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Peace Camp
The Jewish News (Detroit)

Sep 15, 1995 / No Comments

If Middle East peace is to be attained, its groundwork must be put in place by young leadership. A summer camp in Maine brings teens together for this very reason.

BY JENNIFER FINER | At 15, Shouq Tarawneh, a Jordanian, began to feel that the facts and ideas she always accepted as truth needed clarification.

She saw Seeds of Peace, a program in the United States, as an opportunity to shed light on her feelings of darkness. It allowed her; if only temporarily, to live among Palestinians, Egyptians and Moroccans. Most important to Shouq, she would have her first face-to-face meeting with an Israeli.

Even after their countries agreed to live in peace, Shouq felt the images she had of her Israeli neighbors were nothing more than stereotypes. She wanted to clarify them. She had much hope for Seeds of Peace in Wayne, Maine.

“Before I came here, I felt like I was walking in a dark room,” Shouq said. “I had opinions without pictures. Seeds of Peace is like a door out of the dark.

“I’ve learned there are fences of superstition among all of us. We have old opinions of each other and … we’re here to destroy those fences.”

In mid-August, Shouq and her peers met in Boston for briefing sessions before spending two weeks at Camp Androscoggin, in central Maine.

The teens took buses to Washington for the final part of the program. They met with high-level government officials and toured the nation’s capital.

The third Seeds of Peace summer ended last week for 130 participants. They left Washington with a better understanding of each other. While the fences Shouq spoke of remain, many of the teens said they have a greater sensitivity toward how “the other side sees things” and now have a “face on the enemy.”

Seeds of Peace was founded in 1993 by John Wallach, a Jewish journalist who wrote several books on the Middle East, including a biography he co-authored with his wife Janet and PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat.

Mr. Wallach, who worked as a reporter and editor for Hearst Newspapers, planted the program’s initial seed shortly after the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

“Something went off in the back of my head which said, ‘There has got to be a response to this type of terrorism,’” said Mr. Wallach, whose parents are Holocaust survivors.

“It occurred to me the only response was to get young people together who aren’t poisoned by the hostility of their region. With the peace process moving forward, this became possible like never before.”

Mr. Wallach chose to establish the camp in the United States because it would put campers on a neutral playing field. He also believed it made sense given America’s key role in mediating Middle East peace.

Before Mr. Wallach’s concept could become anything more than an idea, he needed to gain support. So he turned to Mr. Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and other key Middle East leaders.

“I asked them to trust me with some of their teens,” Mr. Wallach said.

At first, the idea was difficult to sell, especially to Egyptian government leaders who, according to Mr. Wallach, were skeptical about sending their children to be with Israelis.

By the second summer, Morocco and Jordan began sending their teens. Although Lebanon and Syria were invited to participate, both declined.

Funding such an endeavor is challenging. All participants are heavily subsidized or completely funded. Parents are given the option to pay $500 of the $2,500 cost. Other funds come from American Jewish and Arab donors.

According to Mr. Wallach, private American donors, mostly Jews and some Arabs, contribute a majority of the budget. The rest comes from a number of foundations and individuals, including an anonymous Saudi Arabian, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, the Blaustein Foundation, the Goldman Foundation of San Francisco, the Fox Family Foundation, the Streisand Foundation and Time Warner Inc.

Seeds of Peace isn’t exclusive to Middle East teens.

“We want to be responsive to areas of intense conflict,” Mr. Wallach said. To fulfill that goal, a handful of Bosnian and Serbian teens participated in this summer’s program.

“I can’t think of any other place in the world where Bosnians and Serbs are coexisting,” he said. “We don’t try to hide the difficult issues. Instead, we try to give them the skills they need to effectively debate their issues.”

When a bomb struck Sarajevo late last month, tensions at the camp escalated. The Bosnian reaction was, “We hate the Serbs.”

“We have to get them through these initial feelings and encourage them to sit down—with or without a facilitator—and talk,” Mr. Wallach said. “It took 24 hours of dialogue before the Bosnian and Serbian teens got back to their earlier level of friendship.”

While days are filled with swimming, canoeing and arts and crafts, evenings are spent in “coexistence groups.” Through theatrics, games and dialogue, the teens learn to solve conflict through open discussion.

“There is great difficulty involved in making real peace,” Mr. Wallach said. “The amount of hate and prejudice a 13-year-old brings with him shows us how hard we have to work to undo what’s been taught.”

Susan Siegel, a facilitator from New York, listened last month as a Palestinian girl told an Israeli girl, “I hate you,” and later apologized, saying, “I really don’t hate you, but that’s all I’ve ever learned.”

“Watching this process is draining and often frustrating,” said Ms. Siegel. “It’s an incredible challenge to work with kids who are so sophisticated and feel a strong sense of pride, passion and loyalty to their countries.”

