In the quiet of Maine, Israeli and Arab campers set an example for their war-torn homes

BY WALTER RUBY | It is the middle of a “coexistence” session at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine, where 162 Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Qatari teenagers have been spending the past three weeks swimming, canoeing, playing volleyball and confronting each others’ humanity.

Seated on chairs facing each other are Sara, a 15-year-old Palestinian girl from Hebron, and Edi Shpitz, a 15-year-old boy from Rishon Le Tzion. Both are clad in matching green “Seeds of Peace t-shirts and shorts, and both the dark and sensitive-looking Sara and the blonde, happy-go-lucky Edi with is mushroom haircut look like they could be American teenagers.

(Seeds of Peace has requested that Sara’s last name not be mentioned in this article because her parents were threatened with retribution by Islamic militants if they dared send her to a camp together with Israelis. Sara’s parents chose to send her anyway.)

At the moment, Sara is showing Edi a sketch she drew as part of the coexistence exercise. It is entitled “The Dark Flower” and depicts something of the horror she felt over the 1995 massacre of 29 Muslim worshippers by Baruch Goldstein in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs. It shows scores of stick-figure bodies in a circle, depicting the mosque with the notation in Arabic “Allah Akhbar” (God is great), and outside, depictions of guns, bombs and soldiers.

Speaking softly while gazing steadily into Edi’s eyes, Sara recalls the moment when her father informed her that a close family friend was among those killed in the mosque. “It was a terrible shock,” she said. “We cried so much for my father’s friend and his family; for his son who was studying in China and had no money to come home for the funeral. We were placed under curfew and kept in our homes for a long time as though we were responsible for what happened. Even now, there is tension and violence every day in Hebron and people are being killed. We can’t have peace while there is killing. Violence is the dark flower that is hurting both our peoples. And you need to understand how much having a state of our own means to us Palestinians. We need to feel safe.”

Edi responds gravely that he understands. He drew a far happier sketch, a depiction of a peace sign and of Israelis and Palestinians standing together. But explains that Sara’s story has triggered painful memories of his own, memories that he rarely shares with anyone. During the summer of 1994, he and a cousin decided to visit Dizengoff Center, the large shopping mall in the heart of Tel Aviv. As they neared the mall, Edi’s cousin asked him to wait a moment while she checked out a store across the street. A moment later, Edi said, “There was this ‘kaboom.’ It was not as loud as a bomb explosion sounds in the movies. The main thing I remember was the sound of glass shattering.” As the smoke cleared, Edi checked to see if his cousin was alright. Oblivious to a hand would he had incurred from a flying fragments, he rushed across the street toward the shopping center. “I will never forget what I saw there,” he says. “There were pieces of bodies everywhere; a leg here, an arm there. There was hair stuck to pillars and blood splattered all over. I wanted to help the wounded, but I didn’t know what to do, and people were screaming at me from across the street to come back; they were afraid there would be another bomb …” “How old were you then?” asks Sara. “10 or 11, I guess,” says Edi vaguely. “It was a horrible thing to see.”

Edi lapses into silence. Sara says nothing, but it is obvious she is deeply moved. A moment later, Edi reaches out and puts his arm awkwardly around her shoulder for a moment. Afterwards, as the coexistence session breaks up, Edi explains to this reporter; “It is wonderful to be able to talk to Sara about this. I want her to hear this, even though I know she was not responsible for that bombing, just as she didn’t have anything to do with the bomb in Jerusalem last week. I am telling her because Sara and I have become close friends and I want her to know what I went through.”

Edi adds in a wondering tone: “Three weeks ago before I came here to Seeds of Peace, I wouldn’t have believed I could make friends with Palestinians. I was the most right-wing guy you can imagine. I applied to this camp because I wanted to spend the summer in America, not because I wanted to be with Arabs. But there were Palestinian and other Arab boys in my cabin, so I had no choice but to talk to them. I was amazed that they were so much like Israeli kids. The experience of living here with them has changed my thinking 100 percent.”

