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#DialogueIRL: Two reformed extremists find their “why”

Apr 19, 2019 / No Comments

One was once a white supremacist. The other, a former Taliban recruiter. On Wednesday, they joined Seeds of Peace Director of Global Programs Kiran Thadhani at Brooklyn Law School for the Tanenbaum Center’s Courageous Conversations series.

The duo discussed their journeys to radicalization, their paths out, and how we can use dialogue to confront extremism in a divided society.

“A huge pull for white supremacy,” Arno Michaelis explained to the crowd, “is that it’s forbidden. That it’s frowned on by civil society. If things aren’t going well in your life, if you’re not comfortable with who you are and you have a poor self-image, one real easy way to bolster it … is to think you know things that everyone else doesn’t know and to feel like you’re pissing off the status quo.”

Arno became an active member of the white power movement starting at age 16, and eventually co-founded what became the largest racist skinhead organization in the world. But over time, the cognitive dissonance of his worldview became too great to ignore.

“I was telling this story that the world was supposed to revolve around, when real life was contradicting everything I was saying on a regular basis. And that hypocrisy was driven home by the kindness of others.”

Arno recalled a moment where that came to a head. “I remember going to McDonald’s on my first payday, and behind the counter was this elderly black woman who has a smile on her face that is so authentic. Like everything that is good about being a human being was embodied in this woman’s smile … And it made me so uncomfortable, because I was trying so hard to hate her.”

When she saw the swastika tattoo on his finger, Arno said, it was the beginning of the end. “I’m 6’3”, but in that moment I felt six inches high. And when I finally looked back up at her, she just calmly told me, ‘I know that’s not who you really are. You’re better than that.’ I felt destroyed.”

While teenage Arno thought himself an outcast, Mubin Shaikh was popular at his high school. But after his uncle caught him hosting a raucous house party with his classmates, Mubin developed an identity crisis over his relationship to his religion that drove him to extremism.

“[The uncle] was like, ‘Oh my God, what have you done, you’ve defiled the home, people pray here,’” Mubin told the audience. “And immediately this shame and guilt took over me. I decided that in order to fix myself and salvage my reputation, I had to get really religious.”

He travelled to India and Pakistan, where a chance encounter with the Taliban led to him spending years as a recruiter for the organization. But after the September 11th attacks, he began to reconsider his views. In 2002, he sold his possessions and moved to Syria to study Islam.

“I met with a Sufi priest twice a week,” Mubin told the audience. “He reminded us that when we read the Quran, we always say, ‘In the name of God, who is full of grace and full of mercy.’ And he asked us, ‘Before you do anything, do you do it with grace and mercy? If not, you’re not following the religion.’ He systematically debunked every idea I had. By the end, I became an adversary of my old self.”

After hearing their stories, Kiran remarked, “In both of your experiences there was this question that everyone, and especially teenagers, have. And that is, ‘Who am I? Who am I as I exist in my community, in this body, in this larger system and structure that I’m a part of?’ And that is where dialogue enters.”

After the panelists spoke, audience members broke into pairs to discuss subjects they have difficulty talking about with others, followed by a Q&A with the panelists. One person who identified as liberal and who has a gay child asked for advice on how to talk to her parents about their support of Trump.

“Something that has been very helpful to me personally,” Kiran responded, “is rather than framing the conversation around, ‘How could you be a Trump supporter, knowing what you know about me and about your grandchild?’ is instead taking a couple steps back and taking time to understand the why.”

“Maybe they’ll say, ‘I’m a Trump supporter because he’s a businessman, and I’m concerned about the economy.’ And so you can ask, ‘So why is that? Why do you care so deeply about the economy?’ and really try to peel back the onion, if you will. Because what makes dialogue so different from debate or a discussion is that you start to understand there are values, there are narratives, there are stories behind why people are making the decisions that they’re making.”

“Entering a conversation with that framing of stepping back,” she continued, “also causes them to step back. And then what they’re doing is having to ask themselves, ‘Why is that something I value? Is that something I’ve just been told to value? Is there a story that informs that?’”

Another useful tip Kiran told her was to name the discomfort in the room when having difficult conversations. “Pointing out that it feels weird, that it’s uncomfortable for you to tell your parents these things, and hearing that discomfort from your parents, is important. Because it’s about building trust, and it takes a lot of trust to do this work.”

“This may sound silly, but being true will find what’s true. If you’re being honest and uncomfortable, you’ll find that there will probably be that on the other side. There’s discomfort in conflict, so it’s okay if there’s discomfort in dialogue.”

Greg Barker, Seeds of Peace Manager of Facilitation Programs who attended the event, shared how talking with a stranger can make it easier to practice just that.

“There is this safety in anonymity with a stranger,” he said. “I can be vulnerable about what scares me so much because I don’t know you, and if you don’t like it, I can walk away. As I’m doing this, I’m building up my own resilience and my own courage so when I have a difficult conversation with, say, my family or friends, I’m more prepared and more able to deal with the things they say that hurt me.”

Why I’m Shocked and Inspired by Kids4Peace | The Forward

Oct 27, 2015 / No Comments

By Elana Sztokman

Last Thursday, at a meeting of parents of Kids4Peace, I had a remarkable experience that both shocked me and inspired me.

It’s unique Jewish-Muslim-Christian camp for residents of Jerusalem and its environs, in which my daughter participated last summer. Over the last year, the children have met regularly and their parents have met simultaneously in adjoining rooms. It has been an eye-opening experience, a powerful reminder of the importance of getting to know people around you — especially people who are different from you.

This sounds like such a simple concept. But it is a remarkable fact of life in Israel that Arab and Jews who are sharing the same air and the same space and the same hot, daily grind, whose lives are so intricately bound up on one another, for the most part barely speak to each other.

One of the most precious aspects about the Kids4Peace parent meetings is the discovery that, as parents, we are all pretty much the same. We all try to get our kids off the computer, we all try to get them to clean up their rooms, we all live for school plays, academic presentations, sports games, and we all really just want a nice life for ourselves.

Still, Thursday night, October 22, was a little different. This was the first time we were meeting in a context of violent tension. Many people at the meeting said that they don’t remember a time when Jerusalem was this edgy: when life had completely come to a halt as everyone seemed to be staying home.