During the coexistence groups, professional facilitators conduct workshops designed to extract open dialogue, allowing the teens to unleash their feelings.

Simultaneous evening sessions could be spent talking about gender differences, democracy and identity, while the next evening’s groups might deal with issues relating to values, prejudice, and negotiations and conflict resolution.

Every evening, facilitator Mitch Ross (son of former Michigan state Sen. Doug Ross), who is working toward a master’s in international conflict resolution, took different group members on a night hike where they experienced similar levels of fear and had to rely on each other for support.

Often the teens would sing because they had a need to hear each other’s voices and get through the hike together.

It was during these coexistence meetings that smiles often turned to tears, tempers flared, and differences came out.

On numerous occasions, talks focused on Jerusalem, an issue Israelis and Palestinians discussed passionately.

“We wanted to leave Jerusalem for the end because it’s hardest to talk about,” said Michael Hessel, 13, who grew up in Israel and recently moved with his family to Bethesda, Md.

“When we first discussed Jerusalem, I was hurt by a lot of what was said. Now I realize that’s what the Palestinians were taught.”

After a series of discussions with the Palestinian teens, Michael, who said he would rather die than lose Jerusalem, changed his thinking. He now says he might be more willing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital for Israel and the Palestinians. His friend, Daniel Shinar, an Israeli, doesn’t agree.

“Every time Israel makes peace, it has to give something away,” he said. “I have to a hard time understanding the Palestinian point of view. I try and put myself in their way of thinking and it’s somewhat easier to understand them. I can talk with the Palestinians and we can have fun together. But when trust is the issue, I don’t feel I can trust them 100 percent like I can the Jordanians and Egyptians. I still have the feeling with the Palestinian that he wants my land.”

Israelis found talks about the Holocaust equally disturbing. While some Arabs denied it ever happened, others maintained the number of Jewish deaths were exaggerated.

One morning, some of the Israeli teens returned to their Arab peers with facts on the Holocaust they obtained from the Internet.

For the most part, the deniers became less skeptical. Others asked, “How can we feel sorry for something that happened so many years ago when our relatives are being killed right now?”

A Palestinian teen named Abeer was disappointed the Israelis didn’t always accept her position. However, she thinks the camp has helped promote understanding.

Those who participated in the program were screened through a series of tests and interviews, and each wrote an essay on “Why I Want To Make Peace With the Enemy.”

Most of the participants were new to the program; others were returning peace makers. This summer was the first for Shouq of Jordan.

“I didn’t imagine myself talking to Israelis,” she said. “Here, they’re children before Israelis. Now I realize we are all children and, together, we act as the body of a child. If any part hurts us, it hurts all the kids in the world. If an Israeli and Palestinian has a problem, it’s my problem, too.

“Peace isn’t easy, but the bravery peace needs is not any less than the bravery war needs.”

Seeds of Peace participants arrive with the idea that making peace will be easy. Shortly into the program, they learn how difficult it is.

The camp director, Tim Wilson, a former professional football player and now a teacher in Pittsburgh, brought an added dimension. As an inner-city educator, Mr. Wilson deals with intercultural tensions daily.

“I believe in this program because it’s a place for kids to grow and share and hope,” he said. “A drip turns into a drop before it becomes a stream, then a river and then an ocean. I think we have future prime ministers and other leaders here who will be able to make a difference.”

Following the February 1994 Hebron massacre, when an Israeli shot 40 Palestinians in a mosque at the Cave of Machpelah, former Seeds of peace participants wrote a letter to their respective leaders, asking for Arab-Israeli peace talks to resume.

The teens wrote different drafts of their letter and through use of the fax machine a single letter was sent to both Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat.

Mr. Wallach said encouraging the teens to work together, in ways similar to this peace letter, is difficult during the year.

To maintain dialogue, Seeds of Peace sends its participants a monthly newsletter containing articles written by the teens. Yearly reunions are held, and Mr. Wallach hopes to open regional centers in the Middle East so former participants can get together on a regular basis.

During camp, the teens, who had already found reason to use the Internet as a research tool, were exposed to the Internet so those who had never been on-line could learn and later use it for communication.

One evening after dinner, Michael Hessel, of Maryland, was “surfing the Net,” looking for information about the popular television show The Simpsons when a colorful display of Bart Simpson caught the eye of Tarek Shamma, a 13-year-old Egyptian. Tarek pulled a chair next to Michael and the two began discussing the show.

“When we first met, we were at the bottom of the pit,” Tarek explained. “Now, we are at the top of the mountain.”

Added Michael, “During a ‘coexistence’ at the beginning, I wasn’t very diplomatic with Tarek. After, I felt bad, and with the help of a third party we were able to reach an understanding.”