Sara has had a similar evolution. “I was determined to come here, especially after those people pressuring my parents not to allow me. But when I arrived and saw the Israeli kids, I was scared to death. All the old fears came back, and I thought, ‘Maybe one of them will kill me.’ But then I met one of the Israelis, a girl named Dana, and she was such a sweet girl, I realized I had nothing to worry about. Now I consider Dana one of my closest friends in the world. I am also close to a bunch of the other Israelis: Niva, Tal and, of course, Edi.”

Brushing her long tresses out of her face, Sara continues, “Before coming here, I never knew an Israeli. I thought they were all cruel. Now I have understood that Israelis are people just like us. They have feelings just as we do. I once said we can’t share the country with Israelis, but now I believe that we have to…I want to keep up my contacts with the Israeli friends I made here when I go back home. It is going to be very difficult considering the situation there, but I am going to try.”

The Seeds of Peace International Camp, set in the woods on a lovely lake an hour drive north of Portland, Maine, is now in its fifth year. This year there are some 55 Israeli campers (accompanied by several adult chaperones), 45 Palestinians, 20 Jordanians, 20 Egyptians, and smaller numbers of Moroccans, Tunisians and Qataris. The camp is the creation of John Wallach, a white-haired, cherubic former newsman who specialized in covering the Middle East for the Hearst newspaper chain. Together with his wife, Janet, Wallach wrote a biography of Yasir Arafat and another book about Israelis and Palestinians. He was able to put to good use his connections in high places in Washington, D.C., where he is based, and in the Middle East during the camp’s first summer, arranging for the first group of Seeds to attend the White House signing ceremony for the Oslo Accords. The picture of Clinton, Arafat, Israel’s then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on the White House lawn holding up Seeds of Peace t-shirts, while the youthful participants in the program stood glowing behind them, literally put the program on the map. Employing considerable political savvy, Wallach has managed to maintain support for the program in all of the key capitals despite the deterioration of the peace process. Attending the Seeds of Peace annual dinner earlier this year in New York were, among others, King Hussein of Jordan and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who has become an enthusiastic proponent of the program.

On August 6th, in her Middle East policy address announcing stepped-up U.S. mediation efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, Albright remarked, “It says something hopeful about the future of the Middle east that, as we speak, 162 Arab, Israeli and Palestinian teenagers are in a summer camp in the woods of Maine, a camp sponsored by the Seeds of Peace program, and that this tragic bombing has brought those young people closer together in shock, sorrow and determination to end the cycle of violence in their region.”

On August 9th, a coterie of international VIPs visited the Maine camp, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Eliyahu Ben-Elissar, Jordanian Ambassador to the U.S. Marwan Muasher, Deputy Chief of the Palestine Authority Mission in Washington Said Hamad, and U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering. Reached afterwards, Wallach said the event was “incredibly moving,” noting that the visiting dignitaries linked arms with the campers and with each other (Ben Elissar and Hamad together) and the whole assemblage sage a song entitled “I am a Seed of Peace,” written by one of the campers, Amgad Naguib of Egypt. After completing their four-week stay at the camp later this month, the Seeds group will travel to Washington for four days of meeting and ceremonies, culminating in a ceremonial get-together with President Clinton at the White House.

Wallach explains that the dream of creating such a camp had been germinating within him for years, but it was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that moved him to act urgently. “I turned to Rabin, Mubarak and Arafat and asked them to trust me with their kids and they agreed to do so,” he says. “It was clear to me that one of the principle reasons that reconciliation had moved forward so slowly was that no one was paying attention to people-to-people contacts between the two sides. If the people fear and mistrust each other, and if peace is not in their hearts, forget it—there will never be peace, no matter what agreements the leaders may reach.” He adds, “Acts of terror, such as the Machane Yehuda bombing and Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Palestinians at prayer, do not take place in a vacuum. They occur in a climate where a significant portion of their respective societies condone such behavior. In order to stop this kind of horror, we need to create a majority of people on both sides who want peace badly and will struggle for it.”

Wallach notes that he allows the respective governments that participate in Seeds of Peace to choose the children who participate each year, an important factor, he asserts, in ensuring their continued support for the program.