People are so anxious right now that Kids4Peace held a phone meeting for parents a few days earlier, under the assumption that most would not want to come in person. Significantly, Thursday’s group proved them wrong and, despite the surrounding events, some 60-70 parents turned up, from all sectors of society.

As people began sharing feelings and experiences, one Arab woman described a scene that really shook me. She had been looking after her elderly father in the hospital for the past few weeks, which gave her a ringside view of the comings and goings in the hospital around terror attacks. One day, when a female soldier had been stabbed and badly injured, the hospital staff made visitors make room for them to wheel the victim through the corridors. As she stood with her 8-year-old son she had a jarring conversation with him. He assumed, she told us, that the victim was an Arab woman. The mother said, “No, she’s Jewish”

“I don’t understand,” the child replied. “Why would a Jew stab another Jew?”

“No, no,” she gently explained. “The attacker wasn’t Jewish. He was an Arab.”

The boy could not comprehend this. His mother recounted that in his mind, the only violence that exists is Jews hurting Arabs. This is all he knows, and it’s all he has seen. He had no idea that the violence goes the other way, too.

When he realized his mistake, he said, ”That’s okay then.”

The woman, who is a long-time peace activist from Jerusalem who currently works in hi-tech, was also shocked by part of the conversation. And she said plainly, “I failed as a parent.” How can her son ever justify violence, she painfully wondered out loud.

Still, I don’t think she failed at all. First of all we cannot control everything our children see and experience. Second, she is trying to have compassionate conversations with her son and instill in him a deep sense of shared humanity — which is I think what many of us are trying to do. And let’s face it, considering the social and political tensions we are living through, it is a hard task. I told her, in the way so many of my female friends are constantly telling one another, to be kinder to herself. Still, she was shaken by the discovery that her son had it in him to believe that sometimes violence is okay, if it sort of “balances the scales” so to speak.

I was shocked because I could not believe how different the world looks for Arab children and Jewish children living in the same city.

For Jews, the only violence that we see or that “counts” is violence perpetrated against “us.” Against Jews. Meanwhile, for Arab children, apparently the only violence that they see is violence perpetrated against them. There is a symmetry here that would be charming if it weren’t so utterly tragic.

Jews like to deny this. When “numbers” of killed and injured on both “sides” are counted, Jewish pundits will go immediately to arguments of self-defense. Israeli news outlets frequently report only numbers of Jews dead, not Palestinians. News reports say, “There was an attack. No casualties reported; three terrorists were eliminated.” So actually, three Palestinians are dead, but their deaths don’t count as deaths if we can call them terrorists. Nobody dead means nobody Jewish dead. It is chilling that this is standard reporting in Israel.

Why are we then surprised that in the Palestinian community, they do the same thing? Why do Jews have so many media watchdogs to correct Palestinian narratives when our own narratives are just as skewed? It’s all messed up.

Plus, there is something even more chilling in this new round of violence in that so many of the terrorists are kids. I cannot conceive of a 13-year-old boy as a terrorist. I don’t know how he got to be a knife-wielding, but we cannot simply label a 7th or 8th grader as a “terrorist” without asking difficult questions about how he got to where he is. I don’t know the stories of these teenagers committing acts of violence, but I do understand that their families and friends will mourn their death regardless of their weapons. Israel may not count Palestinian dead as dead, but we should not be surprised that 8-year-old children witnessing events certainly will count their dead as dead.

One of the opinions shared by almost everyone in the group was that there is an awful lack of leadership — on both sides. When Palestinians said that Israelis need to elect better leaders, I could feel myself sinking into my post-election depression. Bibi again? What’s worse, he won precisely because of how successfully he instilled a fear and hatred of the other in Jewish Israeli minds: Run to the ballots because Arabs are voting in swarms, he effectively told voters on Election Day. And it worked! When people in the group last night said, “Elect different leaders”, all I could think was, I wish I knew how.

Significantly, it seems from our discussion that the Election Day experience has had a powerful impact on this current wave of violence. The dreadful validation that Arab Israelis — citizens and taxpayers of Israel — are still viewed by Israeli leaders as “the enemy” was a slap in the face to so many people. I totally get that. Rather than embrace Arabs who want to create a normal life for themselves in Israel, rather than look for ways to build bridges and find common ideals and passions, Bibi time and again reverts to the narrative that all non-Jews are potential enemies. Bibi created this nightmare that we are all living in.

Still, I said that I also came out hopeful. And that is because despite all of this, there are still many people (many? I don’t know exactly what many means, but enough to fill two large rooms with engaged conversation) on both sides who believe that another way is possible. There seems to be a growing number of people who are willing to think differently from friends around them, who are willing to challenge traditional narratives that we have all been fed about the “other” in society, and who are willing to consider perspectives other than their own.

This makes me hopeful because, previous elections notwithstanding, I think we are living in changing times — times when social media creates blink-of-the-eye awareness of events and at times unexpected relationships. Although researchers are mixed about whether social media makes people change their views on things or whether it creates millions of echo chambers, I think that it is impossible not to be influenced, even a little, by the volumes and volumes of ideas and perspectives that come through our personalized news feeds. It’s just not possible that we are not all changing, even a little, as we learn more about others. We are exposed to so much stuff all the time. And sociologists generally confirm that we are all becoming a little less driven by traditional communal affiliations and are instead redefining boundaries of affiliations, creating our own customized connections and communities. I think maybe this creates new opportunities – like the Kids4Peace parents meeting – for all of us to come to new understandings and new awareness.

At least I can hope. Hope itself is an idea worth hanging onto at times like this.

Elana Maryles Sztokman, PhD is founding firector, The Center for Jewish Feminism

Read Elana’s article in The Forward ››

Thanksgiving seminar focuses US Seeds on role of American leadership abroad

Nov 26, 2012 / 1 Comment

NEW YORK | After stuffing themselves with food and gratitude on Thanksgiving, 20 American Seeds traveled to New York City to stuff themselves with food for thought.

This year’s Thanksgiving Seminar brought timely and challenging issues to the table. Seeds in attendance heard from a diverse group of older graduate Seeds to get perspectives on the US elections and the current escalation of violence in Gaza and Israel.