Tarek responded, “I wasn’t the type of person to say I hate Israelis. I’ve always had an open mind because my parents taught me never to be biased.”

When Tarek was chosen to be a part of the program, he said he considered it an honor, and his parents were pleased for the opportunity.

Many of the childrens’ parents, including Michael Hessel’s, encouraged their sons and daughters to participate. Michael’s grandparents, whom he describes as right-wing were not as encouraging.

“I started hating Arabs because of them,” Michael said.

Mr. Wallach calls the parents courageous for being willing to send their children to America to make peace with the enemy. He said it can be especially difficult for some because Arab terrorist groups target Arabs favoring armistice.

On Sept. 7, the Seeds of Peace teens ended their camp session. The last days were spent in Washington, where they met with U.S. Officials including Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Vice President Al Gore.

Mr. Gore stressed to the teens that the future is up to them. It’s not enough to sign papers, he said. Real peace is in your hands.

Egyptian teen helps others think peace
Portland Press Herald

Jul 23, 1997 / No Comments

OTISFIELD | His name is Amgad and at 18, he understands what’s expected of him as a camp counselor this summer. He’s here, he says, to help build bridges.

“That’s what we Egyptians have been doing for a long time,” Amgad said Tuesday. “I was born the year they signed the (Camp David) treaty, so peace with Israel has always been part of my life.”

Which is more than you can say for many of the kids who just arrived at the Seeds of Peace International Camp. As Amgad looked on in the mid-morning sunshine, a blur of adolescent exuberance representing seven Middle East countries converged on a soccer ball—their laughter cascading from the open field to the shores of Pleasant Lake.

“Look at them,” Amgad said proudly. “They’re a team already.”

It began five years ago in the mind of John Wallach, at the time the foreign editor for The Hearst Newspapers, who decided after the World Trade Center bombing that covering terrorists wasn’t enough—there had to be a way to stop them from taking root in the first place.

Seeds of Peace, he decided, might be the way. The concept was disarmingly simple: Gather together a mix of Arab and Israeli teenagers, bring them to the serenity of the Maine woods for a few weeks each summer and teach them that conflict resolution need not be a matter of who has the most stones or bullets.

“Nobody was paying attention to building peace at a time when the leaders were signing peace treaties,” Wallach said. “I decided you have to start with the young people.”

And so he did. For four years, Seeds of Peace has bounced from one borrowed location to another, skirting the edges of Maine’s normal summer-camp season. Now, thanks to a ten-year lease and an army of volunteers who spent months renovating the all-but-abandoned Camp Powhatan, Wallach’s labor of love has a permanent home.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” he said Tuesday, negotiating his golf cart past the freshly painted bunkhouses, dining hall, wood shop, art studio …

That it is.

They arrived Sunday evening, 175 bleary-eyed kids from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar and Tunisia. Over the next five weeks, they will split their days between recreation—baseball, tennis, soccer, swimming, sailing, water-skiing—and “coexistence session,” where the real work will be accomplished.

Amgad knows what to expect. He attended the first camp in 1993 and is now back as a counselor—the first alumnus on the staff. At times, he said, the tension will be palpable, the fear and prejudice as deep as the cold, clear waters of Pleasant Lake.

“I feel the pressure,” Amgad said quietly.

But he also feels the hope.

On Tuesday morning, the entire camp met at the main gate for the first-ever flag-raising ceremony.

One by one, the flag for each country unfurled. And one by one, the kids from that country proudly stepped forward and sang their national anthem—to the warm applause of their newfound friends.

Then, just before they walked arm-in-arm into a summer they’ll never forget, they watched one more flag rise—it shows three children projecting the shadow of an olive branch with “Seeds of Peace” stenciled across the bottom—and sang their new camp song.

Amgad, of all people, wrote the words. When it was over, campers representing every conceivable side of the Middle East conflict loudly cheered their young Egyptian role model.

“I was so embarrassed,” Amgad said later. “I’m not used to that.”

Who is?

Rashomon
The Jerusalem Report

Jun 21, 1999 / No Comments

BY IAN HALPERN | Bushra Jawabri, a 17-year-old Palestinian from the al-Arub refugee camp near Hebron, sits inside a rickety minivan discussing the dreaded tawjihi matriculation exam. A third-generation camp resident, Bushra is escaping her studies today to meet the Kosovar Albanian refugees who’ve found shelter at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael. She’s traveling north with another Palestinian and two Israeli teens on a trip organized by Seeds of Peace, a group that brings together youth from Israel and the Arab world.