The children are chosen through a series of essay tests and oral examinations that test their knowledge of English (all discourse at the camp is in English and all participants must have basic aptitude in the language) as well as the history of their own country and the Middle East. Wallach believes that most of the participants are chosen on merit, but he seems to acknowledge that politics plays a role in the selection of at least some of the delegates. “Before the Likud electoral victory in Israel last year, nearly all the Israeli participants were supporters of Oslo. Now there are at least as many kids from Likud families as Labor families, which is fine, because it means we are impacting a wider strata of Israeli society.”

But aren’t the 800 young people who have passed through Seeds of Peace so far only a drop in the bucket? Not so, says Wallach. “I think these 800 kids, the majority of them Israelis and Palestinians, are already having a ripple effect throughout their societies. They are influencing their peers, their teachers and parents. I stress to these kids the need for them to become leaders in the future and to make a difference. I remind them that nowhere else in the world are these kinds of encounters taking place, and that ey are the brightest hope for a future peaceful Middle East.”

For Wallach himself, the experience of running Seeds of Peace has been “by far te most fulfilling think I have done in my life.” Puttering through the camp on a golf cart and looking for all the world like a middle-aged Jewish man who has spent his adult life running hamische summer camps, Wallach remarks, “You know, I gave up a lot to do this. I had an exciting and fulfilling life as a journalist covering historic events and interviewing powerful people. It was very ego-gratifying to have a byline read by millions, to appear regularly on “Meet the Press.” I am making much less money now, but I am 100 times happier and more satisfied. I know that for the first time I am making a real difference in the world as a Jew and as an American. That is deeply meaningful for me as the son of a mother and father who escaped Nazi concentration camps. I am not a religious person, but I know I was intended to do what I am doing now.”

The key to making the camp experience work for the young people, Wallach explains, is total immersion. Israeli, Palestinian and Arab kids are mixed together in the sleeping cabins (“They sleep next to each other, shower together, sometimes share each others’ toothpaste.”). Each child participates in three separate groups: his or her bunkmates; the group with which he or she has meals and other camp activities; and a third group with which he or she takes part in twice-daily conflict resolution sessions. In the process of participating in the three groups, each camper has a chance to interact with virtually every other camper.

Meital Cohen, a 17-year-old Jerusalemite who is in her fourth year at the camp and is now a junior counselor, explains that each summer Israeli and Arab campers have followed the same pattern in terms of how they develop relationships with each other.

“For the first five days or so, the kids try hard to be nice to each other, but it’s very superficial because they are not expressing their true feelings and are making an effort not to mention anything controversial. Still, they get used to each other and hang out together so that when we start talking about the real issues in the coexistence sessions, there is already some relationship. Then the hard stuff comes up, and there is a lot of arguing and yelling, but the sessions are run by professionals trained in conflict resolution who help us get through it. By the third week, the Israeli and Arab kids have learned to really like and respect each other. They haven’t agreed on everything, but they have learned that they can disagree and still be friends.”

This year, Meital says, that budding sense of camaraderie was directly menaced by news of the bombing in Jerusalem. The bombing happened just at the point in the camp schedule where the kids have reached their maximum level of conflict. “The day we heard about the bombing was terrible especially for those of us from Jerusalem,” said Cohen. “John [Wallach] allowed us to rush to the phones to call home, but the lines were tied up for the first hour or so, and it was very scary and frustrating not to know whether our families were safe. Then the whole camp gathered for a meeting and John told us that we would have to be strong, and not allow this to split us apart. It was very tense and painful. Some of the Israeli kids were crying. They said, ‘We came here to make peace and look what’s happening.’ Some of the Palestinian kids were offended when the Israeli kids at first didn’t want to accept their condolences. The Palestinian kids felt like they were being accused. So we counselors and the conflict-resolution people told the kids, ‘We can let this defeat us and you can all run home now, or we can face this thing together.’ “And ironically, in the end, the bombing really forced us to talk to and understand each other. It forced people to stop tiptoeing around the issues and to tell each other truthfully what they felt. And in the end, the experience brought us that much closer together than we would otherwise have been.”