American Seed Coordinator Sarah Brajtbord designed the event as a launching point for a new chapter in American Seeds programming.

“Historically, American Seeds programming has focused, rightly so, on what is happening ‘out there’ in regions of conflict,” said Brajtbord, herself an American Seed from 2006. “Now we are taking the next step by pushing Seeds to connect the US to the international and the international to the US, and examine the complexities of US-international relations.”

Brajtbord believes that the event set an exciting tone for the rest of the year in American programming. Topics in current events helped the Seeds discuss deeper, underlying questions about their roles as Americans.

“What do you think America’s role is in the Middle East?” asked one of the graduate Seeds who addressed the group. Bashar, a Palestinian Graduate Seed living in Israel, posed the question to get the Seeds to look inward. It was a question many of the American Seeds had thought about at Camp, without directly addressing as a group.

“The conversation following Bashar’s talk really inspired me to take my role as an American Seed seriously,” said Erica. “It pushed me to define who I want to be in the Seeds community and in my community as well.”

Brajtbord says that the American Seeds’ Camp experience is a dramatically eye-opening experience, and that it is important to help Seeds manifest that experience in their lives back home.

“These are future American leaders, no matter where they go in their lives. We have to localize and ground their experience in the American context while also doing justice to the world-opening experience of Camp.”

The event helped enrich Seeds’ understanding of nuanced issues.

“The seminar added a lot of complexity to my understanding of U.S. foreign policy and what I think we should and should not be doing in other countries,” said Sarah, an American Seed.

Mona, an Egyptian Graduate Seed who covered the Arab Spring for The New York Times, spoke to the Seeds in person about her experiences as a journalist and her views on the US role in the Middle East. She challenged the Seeds to understand that there are always more than two sides to a story—and to a conflict.

From Kabul, Afghan Graduate Seed and journalist Mujib addressed the US elections from an Afghan perspective and shared the local outlook on President Obama’s plans to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014.

“When I’d talked to the Afghan girls in my bunk about American involvement, they had wanted the US out immediately,” said American Seed Kalyani. “But Mujib said that many citizens didn’t feel their government was stable enough for the U.S. to leave as planned.”

The timing of this year’s seminar meant that violence in Israel and Gaza, as well as its effects in the Seeds community, weighed heavily on Seeds’ hearts and minds. Two Seeds of Peace staff members who run Israeli and Palestinian programs—and who are Seeds themselves—explained how they are adapting their work in light of the violence and how American Seeds can help to support their peers.

“The whole discussion reinforced my image of Seeds as a place where they do not pretend to have all the answers to the issues but are really willing to help you work through the tough problems,” said American Seed Francesca after the event.

Brajtbord was impressed with the way American Seeds focused on current events from international as well as domestic perspectives.

“Rather than just talking about US elections as domestic issues, for example, the conversation focused on intersections between the domestic and the international. Even when the discussion shifted to current events in the Middle East, conversation kept coming back to what the US is and is not doing.”

While they may feel physically distanced from conflicts around the world, American Seeds have a unique opportunity for engagement.

“Even if we do not have the resources to go across the world to Palestine and Israel and help out there, simply being active members of our community in this issue and others will be beneficial to conflicts worldwide,” said American Seed Anour.

Living with the enemy in the Gaza Strip
The Arabist

Oct 13, 2011 / No Comments

Yousef Bashir, 22, lives with a bullet lodged near his spine. “When I imagine myself without the bullet in my back I ask myself would I be the same?” he said. “That bullet talks to me and I talk to it everyday. It is a very personal thing that I go through,” he continued. “I know that it was put there to destroy my life. I look at it and I say I am not destroyed yet.”

Bashir has very personal ties to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. He grew up in the Gaza Strip next to the Israeli settlement Kfar Darom, which was evacuated in 2005. The battle lines ran right through his house. When the second Palestinian Intifada broke out, Israeli soldiers moved into his home. Bashir was 11 years old at the time. His father, Khalil Bashir, refused to leave the house and so the family – Yousef Bashir, his grandmother, parents and his siblings – spent five years living with the soldiers, who occupied the top two floors.

The soldiers tried to make Khalil Bashir leave the house so many times, Yousef Bashir said. But his father would say, “Why don’t you leave this house, this is my house.” His father was afraid if they left they would never see their home again.

The Israelis divided his house into areas A, (full Palestinian control ), B (Palestinian civil control and joint security control with Israel) and C (near full Israeli control) – just as the West Bank had been divided as part of the Oslo Agreements. In Bashir’s house, Area A was the room in which they were allowed to stay on the ground floor. Area B included the bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms. Area C was the second and third floors of the house. Bashir never asked for permission from his parents to do anything, he said. But he had to get permission from the Israelis to go outside or to watch a soccer game on television, he said. “I had to negotiate with them.”

It was not an easy time. Most of the soldiers were extremely rude. “Most of them were harsh,” Bashir said. “Most of them were at war.” Camouflage and barbed wire covered the roof and there was a machine gun and security camera posted on top of the house. Bashir said he had seen the bodies of a number of young dead Palestinian men near his home. The circumstances of their deaths unclear. Violence was no stranger. His second oldest brother was shot in the leg, his father too was shot.

Then it was his turn. On February 18, 2004, workers from the United Nations visited Bashir’s family to see how they were coping with their living situation. After 20 minutes, the Israelis ordered the U.N. to leave. Bashir and his father walked the U.N. workers back to their car. “As we were slowly reversing we heard a single shot fired,” said Stuart Shepherd, who had the time was with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Yousef basically just fell to the ground immediately, just crumpled.” He was 15 years old at the time. The bullet stopped near his spine. “Yousef had his back to the Israeli observation tower and was waving goodbye…at the time when the shot was fired,” according to Shepherd. (Disclosure: I worked with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but not at the time Yousef Bashir was shot.)

Bashir does not know the Israeli soldier who shot him. According to media reports, the Israeli Army apologized for the shooting.

That tragedy allowed Bashir to escape the hell that the Gaza Strip has become. After Bashir was stabilized in a Gaza hospital, he was transferred to an Israeli hospital. Bashir credits the Israeli doctors with saving his life and giving him the ability to walk again. He went on to study in Ramallah, which is where I met him years ago. He later went to the United States, where he is currently studying international affairs and diplomacy. He fundraises to pay for his college tuition. He still needs physical therapy twice a week and takes pain killers.

