We’re harboring a fugitive today. She’s a 17-year-old Palestinian from a small village in the northern West Bank, and she’s got to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language, required for international students to be accepted to American universities) tomorrow if she wants to get out of that little village and do something with her adult life.
Our fugitive is one of those stereotype-smashing hijab girls. We get one or two at Seeds of Peace camp every summer, and each one is unforgettable. They are talented, outgoing, witty, tough, wise, like so many of the kids that make it to our camp—but the hijab girls make an especially deep impression, because they come wrapped in the symbols of our deepest preconceptions. We will get to her story in a second, but first, definition:
HIJAB—the head scarf worn by observant Muslim women. The hijab covers just the hair—it is not a veil. It is the common outdoor gear for Palestinian Muslim women; the oppressive, face-hiding, and full-body-covering burkhas of Talibanistan are happily not in fashion here.
Actually, before I go any further, I’d better present the standard disclaimer, in order that the audience will listen to me and not their own preconceptions. DISCLAIMER: MY BIAS ON THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT—I’ve learned through guiding five years of Arab-Jewish dialogue and observing countless holier-than-thou arguments that if you have an opinion on the “Middle East situation,” you probably won’t read to the end of this paragraph to listen to mine.
You could be pro-Arab or pro-Israeli; as long as you’re passionate about the issue, you probably prefer lecturing to listening, and your first instinct in any discussion is to jump to conclusions about which “side” everybody else is on (I don’t mean to jump to conclusions about you; it’s just what I’m used to every time I try to explain my job). Well, don’t. Hear me out. I’m presenting the conflict through the eyes of teen-agers on both sides trying to live through it, so that’s worth a listen. It’s not what you’re used to. Trust me.
My bias on the conflict is that I’m against it. Having studied it thoroughly and observed it firsthand for five years, I’ve come to the definite conclusion that I am anti-the-conflict. It is a toxic element in our atmosphere. It is hazardous to human beings; it kills and maims hundreds every year, twisting bodies and minds into grotesque shapes that do not resemble the dreams of parents who brought them into the world. It has poisoned the souls of millions of Jews and Arabs and by absorption is steadily poisoning the souls of their great religions.
So I am militantly anti-the-conflict. It’s not just an ideological thing. It’s personal. It’s flesh and blood. This conflict is a clear and present danger to hundreds of incredible young Palestinians and Israelis whom I have been honored to befriend, who have the potential to do wonders in their lifetimes, if they will be allowed to really live. We lost one of our brightest stars, an Arab-Israeli boy named Asel Asleh already, gunned down last October at age 17 (details in upcoming diaries). For now, just bear in mind that I, like too many Palestinians and Israelis, know what it means to see a life stolen by the hatred and violence generated by this conflict.
Asel, of blessed memory, wrote presciently at age 15 to his Arab and Jewish friends on our e-mail listserv, SeedsNet: “There’s two things left to say: Enjoy every minute of this life while you’re still breathing … and second, be somebody, and not just anybody.” Those are guiding principles of our work: to enrich the lives of young people, and inspire them to make a difference in the world.
These are the spirit of Seeds of Peace. The founding principle, as repeated tirelessly by our president and founder John Wallach to every new group of Seeds, is to value equally human lives on both sides and to work to break the cycle of violence that destroys them.
That’s my bias. I am militantly pro the Israeli and Palestinian kids I work with, and militantly anti the threats to their freedom, safety, happiness and existence. That does put me at odds with a lot of elements on both sides, as both sides dedicate a staggering percentage of their national resources to threatening each other’s children.
If you feel your own bias rising as I criticize some Israeli or Arab policy or personage, it’s not because I hate one side and love the other. There’s a lot of people on both sides that I love, and some on both sides that I hate—but it’s not political or ethnic. My standard makes perfect sense in your basic human terms—I love people who bring something good into the lives of my kids, and I want to stop the people who are trying to hurt them.
NO! That’s more than 800 words already … it’s tough to meet this format. Guess I have to end with a preview: Meet stereotype-smashing hijab-wearing peace-making teen-age fugitive in Ned’s “Diary” tomorrow!
Read Ned Lazarus’ diary entry No. 2 at Slate »