When Noa Epstein, 16, from Mevasseret Zion outside Jerusalem, joins the ride, a smile crosses Bushra’s face. The two met at Seeds of Peace summer camp in the U.S. in 1997, and have kept in touch. With Adham Rishmawi, a jocular 16-year-old from Beit Sahur, telling jokes to 15-year-old Dana Gdalyahu from Rishon Lezion, the laughter nearly exceeds the noise from the old van’s engine.

Hours later on the kibbutz, the groups forms a tight circle on the porch, listening to Kreshnik Bajktari, 23, a Kosovar dentistry student with remarkable green eyes. Gazing towards the Mediterranean, he tells his story slowly. On April 3, after 10 days hiding in the basement of his parents’ home in Pristina, watching Kosovo erupt on CNN, he left with his mother and two brothers. Serbs were shelling the neighborhood, and police units were evicting residents by force. “I knew it would soon be my turn, and because I am young they might kill me,” he says. The Bajktaris fled to the Blace refugee camp in Macedonia, where Kreshnik served as an interpreter at the IDF field hospital, earning him a place among the first 111 refugees flown to Israel.

Kreshnik spent five days watching Serbian trains unload thousands of Albanian refugees. “Every day I counted train cars. There were 22 cars filled with people and the smell was terrible. I recognized many people. They were my neighbors.”

As the teens absorb the gruesome tale, sympathetic nods and knowing glances ripple through the group. They listen to the same story but hear different things.

“Some Israelis get upset about Holocaust comparisons,” says Noa, whose father fled the Nazis as a child. “But that’s the first thing I thought of, the stories of my grandparents.” The detail that stirs memories from Adham, a child of the Intifada, comes when Kreshnik says he recognized the smell of tear gas by age 6 and he’s only known Serbs as soldiers and police. “The things you saw on TV, I saw them with my eyes,” says Adham, whose father was arrested for leading a non-violent tax revolt.

On the drive back, chocolate chip cookies take some of the edge off and the kids decompress. They reflect on history’s victims. “There’s no need to compare pain,” says Noa. “We suffered, the Palestinians are suffering, and others are still suffering. Comparisons aren’t the point at all.”

Visit to Ground Zero tests resolve of Seeds of Peace alumni
Portland Press Herald

Nov 14, 2001 / No Comments

BY MEREDITH GOAD | The landscape, gray, black and smoldering, still looks shocked. As the young activists from the Maine-based Seeds of Peace program gazed at the vortex of death splayed in front of them, there were floods of tears and hugs of comfort.

Supported by two friends, Shani, a 17-year-old from Israel, went inside the remains of the World Trade Center complex where her cousin died. She emerged with eyes red from tears, shocked at the size of the hole. The hole, she said again and again. She couldn’t believe it was so big.

Shani was in New York for a Seeds of Peace International Youth Conference, called Uprooting Hatred and Terror. One of the highlights—if it can be called that—on Tuesday was a visit to ground zero. A reporter and photographer from the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram were invited to attend.

Standing on a platform above the remains of the towers, thinking of her cousin, Shani was surprised to feel herself filled with hate. If Osama bin Laden had been standing there, she said, she would have stabbed him.

“It was the first time in my life I felt hatred,” said the girl, who has seen herself as a lifelong peace activist. “It was horrible.”

An Egyptian friend wrapped her arms around her. “She was my friend and I love her, but she’s Arab and I’m not feeling really good about Arabs right now,” Shani said.

The Seeds of Peace visit, blessed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, marked the first time a youth group has been allowed to visit the site. It was also the first time such a diverse group had come to pay its respects. Muslims and Jews, Indians and Pakistanis stood together on the wooden platform overlooking the cranes, trucks and other equipment gently searching through the rubble. It was a sight that shocked many after years of working to combat such acts of hate.

Shani, like the other youths there, became enamored of the Seeds of Peace group at its camp in Otisfield, Maine, where children from countries in conflict come together to debate world problems and make friends with “the other side.” The New York conference was arranged as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Parents worried about sending their children to New York, but 120 of them from 20 countries came anyway, intent on drafting their own anti-terrorism charter to present to the United Nations on Thursday.

This week, as they heard from dignitaries such as Queen Noor of Jordan and met with the wife of a World Trade Center victim, they have hugged and talked and laughed—and asked tough questions of politicians. Nabil Sha’ath, a Palestinian official, pledged Yasser Arafat’s future support for the camp.

Seeds of Peace delegates are chosen for their bravery in being able to take a hard look at themselves and listen to points of view that can enrage them. Many showed a different kind of bravery Tuesday as they braced themselves for the World Trade Center visit.

Lars Okot, 15, of Portland, a Sudanese refugee, said he was a little nervous about the field trip.

“It might feel like I’ve been home again,” he said. “The ground is actually covered in the blood of everyone.”

Shani was a little afraid. “I don’t want to make a scene, and I know I’m going to cry my guts out,” she said. “It’s going to be so weird to see that place. I haven’t quite grasped it yet.”