But Bashir said everyday he chooses not to be angry, something he learned from his father who died recently from a stroke. Everyday, Bashir chooses to forgive, but it is challenge. “I hear the news, I see how the Palestinians are treated,” he said. “But deep inside me I can never find any reason to hate.” Bashir cannot return to Gaza to see the rest of the family he left behind because he is afraid the Israelis would not allow him to leave once in the occupied territory. He does not want to risk his education in the U.S. Perhaps if the Palestinians had their own state things would be different.

“We should have had a state a long time ago,” Bashir said. A state would mean more responsibility and perhaps more problems he thinks. But once you are a state, “you are responsible for everything that happens within your territory,” he added. “But it is a good thing to show the world that we want to live in a democracy… We are willing to live in peace.”

“I was never a child,” Bashir said. He was seven years old the first time the Israeli settlers came into his house. They hit his mother and destroyed everything inside the house, burning things. His family locked themselves in the living room, but his oldest brother – who was in the sixth grade then – was not able to make it into the room in time and the settlers broke his teeth.

What should happen to the settlers should the Palestinians get a state? Bashir said he is not interested in what would happen to the settlements. “I am interested in knowing how long would it take for the settlers to realize that the ultimate price for their lifestyle is my freedom.”

Bashir said that when the last group of Israeli soldiers left his family’s house in the Gaza Strip, two of the soldiers thanked his father for his unwavering determination to be a peaceful man even in the most trying times.

“At the end we got the house back and they left,” Bashir said. “We did not fight, we did not carry a weapon, we did not fire anything,” he added. “We just believed in peace… and that is how it should be in the future.”

Read Jenifer Fenton’s article at The Arabist »

Seeds of Peace to host Action Summit

Sep 14, 2006 / No Comments

Seeds of Peace empowers leaders of the next generation: 30 of them to meet this week

NEW YORK | From September 16-20, 2006, Seeds of Peace program graduates will convene to develop concrete strategies to strengthen channels of communication and cooperation between Arabs and Israelis and to increase the impact of these initiatives in their communities.

The Seeds of Peace Action Summit will bring together thirty Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Jordanian Seeds graduates whose involvement with Seeds of Peace stretches over a decade. The Seeds of Peace graduates now hold positions such as foreign policy adviser to President Abbas, senior advisor to Kofi Annan, assistant to a member of the Knesset, as well as senior posts at the World Bank, at the United Nations and in TV and radio broadcasting. The Action Summit participants will gather in New York to work towards a different future for themselves, their countries, and the Middle East at large.

The Action Summit, occurring immediately prior to the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly and at the Clinton Global Initiative, will focus on being more effective advocates for peace, developing technology to facilitate cross-border cooperation, and interacting with key figures who can help them implement their initiatives.

“These oldest Seeds’ graduates are coming together with renewed urgency to ensure that the lessons they have learned through Seeds of Peace take root in their communities and lead ultimately to better understanding,” said Janet Wallach, president of Seeds of Peace. “Their efforts following the summit will provide an essential foundation for their continued development as the region’s future leaders.”

Seeds of Peace empowers leaders of the next generation. Since 1993, Seeds of Peace has graduated over 3,000 teenagers and young adults from several regions of conflict and has reached several thousand more in their communities through initiatives such as the Seeds of Peace Camp in Maine, numerous regional workshops, educational and professional courses, and adult educator programs, as well as the extensive Seeds network. Participants develop empathy, respect, and confidence, and gain critical leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Many are now in positions of influence such as foreign advisor to President Abbas, or assistant to a member of the Knesset, as well as senior posts at the World Bank, the United Nations and TV and radio broadcasting.

Founded by the late John Wallach, former Hearst correspondent and author, Seeds of Peace is internationally recognized for its unique model of long-term engagement with its participants, its official support by the government leadership of its participating delegations, and its ability to operate continuously to bring youth from regions of conflict together to empower them to become the next generation of leaders.

“Seeds … became my life”
Portland Press Herald

Jun 24, 2002 / No Comments

BY JOSIE HUANG | There are no wailing sirens or shelled storefronts by this lakeside camp in western Maine, only pine trees that cast soft shadows and wooden cabins lined up like Monopoly houses. But Ethan Schechter knows that scenes from their war-torn homelands will haunt the 166 teenagers arriving today for the Seeds of Peace conflict resolution camp.

And, as part of a crew of 45 counselors, he has undergone the training—unlike anything found at other camps—to help counselors get through the hard times they may face here. Aside from repainting picket fences and inflating inner tubes last week, counselors attended a trauma workshop where they learned that putting ice in the palm can bring someone out of a bad flashback. They heard Seeds of Peace staffers from the Jerusalem office describe how former Israeli and Palestinian “Seeds” live under siege, amid tanks. They got overviews on the Middle East, India and Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, which is sending a delegation of 12 for the first time.

Several days into orientation last week, the 21-year-old Schechter could say with quiet confidence, “I feel I can be sensitive to their needs.”

Schechter, who just graduated from Clark University, is like most of the counselors: American 20-somethings who studied international relations and economics. Many are particularly interested in the Middle East, the program’s chief focus since it was founded by journalist John Wallach after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Having been part of the American delegation to the camp for four years, Schechter also belongs to a unique and small group of campers-turned-staffers. His first Seeds experience was in 1994, as a 14-year-old Jewish boy from New Canaan, Conn., who knew a lot about street hockey and being a kid—and not much about the world outside his.

At Seeds of Peace, he was shocked to see how his Israeli and Palestinian bunkmates lay awake at night, fearing an assault in their sleep. He was stunned when his friend, a Palestinian girl, cried as others argued about the conflict in the Middle East. The same angry voices had filled her house when Israeli soldiers came looking for her brother.

Even more amazing to him was that by the end of the session, historical enemies ended up forging friendships, or at least learned to live peaceably side by side. Schechter credits a lot of the bonding to the camp’s sports program, which puts teenagers from opposite sides of a regional conflict on the same team, be it softball or soccer.