Virtually all of the campers seem to share Meital’s upbeat evaluation of the impact of the bombing no the camp. Mona Boshnaq, a 15-year-old Palestinian from Tulkarem, comments, “It was the first time I had experienced the pain of Israelis. We Palestinians could relate to what they were going through because we have all had so many tragedies of this kind. We went up to the Israeli kids and told them how sad and sorry we were, and we hugged them for the first time. Most of the Israelis seemed very touched that we cared. They told us again and again that they didn’t blame us personally and that they understood we weren’t responsible for the bombing.”

Another Palestinian, Dalal Erakat of Jericho, had a similar perspective. “If I had been in Palestine when this happened, I wouldn’t have felt it so sharply. But when I saw many of my new Israeli friends sobbing, I, too, burst out in tears. It was the first time I ever cried for Israelis, and I think for the first time I realized that is not only we Palestinians who suffer.” Adi Gujski, a 13-year-old Israeli from Ashdod, remarked, “I felt so much better when my Palestinian friends came up to me and told me how sorry they were about the bombing. I knew they meant what they were saying because many of them were crying, too. The whole experience brought us closer together because a person naturally feels closer to someone who joins in his sorrow.”

Yossi Zilberstein of Kiryat Gat and Numan Zourab of Rafah in the Gaza Strip are both 16-year-old junior counselors in their second year at Seeds of Peace. They have become close friends. Yossi nods vigorously in understanding as Numan says, “Until I got here last summer, I had no contact with Israelis. “The only ones I ever saw were soldiers, who were our enemies. I couldn’t imagine speaking to an Israeli, but found I had no choice; half of my bunk was Israelis and we had to work together on chores and in sports. That’s how it began and now it seems strange to me that I ever thought of them as being different than me. We are all people.” Yossi remarked, “I had the same experience. I had never spoken to a Palestinian before coming here and it was hard at first to warm up to them. But I have learned something here that I will never forget: a person is not first and foremost a Palestinian or an Israeli. He or she is Yossi, Numan, Adi or Khaled. The key is to get to know each other as individuals, not to judge each other according to our nationality.”

Not that all campers’ political disagreements have been resolved because of the bonding that has taken place. As several other Israeli and Palestinian youths gather around, Numan informs Yossi that while he strongly opposes terrorist bombings, he supports the right of Palestinian protesters to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers. According to Numan, “Our kids have the right to throw stones, because your soldiers occupy our land and kill our people.” Yossi quickly responded, “That is simply not true, Numan. Our soldiers don’t try to kill anyone. In fact, they have strict orders not to shoot at kids. But sometimes accidents happen when the soldiers are being attacked by stone-throwers and are under pressure.” Numan darts him an angry look and says, “Oh yeah, all those Palestinians were killed by accident.” But instead of upping the tension level even higher, Yossi shrugs and says, “Well, the main thing is that we have to find a way to break the cycle of violence.” Numan expresses vigorous agreement and the moment of tension passes.

Where, Yossi is asked later, did he find the strength not to get into a shouting match with Numan, especially given that he himself will be in the IDF in two years, and may himself one day be confronted by stone-throwing Palestinian youths? He responds, “Well, you know, it is a very tough thing we are trying to do, and we do sometimes argue and shout at each other. But I am doing the best I can to try to understand the other side. One exercise we do in our coexistence sessions is to play role reversal games. The Israelis have to express the opinions of the Arab side and vice versa. You find yourself repeating their lines, and then you understand that the people on the other side really believe what they are saying and that they really have suffered. That has a big impact.”

Dalal Erekat, who happens to be the daughter of Sa’eb Erakat, the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator with the Israelis, remarked, “When I first arrived I wanted badly to convince the Israeli kids that our position was right and theirs was wrong. I thought if I could give them enough facts, they would have to accept that we are right and come to believe what we believe.” But after a week or two of such efforts, Dalal said, “I realized there was no way I could convince them. They have their own facts and opinions and a different version of the same history. But what I have found out is that even if I can’t persuade the Israeli kids of what I believe, I can still be their friends. We have found that a lot of the Israeli girls have similar hobbies and the same taste in music and movies as we do. Here in Maine, we can be together just as people, as teenagers, and that feels really wonderful.”