She still can’t believe that her cousin, Collin Healey, is gone. Collin’s father, Robert Healey, was working in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. He had stopped smoking seven years ago, “and he decided that on this day, at this specific hour, he wanted a cigarette.” He went out and sat in the park to have a smoke.

Little did he know that his son was coming by work that day to give him the good news that he had been accepted at New York University. Robert Healey, Shani’s uncle, saw the first plane hit, and ran away.

In Israel, Shani hopped into a friend’s car and heard the news on the radio. She went to school.

“The school was like dark,” she said. “It reminded me of the day Yitzhak Rabin died. People were sad. New York has meaning for the world. Seeing the thing that actually represents New York destroyed and so many people there, it was terrible. People could truly relate to that.”

As they prepared to board four buses Tuesday, John Wallach, a former journalist who founded the group in 1993, reminded the group not to take cameras with them. It has pained some of the victims’ families, he explained, to see so many people going to the platform overlooking the site. They are worried about this hallowed ground—where there are still thousands of bodies buried—potentially being exploited.

“We are being given an extraordinary—I hate to say—privilege. It’s a terrible thought,” he said.

When the buses, escorted by New York police, reached the site, the young people went onto the platform about 50 at a time. Anxiety was already apparent on many faces. Waiting in line, Amal Khan, a 15-year-old from Pakistan, wasn’t sure she wanted to go in.

“I’m saying to myself now, why did it have to happen?” she said, her eyes tearing. “Why would anyone be so angry? I’m so confused. I don’t know if I want to see it.”

As they looked out over the rubble—the skeleton of the first tower—they listened to Dina Hanna, a liaison with Giuliani’s office, recite a litany of bodies found, buildings still around. The Seeds of Peace youths have a firsthand relationship with terror, but it was hard even for them to understand this. Here, thousands of innocent souls first met both terror and death face to face. Their presence still lingers, sorrowfully.

On the wooden railing are messages to the dead, an impromptu and heartbreaking American journal: “We miss you Dad.”

“We love you Frank. I know you are happy to be at peace. Love, Mom and Dad.”

“Bless those who have died in this horrible tragedy.”

Naima Margan, 14, a Somalian refugee who lives in Portland, was sad and trembling when she left the platform.

“It brings back memories,” she said. “It just brings back innocent people dying. It’s a disaster. It should never have happened. It’s hard because you think of these people that were jumping out the windows …” She stopped, unable to go on.

Walking back to the United Nations, Shani said the experience reinforced her belief that the work Seeds of Peace is doing is as important as the work of diplomats. She also needed to call home.

“I really want to talk to my parents,” she said.

The PID is not convincing
Ha’aretz Editorial

Oct 18, 2006 / No Comments

The PID’s behavior was flawed throughout their investigation of the suspects of the October 2006 killings, and at times, it looked like a whitewash.

Close attention should be paid to the harsh statements made by Professor Shimon Shamir, a member of the Or Commission, about the need for the Police Investigations Department (PID) to seriously examine itself. This is not the first time Shamir has attacked the PID. Back in September 2005, when the PID announced its decision not to press charges against police officers involved in the October 2000 incidents, Shamir and his colleague on the commission, Judge Hashim Khatib, charged that the PID had failed to implement the Or Commission’s recommendations and ignored its findings. Following publication of the recent report by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the criticisms leveled by Shamir and Khatib appear even more justified.

The PID’s behavior was flawed throughout the affair, and at times, it looked like a whitewash. Adalah’s investigation reveals, inter alia, that contrary to the Or Commission’s recommendations, five killings were never investigated, and police officers who were investigated were not required to explain contradictions between their testimony to the PID and their testimony before the commission. It also turns out that the PID did not reveal police officers’ refusal to cooperate with the investigation and undergo lie detector tests; that witnesses considered trustworthy by the Or Commission were rejected by the PID; and that even though the PID did not present any new evidence, its conclusions about the incidents were the opposite of those reached by the commission.

To date, the PID has not offered a convincing explanation for its failure to investigate the events from day one. The argument that it was difficult to carry out an investigation in the field is weak, and the claim that the victims’ families did not cooperate is problematic. Even the legality of the order to open fire was never examined. Had the PID investigators taken the Or Commission’s conclusions seriously, they would not have ignored this issue, and it is doubtful whether they would have been able to avoid recommending the indictment of the responsible commanders.

The PID’s contempt for the commission’s conclusions was further expressed at a press conference called by senior Justice Ministry officials a mere three days after the PID published its decision not to indict any officers – a decision that provoked a public storm and bitter disappointment in the Arab community. The complacency displayed at this press conference, and the sweeping defense presented by State Prosecutor Eran Shendar (who in fact should not have been involved at all, because he served as head of the PID when the incidents occurred, and a significant portion of the Or Commission’s criticisms related to his conduct at that time), changed a few days later, when the PID agreed to reconsider its decision. But the final decision to close all the cases ended any chance of correcting the double injustice that was done to the bereaved families.