“It’s a competition,” he said, “but you have to work together and focus on coming together, which is something pretty unique.”

At a meeting last Thursday for Schechter and other counselors overseeing sports, athletics director Chris O’Connor said that many of the campers will have never played softball, thrown a frisbee or gone swimming. It’s up to you, he told the group on the lawn of the dining hall, to encourage them.

“Get involved, play with them and get excited about what they’re doing,” said the 23-year-old O’Connor. “They’re going to feel that same excitement.”

Ground rules were laid down: Girls and boys will swim from different docks, out of respect to cultural and religious differences. And advice was dispensed to deal with teen-age boys who give their female counselors grief during sports games.

“The best thing to do is play with them … and they’ll simmer down” said Eva Gordon, a 22-year-old who works year-round in the program’s New York office. “They’re not used to seeing women play sports.”

“Don’t be afraid to discipline them,” added O’Connor, trying to look serious. “I discipline all the time.”

The group laughed as it broke up for lunch. Schechter looked happy; he was excited with his assignment, street hockey.

“It’s going to be fun once the kids are here,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “There’s just going to be something in the air.”

But remembering another key component of Seeds of Peace camp, he immediately added that “camp is not all about fun and games.”

Co-existence sessions, scheduled between the sports and crafts activities, are arguably the most important event of the day and what really separates Seeds of Peace from other camps. At these meetings, teenagers representing all sides of each conflict have a safe place to vent, role play, cry, communicate and, it’s hoped, learn how to trust.

In the meantime, professional facilitators try to foster dispute resolution skills the teenagers can use when they return home. Real-life scenarios are discussed. And while the camp has made no plans to directly address it, Sept. 11 will probably be a popular topic, especially for the Afghan teenagers whose country has undergone sweeping political and social changes since U.S. armed forces arrived looking for terrorists. Talks are always intense, and often volatile.

Scheduling coordinator Tamer Mahmoud has the heady task of deciding which campers go into which groups. Mahmoud looks at campers’ backgrounds—as he does when assigning bunk beds and making seating arrangements at the dining hall. He avoids overlap among any of the three groupings, but it’s not easy.

“There are too many variables, too many little things,” said Mahmoud, who had not finished as of Thursday. “You have Israelis, but are they Arab Israeli or Jewish Israeli?”

Like Schechter, the 22-year-old Egyptian is a former camper who came for four years, starting in 1993. At age 13, he was wary of meeting Israelis, largely because of the “Arab connection to Palestine.” But “it was important to meet Israeli people to see how they think, and do they think like their government.”

Mahmoud, who calls an Israeli “Seed” one of his best friends, has since become a vocal proponent of Seeds of Peace and, according to Schechter, a highly eloquent one. Schechter, in fact, likes to borrow a line from a recent speech Mahmoud gave at a fund-raiser in New York: “Seeds of Peace didn’t change my life. It became my life.”

“It’s really true,” said Schechter, who went from not caring about world events to studying Middle East politics in Jerusalem during high school and college. “It becomes part of your identity.”

He’s enjoyed orientation, but Schechter says he can’t wait for the campers to arrive for the first of three sessions so he can share his story, so he can show them what good can come out of these Maine woods.

“It was great hanging out with the counselors,” he said. “But it’s really all about the campers.”

What About Getting the ‘Leaders’ to Learn
The Forward

Jul 18, 1997 / No Comments

BY DANNY SCHECHTER | We know how to cover war but pay short shrift to the process of peacemaking, or the techniques of conflict resolution. Bang-bang war footage—focusing on what we in the business call “boys with toys”—gets the attention; in contrast, peace initiatives are treated as soft (in the head) and, consequentially, less important. Tough guys ballooned up with bluster are pictured as heroes; peaceniks are sellouts or out of touch. Is it any wonder that the public at large has so little sense about workable alternatives to the continuing confrontations around the world? Perhaps that’s why it was so refreshing for me to have met a colleague who had “been there, done that,” and came out the other end as a reporter determined to do something concrete about peacemaking instead of just cataloging the unending cycles of pain. When John Wallach decided to launch a conflict-resolution, youth-training program that brings teenagers from war zones to a special summer camp in Maine, I immediately thought it would make a great film. Mr. Wallach agreed.

I found myself in my 50s going back to camp to find out if this program was all that it was cracked up to be. He agreed to provide our team with total access, cautioning that, in the end, it would be the kids who would decide whether or not to let the cameras in. We were a strange crew: myself, a Jewish New Yorker with a critical take on Israeli policy; Sam Shinn, a Korean-American cameraman; and Aliet Rogaar, our sound person, a Dutch woman.

It became clear early on that John was as welcoming as he was nervous about our presence. His peace camp functions on the edge of real conflict where internal eruptions are always possible. He knew, as we would soon find out, that the kids come to camp expecting to like each other and quickly find that they don’t. The teenagers who attended the camp were a diverse lot. Palestinians consumed by rage and Israelis paralyzed by fears. There was the grandson of a religious Jewish family who admitted that he was taught to hate Arabs, and spoke of watching his Israeli mother cry as she put on a gas mask to defend against Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles during the Gulf War. Both sides felt guilty for having the opportunity of being there, for having fun. These were all kids who were handling emotions and problems that most adults can barely cope with.

By the end of the two-week session these teenagers learned how to listen and how to learn from each other, to overcome distrust and prejudice. They discovered that they could put aside their “facts” and arguments to build lasting personal relationships.

Like many good works, Seeds of Peace is underfunded because money for war-making is plentiful while peacemaking is still a beggar’s art. It is still refining its approach. Not everything that was tried worked. Not all the kids had the same experience. Some seem to be there more for the sun, the sports and the fun. But others take it seriously as work, even though there was occasionally more preaching than teaching for my taste. The experience for many was transformative. It is important to recognize that the kids have remained friends, and some publish a newspaper called the Olive Branch. How do we get more visibility for projects that work? How can we get the media to start telling more inspirational stories like these? How can we get their “leaders,” who now seem to have abandoned the peace process, to learn from their own children?

