamis at birth.

He had two brothers, Spartacus and Abir.

His maternal grandfather was Gideon Mer, a scientist who pioneered the study of malaria during the British Mandate.

His father abandoned their household when he was 10 years old.

He attended school in Haifa.

His cousin is Palestinian hip-hop singer Shadia Mansour.

Mer-Khamis' first marriage was to Mishmesh Uri, with whom he had a daughter.

At the time of his death, Mer-Khamis was married to Jenny Nyman, a Finnish woman who did administrative and fundraising work for the Jenin theater.

They had three sons.

Khamis saw the birth of one son, but was killed while his wife was pregnant with their twins.

She gave birth to the twins a month after his death, and moved to Haifa to raise them.

Mer-Khamis served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a combat soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade.

He was a volunteer, since the army did not send him his draft papers, and he was eager to fight for his country.

He adopted his maternal surname, Mer, dropping the surname Khamis which identified him as an Arab and had caused him problems among fellow Jews.

While his mother was supportive of his enlistment, his father opposed it on grounds that the IDF was a fascist institution.

Mer-Khamis didn't disagree, but countered that, 'I must see with my own eyes that they are really fascist'.

He was eventually stationed in Jenin.

According to him, one of his tasks was to carry a weapons bag and if someone was killed by accident, a weapon would be left on the corpse.

Mer-Khamis said that while his squad was engaged in night-time firing practice they shot a shoulder missile at a donkey, accidentally killing a young girl seated on it.

Mer-Khamis said that a load of explosives were left on the donkey to cover up the incident.

He recalls beating up Palestinian protestors after they refused to disperse.

When asked why, he recalled: "I wanted to be on one side. I wanted to be with somebody. Because I felt like nobody."

According to one version, at one point he refused to obey his commanding officer's order to frisk an elderly man, punching the former instead, and spent several months in prison.

His release was won by the direct intervention of Isser Harel, who was his mother's cousin.

According to another version, published by the New York Times, at a checkpoint where he was assigned to search Arabs' cars near the West Bank city of Jenin, Mer recognized a car passing from Nazareth as belonging to his father's relatives.

This recognition triggered an act of defiance where he discarded his weapon and decided to abandon his post, declaring his intent to go home.

This act of desertion led to a year of repeated incarcerations and time spent in psychiatric institutions.

On his release from the stockade, he enrolled in acting school, and discovered his abilities in that field.

He made an appearance in The Little Drummer Girl, a film which deals with Palestinian terrorism.

Juliano Mer-Khamis (ג'וליאנו מר ח'מיס; جوليانو مير خميس; born Juliano Khamis; 29 May 1958 – 4 April 2011) was an Israeli and Palestinian actor, director, filmmaker, and political activist of Jewish and Palestinian Eastern Orthodox Christian parentage.

In 1987 he spent a year in the Philippines, consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms and talking to monkeys.

It was there that he felt, according to a later declaration, that he had shaken off all identities.

On his return, he lived as a beachcomber in Tel Aviv.

He protested against Israel's response to the First Intifada by stripping himself and walking about covered in fake blood.

Mishmish Or, an Israeli Jew of Turkish paternal and Egyptian maternal descent, picked him up off the sidewalks and gave him shelter.

The two would eventually have a daughter together, Milay.

In the meantime his mother Arna set up a children's center to teach over 1500 children in the Jenin camp and asked her son to join her there to teach drama therapy.

When the Second Intifada broke out, two of his former students, Yusuf Sweitat and Nidal al-Jabali, became suicide bombers in October 2001 at Hadera.

On 4 April 2011, he was assassinated by a masked gunman in the Palestinian city of Jenin, where he had established The Freedom Theatre.