The PID and the Justice Ministry react strongly, often aggressively, to accusations that had the dead not been Arabs, the entire affair would have been handled differently. The accusation, like the reaction, is hard to prove. Nonetheless, it is certainly possible to understand the Arab community’s pained feeling that the PID is showing contempt both for them and for the Or Commission, and thereby signaling police officers that the life of an Arab Israeli citizen is worth less before the law. The PID must reopen these cases, conduct a courageous investigation and restore, albeit belatedly, a bit of the confidence in the system that Arab Israeli citizens have lost.

Read this editorial at Ha’aretz »

Israeli bullet ends a life in two worlds
The Washington Post

Oct 5, 2000 / No Comments

BY LEE HOCKSTADER | JERUSALEM At age 17, Asel Asleh was the kid with the 1,000-watt smile, an extroverted, trilingual computer junkie with a gift for gab, a glittering future and, for an Arab, an almost unheard of network of close Jewish friends whose mothers he invariably charmed.

So when Asel was killed Monday, shot in the neck by Israeli soldiers during rock-throwing protests, he was mourned beyond the confines of his Arab village in northern Israel’s Galilee region. In Jerusalem, too, his Jewish friends converged from all over Israel to hug, weep and reminisce, and to puzzle over this question: How could they love Asel—really love him—and also love the country whose soldiers shot him dead?

“On the one hand, I love my country, and I support my soldiers and think they’re not trying to kill anyone—just trying to protect the people,” said Moran Eizenbaum, 17, her eyes glassy and her words coming in a rush. “On the other hand, I loved Asel, and I have a hard time picturing that he was such a threat to the security of Israel that they had to shoot him. I mean, they had to have a reason. But how could they have shot Asel? I mean, why Asel? What did Asel do?”

Asel had found his Jewish friends through Seeds of Peace, an American program that has brought more than 800 Arab and Israeli teenagers to summer camp in Maine since 1993, then helped keep them in touch once they returned to the Middle East.

The program, which cuts against the animosity and ignorance that help fuel Middle East hatreds, had few more sterling success stories than Asel. He was, by all accounts, a model of what a Seed should be—an immoderately prolific e-mailer, letter writer and phone caller who invested time and energy into making Jewish friends and keeping them.

“Everyone’s friendly at Seeds of Peace, but he was super-friendly,” said Dana Naor, 17, a Jewish Seed veteran from the Israeli town of Holon. “He used to make a point of talking to our parents. He’d come hug me and say hi. I think my mom was in love with him.”

The tears and grief of Asel’s fellow Seeds have led them to ask questions that few other Israelis have been asking during the violence that has consumed Israel, Gaza and the West Bank for the last six days.

As the clashes have spiraled, many Israelis have circled the wagons. Although they may disagree about politics, few Israelis doubt that the army has been forced to open fire on rioters or that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have played a large part in provoking the events that have led to more than 60 deaths. Some Israelis have Arab acquaintances but few have Arab friends, and the mounting death toll among Palestinians has registered with most Israelis more as a statistic than as individual human tragedies.

“Our deaths are stories, but theirs are just numbers,” said the headline on an unusually frank article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz this week.

But at Seeds of Peace headquarters in East Jerusalem, from whose roof today fluttered four black flags of mourning, the fighting and death have suddenly become intensely personal. And the certainties of their countrymen are provoking doubts among the young Jewish Seeds.

“Before this, I thought that anybody who got killed was guilty in some way,” said Naor. “And now I think that maybe everyone is more like Asel. Maybe they were all just walking back from school when ….” Her voice trailed off.

What happened with Asel—how he died—is in question. He was killed in a clash Monday with Israeli forces on the outskirts of his village, Arabeh, in upper Galilee. Whether he was throwing stones, helping the wounded or simply watching the action is unclear. More than a half-dozen Israeli Arabs were killed that day, and Israeli police say all died in the riots that swept the region. A spokesman said he could provide no specific information about Asel’s death.

Asel’s family, which saw his body before burial on Tuesday, say his wounds, including extensive bruises to the back, arms and face, suggested he had been beaten with rifle butts before being shot. No autopsy was conducted.

To his fellow Seeds, the circumstances of Asel’s death are not the main point. Some are skeptical that Asel could have been throwing stones; others suspect he probably did, although they cannot quite imagine it.

What they could imagine was what they remembered—a big, broad-shouldered boy who was 14 or 15 when he first enrolled in Seeds of Peace, who seemed much older than his age and a little frightening to some of the Israelis. Until he smiled.