In Laden’s Shadow
Mid Day (Mumbai)

May 3, 2011 / No Comments

Even as the world is abuzz about Osama Bin Laden’s death, students from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan get together at a tri-nation conference to promote understanding and debate on various issues

MUMBAI | A bunch of Pakistani students got together with their Indian counterparts as well as with a group of school children from Afghanistan for five days in Mumbai under the ‘Voices of The People’ project organised by Seeds of Peace (SOP), an international Non Governmental Organisation (NGO). The teenagers debated some contentious issues like terrorism and religion. Photography, videography and print media were used by the students to present their ‘research topics’. After working hard for five days in Mumbai, an exhibition was held at Sophia College, Bhulabhai Desai Road, where the students displayed their work.

Connection

Two-and-a-half years ago ten Pakistanis slipped into Mumbai in the dark of night and wrought mayhem, killing more than 170 people. The armed assailants were one face of Pakistan, which is so familiar to the Indians. Last week another face of Pakistan was on show in the city, the one which Indian youth could identify with easily –inquisitive, emancipated and liberal. The organisation, which strives to bring the children of conflict zones together, doesn’t seek mutual agreement on the issues but simply provides a platform to young people to express their points of view. For instance, the students from India and Pakistan may not have agreed on Kashmir, but at least they were able to appreciate each other’s point of view amicably and in the process became friends. Seeds of Peace, which started in 1993, believes the tripartite interaction will help overcome biases and misgivings about each other and promote better understanding. Agrees Noorzadeah Raja (17), a participant from Lahore in Pakistan, “Terrorism is a problem in our country but there is more to Pakistan. And that is the reason we are here. Such camps will help us develop a well rounded perspective concerning issues involving all the three countries.”

Afghanistan

It is Sahar Sekandri’s (from Kabul) first visit to India and she is overwhelmed by the, “warmth displayed by the people here. In Afghanistan, people don’t talk much. Most of them are reticent.”

Sekandri who speaks fluent English says she had taken courses at various language learning centres in Afghanistan. “The medium of instruction in our college is Dari and English is taught as a separate language,” says Sekandri whose family, had migrated to Pakistan after the Taliban regime came to power and had returned to Kabul in 2003. “My father thought that we should return to our own country as the Taliban was not there anymore,” answered Sekandri when asked which other countries she had visited. Talking about the situation in Kabul, she says, “My parents are really concerned when we go out of the house. You don’t know what will happen next . Every day you hear about bomb blasts.”

Unlike Sekandri who was wearing a hijab, Lalen Azadani (14) was in jeans and a t-shirt without a hijab or headscarf. “Even in Afghanistan, I wear t-shirts and jeans at home and my parents don’t mind at all, but outside I have to go fully covered,” says Azadani who studies in a girls school in Kabul. She and her family, originally from Herat, are currently based in Kabul as, “they find Kabul safer than Herat. There is war in our country and the situation is bad but we hope that peace will return soon to Afghanistan. It will not happen in five or six years, it will take time till peace is restored in war-torn Afghanistan. Sooner or later though there will be peace in the country.” On her first impressions about Mumbai, she promptly says, “I like it.” Both the Afghan girls, Azadani and Sekandari want to become lawyers and serve their country. While Sekandari wants to eventually become an ambassador, Azadani just wants to be a good citizen.

Pakistan

Pakistan’s Faraz Saleem Malik (16), who is on his first visit to India, is already a convert to the cause of fostering unity among the three nations. Fed on the 24×7 media rhetoric against India and an overdose of bias back home, Malik feared hostility but he says he was overwhelmed by Indian hospitality. He wonders why the media is disregarding it, “Why don’t we get to hear more about the hospitality that is extended when somebody from Pakistan visits India and vice versa?”

Experience

Organisers say the camp went off extremely well. “The children are so excited with their projects. It has been a wonderful experience to actually see them working together,” says Feruzan Mehta, Director of Programmes, Seeds of Peace, India. “All we gave them was a notepad, a pen and a camera,” says Awista Ayub, Director of South Asia Programme, SOP. A total of 30 participants (most of them in the age group of 14-19) were divided into groups of three, all of them comprising members from all three countries. The members of the team had been assigned to do videos on some of the issues common to all the three countries, such as corruption and cricket. The team led by Malik made a short film on, ‘Cricket’. The task given to the group was to find out if cricket could help bind the three nations together. Malik says the outcome of his project is not surprising, “The response was good. Most of them said yes and some of them said no. Many believed that cricket should be treated just like any other game and not as if two nations are at war over it.”

Religion

Sana Kardar (19), from Lahore in Pakistan, who along with her group members made a short film on religion called, ‘Flipside of religion’. “Intentionally or unintentionally, whenever we talk about religion, we tend to link some form of extremism with it. So, we wanted to portray that there is a lot more to religion,” says Kardar, who is currently pursuing an undergraduate programme at Queen Mary, University of London. Kardar had visited Delhi before but it is her first visit to Mumbai. When asked about her first impressions of the city, Kardar said, “I think Mumbai is similar to Karachi because people live in flats and there is a space crunch. Delhi and Lahore are quite similar. I don’t even have a feeling that I am actually in a different country.”

Love

While Kardar chose religion as her research topic, Sekandari from Kabul in Afghanistan and her group decided to work on something that has a universal appeal. ‘Love’ was what they wanted to research. Their movie shows Sekandari strolling at the Mumbai’s famous Marine Drive promenade. Sekandari carefully observes hordes of lovebirds, who gather there to spend time with each other. The movie explores the subject of arranged marriages versus love marriages in Mumbai. When asked, if love marriages are acceptable in Afghanistan, Sekandri explained, “Mostly it is arranged marriage in my country. Parents decide who you have to marry.”

Bollywood

If there is something that is exciting to all the participants from the three countries, it has to be Bollywood. Ask them about their favourite actors and they rattle off names effortlessly. For Sekandri, her favourite film is ‘Jab We Met’. “My favourite actor is Ranbir Kapoor and favourite actress is Katrina Kaif and I am a big time movie buff,” she admits. For Abdul Shapoor (16), from Afghanistan, it is Govinda’s dance moves that appeal to him. A self-proclaimed break-dancer, Shapoor claims to be a diehard Govinda fan. “I have watched all his movies including Raja Babu. I even try to emulate his moves,” he says. Apart from Bollywood it is cricket too, which brings the three nations together. Says one of the participants from Afghanistan, “Whenever there is a match between India and Pakistan, a few of us support India and some of us support Pakistan. But now, even we are trying to become part of the cricketing world and cricket is very popular in Afghanistan.”