All of the Palestinian and Israeli teens are aware of how difficult it will be to maintain their friendships once they return home. “It was very tough for me going home after my first year here,” recalls Yossi Zilberstein, who has already been though the experience one time. “When I saw the Palestinians burning Israeli flags or throwing stones on television, it was hard for me to bear, having been at Seeds of Peace and having seen a different way. I was very relieved to come back here.”

Rami Abu Khalil, a 15-year-old Palestinian from a village in the West Bank just outside of Jerusalem, says he has already made plans with some of his new Israeli friends from Jerusalem to meet in the city, but acknowledges that maybe tough to accomplish in the wake of the sealing of the border between Israel and the West Bank following the Machane Yehuda bombing. “Whatever happens, I want to remain in contact with my Israeli friends during the year. I am hoping that the Seeds of Peace office in Jerusalem will help us to maintain those connections.”

Sharon Milman, a 15-year-old Israeli girl from Herziliya Pituach remarks, “I badly want what we have here to go on back home, though it is difficult for me to imagine this scene in Israel. I want badly to stay in touch with Dalal [Erekat] and some of the other Palestinian friends I have made.”

Wallach noted that the Seeds of Peace Jerusalem office has indeed been instrumental in past years helping Israeli participants maintain their ties with the Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts. The camp helps coordinate contacts by phone and e-mail, and in setting up meetings between the participants. Recently, alumni of the program began publishing a newspaper that appears several times a year called The Olive Branch, which chronicles the activities of Seeds of Peace, and includes interviews by Seeds of Peace alumni with such luminaries as former Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres. But Seeds of Peace administrators acknowledge that much more needs to be done to sustain and build on the enthusiasm campers bring home with them from Maine.

There seemed to be near universal agreement among the Israelis and Palestinians with a point made by Yossi Zilberstein, namely that “The campers and counselors from Jordan, Egypt and the other Arab countries play an important role in bridging the gap between us Israelis and the Palestinians. They have helped us to understand the Palestinians and vice versa.”

Shirin Hamefieh, 15, from Amman, Jordan, notes, “I see my role as trying to bring my Israeli and Palestinian friends closer together. When we have games and activities and I notice Israeli kids sitting on one side of the room and Palestinians on the other, I get up and try to bring them over to the same place. At the beginning of the camp it was clear to me that a lot of the Israelis and Palestinians didn’t want to deal with each other because you could see that a lot of them on both sides didn’t want to share the land.

“It has been exciting to see how that has changed, mostly due to the work we have all done in the coexistence sessions. It seems to me that all of them have changed their minds and now understand that they have to live together since neither side can kick the other out. Besides, so many of them have come to like each other.”

Yousr Dridi, a 15-year-old Tunisian participant, said, “I think those of us who are not from Palestine and Israel can help to bring these kids together because we are not so directly involved. Before coming here, I read about the conflict in the papers and saw it on television, but it didn’t directly impact my life. That has changed completely. When I leave here I want to keep doing what I can to bring peace to my friends in Israel and Palestine.”

The day this reporter spent at Seeds of Peace was supposed to end with lectures by Palestinian and Israeli counselors on the subject “The History of the Middle East 3000 B.C.-1997.” At around 8:30 p.m., the campers assembled dutifully in the mess room, though from the buzz in the hall it seems that many of them, keyed up from the excitement of the day, including the just-completed coexistence session, are not looking forward to sitting still through two hour-long lectures. Before the speakers came on, Wallach takes the stage to deliver a rousing pep talk for the campers. He burbles enthusiastically, “What you have accomplished here is unheard of in the Middle East. Let’s keep it up.”