“He looked older, but he turned out to be this big teddy bear,” said Shirley Evrany, 17.

Eizenbaum remembers steering clear of him at the Seeds camp in Maine, until one day he overheard her wishing she could find some chocolate.

“He said, ‘If you want M&Ms, I can get you some,'” she recalled.

He was, the Seeds agreed, passionate and persuasive about his politics, but also funny. And he was intensely torn over his dual identity as an Arab and an Israeli—part of the 18 percent Arab minority who vote, pay taxes, attend school, speak Hebrew and have 10 representatives in the 120-member Israeli parliament.

Two years ago, a girl named Reem Masarwa wrote to The Olive Branch, the newspaper of the Seeds of Peace, that she felt “caught between worlds” as an Arab citizen of Israel. Asel wrote back with some advice for her.

“I’m an Israeli?” he wrote. “So how come the word Arab is still there? I can never take the word Israeli off my passport, or the word Arab, which I feel proud of every time I hear it. We can’t change what we are, but we can change the way that we live already, we can take our lives in our hands once again, we can move from a position as a viewer of this game to a player. We are no more asked to watch; we can make a change. We don’t have to be caught; we can lead these two worlds, and still keep everything we had.”

To his Jewish friends in Seeds of Peace, Asel was a touchstone of shared experience. On their return from Maine, many found themselves hassled in school, called Arab-lovers and worse. And then they’d get e-mail from Asel, then a phone call, then an invitation to visit his house in Galilee.

And so the Seeds of Peace program was borne along, with a major assist from teenagers like Asel.

If he had an idealistic streak, Asel was also a realist, his friends said. A high school senior, he planned to attend the Technion in Haifa, Israel’s MIT, and to study computers and engineering.

Probably, said the Seeds, Asel would have founded a high-tech start-up. Probably, they said, he would have become well-to-do and important.

Now, the Seeds realized, they will never know what Asel would have become.

Bitter and stunned at what for many is their first experience with death, the Seeds are trying to make sense of Asel’s killing.

Said Eizenbaum: “We question what the hell we’re doing [in Seeds of Peace] if people are still getting shot and killed. It’s like, what’s the point?”

At Seeds of Peace headquarters today, Asel’s friends turned the main upstairs conference room into a shrine to his memory, decking it out with photos of Asel grinning, Asel making funny faces and Asel monkeying around. They lit candles on the floor and placed them around a scrapbook open to a page he had written about a field trip to Jordan—in successive paragraphs of Arabic, Hebrew and English.

Later this month, Seeds of Peace headquarters will celebrate the first anniversary of its opening in Jerusalem. Hundreds of Seeds have been invited, but a pall has been cast over the event.

“I cannot imagine how they’re going to have it without Asel,” said Evrany.

Summer camp sows seeds of peace
BBC News

Aug 28, 2008 / No Comments

MAINE, UNITED STATES | Going to summer camp is a rite of passage for many young people in the United States.

It offers a chance to have fun outdoors while making new friends away from home.

The international camp set in woods by a glittering lake in Otisfield, Maine, follows the same tradition but it also has a lofty ambition: to sow the seeds of peace in the Middle East.

Every year the youth organisation, Seeds of Peace, brings 340 teenagers to this remote site.

Most are from Israel, the Palestinian territories and other parts of the Arab world.

“Seeds of Peace is the best experience that ever happened to me,” says Nadia Tibi, 15, from Israel. “I’ve met people I never thought I would meet.”

As she speaks, Nadia stands arm-in-arm with Majdoline Shahed, a 17-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem.

Together the teenagers shout in support of their team-mates competing on the playing field. They wear matching blue t-shirts and face-paint.

Opportunities to meet

For the past three weeks Nadia and Majdoline have slept in neighbouring bunk beds.

Each day they eat together, do joint activities and attend dialogue sessions with counsellors to discuss their experiences of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This is the only place that you can be with people from different cultures and countries and talk very honestly,” says Majdoline.

Seeds of Peace was set up by the late American journalist John Wallach in 1993.

He saw there were few opportunities for young Israelis and Palestinians to meet and believed this encouraged them to grow up seeing each other as enemies.

The camp has seen highs and lows reflecting progress and setbacks in the Middle East peace process.

The first 46 boys who travelled to Maine were together when news broke of the Oslo Accords.

“We were euphoric,” remembers co-founder, Bobbie Gottshalk.

“We thought the weight was off everyone’s shoulders and now we were just going to work on making the peace happen.”

The campers were invited to attend the signing ceremony in Washington after they impressed First Lady Hillary Clinton during a White House tour.

“Then things started to unravel.”