Misconception

Sekandri jokingly says that a lot of people had asked her if she knew Osama? “I told them that he is not my uncle,” she says Strange as it may sound, one of them who had come to see the exhibition says, “All the kids from three different countries look so similar that it is difficult to identify their nationality.” Agrees Kardar who was wearing a black velvet mini skirt, “I was mistaken for a Mumbaikar.” On her country’s image of being very ‘conservative’ Kardar firmly replies, “If my parents don’t have a problem with my attire, why should I bother about somebody else?” Kardar strongly defends her country when questioned about the fact that many perceive Pakistan as a country, which exports terror. “It is not only Pakistan. There are a lot of forces, which are active there. Blaming Pakistan for every terrorist attack that happens anywhere is not fair at all.” While students answered questions on some global issues, they definitely made friends for a lifetime. “Shapoor is more like my brother now,” says Jehan Lalkaka (17) from Mumbai, who had met an Afghani for the first time. “We are all the same, I believe,” he adds.

Concern

More importantly the programme is aimed at making these ‘seeds’, messengers of peace in the future. The concern is palpable in Mumbaikar Teju Jhaveri’s (23) words. “Everytime there is a bomb blast in these regions, you know that somebody you are close to is there. Immediately you make a phone call to ensure that he /she is fine. That is what is important,” says Jhaveri, who has been associated with the programme for nine years now.

About the Programme

‘Seeds of Peace’ was founded by journalist, John Wallach, and is dedicated to “empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence.”

In Mumbai

The participants tried to capture the ‘Mumbaikar spirit’ through the lens. They visited places like Haji Ali Dargah and were amazed to see, “how people from different religions visit the Durgah to seek blessings, something that we in Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot even imagine doing,” says one of the participants from Pakistan.

Many spoke to Mumbaikars and asked them, what they thought of religion. A lot of them spoke to youngsters in the city and asked them about corruption and what could be done to eradicate it. The participants also got a chance to visit a few schools meant for underprivileged children.

Many of them wanted to bring out similarities and differences between Indian, Pakistani and Afghani cuisine. A visit to various Peshawari and Mughlai restaurants in the city like-Cafe Noorani near Haji Ali and Delhi Durbar in Colaba helped them to understand more about the food in the city. While some pointed out that there were subtle differences in the way, say a naan was prepared but overall the food in all the three countries was, “pretty much the same”.

Movies made by the participants:

  • Cricket
  • Bonding over Biryani
  • Sujaya (a school for underprivileged children)
  • Corruption
  • Flipside of religion
  • Prince Wales Museum
  • Religious pluralism in Mumbai
  • Mind follower or rebel

Read Sudeshna Chowdhury article at MiD DAY »

Seeds of Peace responds to flawed, inaccurate Ha’aretz column

Sep 17, 2014 / No Comments

The Ha’aretz newspaper published a column by Matthew Kalman on September 15 titled “Will seeds of peace ever bloom.” The piece is very similar to a 2008 San Francisco Chronicle article by Kalman that also juxtaposes statistics from an unpublished 2008 study on various Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding programs with an interview with a Seed.

This is Seeds of Peace’s response to the article. There has been no response from Ha’aretz or Kalman.

Dear Matthew,
I very much appreciate that, like your similar 2008 Chronicle article, you interviewed a Seed. The arguments against the effectiveness of Seeds of Peace’s work, statistical or otherwise, stands out in contrast to the experiences Nitsan and Hiba [the Seeds] relate.

So why the disconnect?

The 2008 Pal Vision survey results, referenced in the 2008 Palestine-Israel Journal and your 2008 article, do not track with any independent studies of Seeds of Peace participants. For example, independent surveys of Seeds indicate that over 70 percent stay in touch through their high school years; Pal Vision reported a drastically lower 9 percent (not that staying in touch is necessarily an indicator of a program’s success).

Because the Pal Vision study was never published, and because we as an organization were not involved with it in any capacity, we have no way of knowing if Seeds were included in the survey. Nor do we have a way of directly addressing the disparities between our figures and Pal Vision’s.

What is clear from the Pal Vision survey is that the vast majority of those surveyed were not Seeds of Peace participants. (In fact, it’s not clear if any Seeds were surveyed.) Pal Vision reported that only 7 percent of those surveyed reported any follow-up to the initial experience.

If Seeds were included in the survey, they would likely make up the entirety of that 7 percent, since nearly all (if not all) Seeds would have reported follow-up activities. That is because we realized very early on in our existence that an initial encounter is not enough, and adapted our model accordingly. Since the mid-1990s, our approach has been to run programs year-round in participants’ home countries, with extremely high participation rates.

I am therefore disappointed to see us grouped with programs whose failed models only provide an initial encounter experience. This ignores the very hard work of our staff who run offices and programs year round in Gaza, Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv, and the validation of their work by University of Chicago researchers. How can anyone compare the effectiveness of a program that brings together Israeli and Palestinian youth for a brief sports match with a program like ours that brings them together for weeks of intense dialogue, and then runs continuous programs for them when they return home?

Speaking of our offices, we closed the Seeds of Peace Center in Jerusalem in late 2006, after the Second Intifada. But we immediately opened offices in Ramallah and Tel Aviv. The reason for the move was entirely due to an interruption in Seeds of Peace’s ability to secure permits for Palestinian Seeds to enter Jerusalem or Israel to meet with their peers for post-Camp programs. (We ran separate programs for Seeds during that time.)

The permit interruption was temporary, and by early 2007 we were again running joint programs, and have been since. At no point was Seeds of Peace’s camper selection process impacted, and we have for the last 22 years hosted a full Palestinian Delegation in Maine.

Finally, the notion that Seeds of Peace Camp staff refuse political expression or activism on the part of participants is unfounded. We go out of our way to select politically-active and aware campers, and encourage them to take action, to become activists. We are exceedingly proud of those many who do become activists; I’d be happy to introduce you to them. And as you reference in the piece, we also provide each camper with daily 110-minute dialogue sessions which are full of political engagement.