“Yes, it will be hard to stay in touch. Your leaders don’t want it. But you have to break the barriers with letters, e-mails, faxes and invitations to each other’s homes. That’s the way to come back here for those of you who want it. Stay in touch and keep working for Seeds of Peace.” The Palestinian lecturer then begins talking in a deadpan, somewhat muffled voice about obscure events in the region in 2900 B.C. As several campers shout “speak louder,” the Israeli lecturer leaps forward out of turn to dispute the Palestinian’s account. “No,” he says accusingly, “You are incorrect. The events you are talking about happened at least fifty years later.” As the two engage in a shouting match replete with insults, the audience begins to suspect the whole thing is an elaborate gag. Sure enough, several of the other counselors suddenly gallop to the stage, hurling crunched-up paper wads at each other, until someone shouts “Party!” and puts a piercingly loud disco record on the CD player.

Almost instantly, the whole scene dissolves surrealistically into “Animal House”. As if impelled by some uncontrollable force, virtually all of the campers jump to their feet and begin joyously gyrating to an insipid driving disco beat that is light years away from the rhythms and sensibilities of either Israel or the Arab world. The frenetic music impels the dancers to throw themselves around vigorously rather than embracing each other, one of the principle “no-nos” at Seeds of Peace where romances of any sort are discouraged. There is nothing remotely sensual in their dancing; rather, it is a glorious explosion of pent-up energy, a release from the pain and tension still lingering in the wake of the Jerusalem bombing and an exhilarating way to affirm their love and respect for each other without tampering with the ultimate taboo.

Wallach is visibly upset by what has happened, stalking out of the hall before returning several minutes later and standing in the back of the room with a scowl and his arms folded tightly across his chest. Clearly, he was not informed by the counselors of their plans to trigger the dance, and is scared that this reckless behavior might short-circuit the entire Seeds of peace program if word of it were to leak back to the Middle East out of the correct context. Indeed, the one Palestinian female camper clad in Islamic garb appears distraught; she is sitting in the corner and sulking while several campers and administrators try to console her.

The surprise is not that the dancing offended one girl, but rather that virtually all of the others were gyrating joyously and uninhibitedly. Clearly many of these kids are eager to sample freedoms of the West that are unthinkable back home, and the wild dancing ahs given them a chance to do that. There is an atmosphere in the room of inspired madness. These wonderful kids are breaking all the constricting rules of decades and centuries, celebrating freedom and humanity. Yes, they are taking a risk, and yet, the reporter suddenly understands, this need to get up and boogie together is not irresponsibility or indulgence on the part of the counselors and campers. It is not madness. It is utterly pure and natural. It is about being teenagers, about being free and open human beings. The madness is back home, in the hatred and non-communication, in the countervailing ideologies that finally crush their spirits and blow them to pieces in Jerusalem markets and Hebron alleyways.

Wallach’s worry is certainly understandable, but he is reacting as an adult operating on a cognitive level, unable to fully embrace the uncompromising logic of youthful truth and idealism that his own creation, Seeds of Peace, has summoned forth. By jumping up to dance together the kids are affirming that they are no longer willing to kow tow to the weird twisted logic of the Middle East. The wild celebratory dance is sparklingly pure, brave, life-affirming and filled with love.

After about 40 minutes of this divine madness, the counselors flick off the music and inform the campers that it is time for lights out. First, the female campers are asked to return to their bunks, and five minutes later, the boys. They do so quietly and obediently, but with a collective glow on their faces that wasn’t there before. They have much to look forward to; the big ceremony at the camp three days from now and the upcoming meeting with Clinton at the White House. That is heady stuff for 14 and 15-year-olds.

Yet it is obvious the campers are already looking beyond all of that to the hard part, returning to their respective societies with a determination to explain to their families, friends, and countrymen that the people on the other side of the border are human beings with whom they must connect on a human level. It will be excruciatingly difficult, and there will certainly be setbacks along the way, but looking searchingly into the eyes of these youngsters it is clear to this reporter that they have been transformed in fundamental ways and will no go back easily to accepting a state of hostility which they now understand is anything but natural or inevitable.

Perhaps, as Wallach has hopefully predicted, in 20 years among the alumni returning to visit the Seeds of Peace camp will be the Prime Minister of Israel or President of Palestine. Despite the deep gloom back in the Middle East, the feisty exuberance lighthouse in Maine known as Seeds of Peace is transmitting a bright and vibrant beacon of love and hope as it illuminates a ravishing vision of a new and happier millennium.