Should you in the future wish to write about Seeds of Peace, I’d love to have a chance to point out what we perceive to be inaccuracies for you to consider investigating and correcting. And again, I’d be happy to put you in touch with our staff in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Ramallah, as well any number of Israeli and Palestinian Seeds who are leaders in their communities, for a fuller picture of our program’s impact.

Best,
Eric Kapenga
Communications Director | Seeds of Peace

Youth Chorus Unites Israelis and Palestinians, at Least for a Few Hours
The New York Times

Jun 27, 2015 / No Comments

JERUSALEM — Avital Maeir-Epstein and Muhammad Murtada Shweiki live about 150 yards apart in Abu Tor, a Jerusalem neighborhood that straddles the pre-1967 armistice line, a mostly invisible but politically charged marker of this city’s Israeli-Palestinian divide.

The teenagers live on opposite sides of that divide, but for a few hours each Monday afternoon, they come together.

Avital, 16, is a soprano and Muhammad, 15, is a tenor/bass in the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, which brings together young Israelis and Palestinians for singing and dialogue sessions run by professional facilitators. Established in 2012, the chorus is one of the few coexistence initiatives to weather the hatred and violence that have erupted on both sides over the past year.

Meeting in one of the rare places here that are considered neutral ground, the imposing Jerusalem International YMCA on King David Street in West Jerusalem, the group does not ignore the politics but creates an alternative environment where young Israelis and Palestinians can discuss their differences while producing music together.

“It was very hard last year during the war,” said Avital, who was dressed casually in shorts and a T-shirt as she sat with other singers. She was referring to Israel’s 50-day offensive against militant groups in the Gaza Strip last summer, when Gaza was under Israeli bombardment and rockets fired from the territory reached the outskirts of Jerusalem. “We were getting different news — ‘Arab’ news and ‘Israeli’ news,” she said. “It was complicated, but we went through it together.”

Muhammad, looking more formal in a white dress shirt, with his hair shaved and sculpted, immediately recalled the “shahid,” or martyr, Muhammad Abu Khdeir in a discussion of the traumatic events of the past year. A 16-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, he was kidnapped, beaten and burned to death by three Israeli Jews in early July after the bodies of three Jewish teenagers who had been kidnapped and killed by Palestinians were found in a shallow grave in the West Bank.

Avital and Muhammad, who had not met before joining the chorus, were speaking at a final rehearsal before the Jerusalem Youth Chorus left for its first tour in the United States. The group has performed over the last two weeks in the Yale International Choral Festival in New Haven and at various other stops, including New York and Washington, and is scheduled to appear in Philadelphia on Sunday.

The Israeli-Palestinian youth chorus was the idea of an American, Micah Hendler, who grew up in Bethesda, Md. Mr. Hendler, 25, attended Seeds of Peace summer camps in Maine with Israeli and Arab youths, studied Arabic and Hebrew, and majored in music and international relations at Yale. He said he came to Jerusalem three years ago to see if the sense of community that evolved in the controlled environment of a summer camp in the United States could be recreated in the gritty reality of Jerusalem.

With the bravado — some might say naïveté — of an outsider, Mr. Hendler went into schools on both sides of the city. Within weeks, 80 youths showed up for auditions, a majority from East Jerusalem, where Mr. Hendler had less competition in the realm of extracurricular activities. He picked 35 teenagers aged 14 to 18. There has been some natural turnover over the years, but about half of the original team is still involved.

“What I saw in starting the chorus was that if you look at things only through a political lens, the situation is pretty hopeless,” Mr. Hendler said. “But if you consider it, people are not only political objects. They have lives; they want to connect.”

“There are ways,” he added, “of getting beyond the intractable structures we have set up for ourselves.”

Mr. Hendler runs rehearsals mostly in English, but also in Hebrew and Arabic. The teenagers translate for one another as necessary.

Political, religious, social and cultural issues add layers of complexity. There is only one Israeli boy in the chorus. Palestinian boys are more naturally attracted to the idea, coming from a tradition of mawwal, an Arabic vocal genre based on poetry. (“We have some excellent female tenors,” Mr. Hendler remarked.) Conversely, Palestinian girls from conservative Muslim families are more likely to go home after school, not get on a bus to the west side of town to sing with Israelis.

Many Palestinian political activists are also increasingly rejecting what they see as unnecessary interactions that could be construed as a normalization of relations with the Israeli occupier. Some 300,000 Palestinians — about a third of Jerusalem’s population — are residents of East Jerusalem, territory that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed in a move that has never been internationally recognized.

Given the sensitivities, several Palestinian boys said they had told only their closest friends about their involvement in the chorus, and Mr. Hendler is careful about where the group performs, avoiding overtly nationalistic events on either side.

Then there are the starkly different musical backgrounds. Parts of the repertoire combine traditions of Western harmony and Arabic rhythms. The chorus performs Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” in the style of the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum and has composed an original song that incorporates rap and mawwal. A highlight was the recording of a special version of a Phillip Phillips song, “Home,” with Sam Tsui, a YouTube star who sang with Mr. Hendler in college.

Outside the community they have created, the teenagers keenly feel the turmoil around them. Over the past year, there have been tensions over a contested East Jerusalem holy site, a deadly terrorist attack on a West Jerusalem synagogue, a series of vehicular attacks against Israelis and violent clashes between Palestinians and the police, including in Abu Tor, which is normally peaceful.

“Every single day was different,” said Avital, who lives on a mixed street. “I didn’t know how I felt about it — safe or not safe.”

Amer Abu Arqub, 18, from the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina, said that he had found himself in West Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day, when hard-line Israeli nationalists take to the streets to celebrate the reunification of the city, and that he had been careful to speak in English on his cellphone.

The chorus members have begun to socialize outside of rehearsals, connecting through a WhatsApp group and going to movies or to one another’s homes for birthdays.

But looming in the future are more divisive issues to grapple with. When the Israelis turn 18, for instance, they will be drafted for compulsory military service.

“That’s the plan,” said Aviv Blum, the Israeli bass. Some of the Palestinians “have very defined views” on the issue, he said, adding, “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Read Isabel Kershner’s article at The New York Times ››