‘Nearly destroyed’

On Ms Gottshalk’s table in her cabin at the camp sits a photograph of Asel Asleh, a popular Arab-Israeli Seed.

He was shot dead by Israeli security forces at the start of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000.

“It nearly destroyed us,” she says. “But you know young people have a spirit about them, an optimism that just can’t be quelled that easily.”

Outside camp director Leslie Lewin speeds across the waterlogged grass in a golf cart on her way to inspect a rope course. Constant rain has been the latest challenge at the camp.

Yet Lewin is convinced the past three weeks will have a life-changing effect on the teenagers who are about to go home.

“For so many of these kids, coming here is what it took to hear the other side of the story.

“I think that this basic level exposure has a really strong impact on the future.”

Security restrictions make it hard for former Seeds in the West Bank and Gaza to meet Israelis they befriend at the camp in Maine.

But where possible, workers in the region arrange follow-up events and dialogue sessions.

“Things don’t end after you leave camp. Actually you have more to do when it finishes,” says Mirna Ansari, a second-year camper.

She has stayed in touch with an Israeli friend she met at camp two years ago through the Internet. The girl also visited her family in Ramallah.

“She really enjoyed it,” says Mirna.

“Now I do think that there will be peace between Israel and Palestine. If we as teenagers believe that, then when we grow up we will work on it.”

Read Yolande Knell’s article at BBC News »

17 Palestinians and Israelis graduate from Seeds of Peace facilitation program

Jun 5, 2009 / No Comments

JERUSALEM | Seeds of Peace’s second Facilitators Training Course concluded on June 5 with a graduation ceremony for the 17 young adult participants from Israel and Palestine who now join the pool of dedicated, highly-skilled professionals who are helping Seeds to bridge the gap of understanding created by the conflict.

Thanks to a generous grant from ExxonMobil, these 17 facilitators now have the skills they need to lead dialogue sessions between opposing parties. These skills will be useful to Seeds of Peace at the Camp in Maine as well as on-the-ground programs in the Middle East. In addition, other organizations bringing Israelis and Palestinians together for dialogue will also benefit from their expertise.

“This was a great learning experience,” said Leena, a 1996 Palestinian Seeds of Peace Graduate. “Not only did I learn the skills of group management, but I also got the chance to put myself in the place of the other participants, which helped me understand group dynamics in a better way.”

“I also enjoyed working with a group of committed people from different places and backgrounds, and that added a lot to the course,” she said. “The course is a perfect training opportunity for people who want to specialize in facilitating dialogue between young people in conflict situations, but these skills can also be useful in daily life.”

Course instructors Danny Metzl and Farhat Agbariyah led the participants through 15-months of classroom learning and practical field work. Nearly half of the graduates have already facilitated new campers in Maine, and the other half will be on the shores of Lake Pleasant this summer.

Most have already worked at cross-border meetings in the Middle East, including the Spring Seminar in Netanya this past April, which was the first meeting of Israeli and Palestinian Seeds since the war in Gaza.

Seeds of Peace launches summer sailing, dialogue program off the coast of Maine

May 4, 2011 / 1 Comment

OTISFIELD, MAINE | Seeds of Peace is launching a sailing program for Middle Eastern and American youth. It will combine peace-building and conflict resolution with the profound experience of life at sea. This summer, Seas of Peace will bring 12-15 Israeli, Palestinian and American teenagers together on a sailing vessel on the coast of Maine. This pioneer session will run from July 9-30, 2011.

The first ten days of the program will be spent learning to sail small boats in Casco Bay, Maine, and the remaining time spent living aboard a traditional 140 ft. schooner, The Spirit of South Carolina.

During both parts of the program, the sailing Seeds will engage in dialogue about who they are and where they come from, undergo leadership training, and discuss how to continue working for peace back home. While living aboard Spirit of South Carolina, they will learn to sail this larger vessel, learn celestial navigation and chart plotting, stand watch, cook for each other, care for and maintain the vessel, and eventually—working together—take command of the vessel.

“In choosing such an isolated environment as a sailing boat, we are challenging the participants to truly engage with one another—offering them no choice with whom they interact,” says program co-founder Monica Balanoff. “Since few Seeds will know about halyards or capstans, everyone will start out on an equal playing field.”

As the Seeds work together to navigate, stand watch and learn the ropes, so to speak, bonds will be built and a sense of pride will inevitably emerge as they slowly become a cohesive crew.

Program co-founder David Nutt, who like Balanoff has worked at Seeds of Peace as a counselor, grew up sailing. Both Nutt and Balanoff have completed circumnavigations of the globe at early ages, Nutt with his family, and Balanoff with the high school semester at sea program Class Afloat.

In a qualitative study, students who participated in Class Afloat identified empathy, team-work, cultural awareness, and intellectual curiosity as the top learning outcomes accomplished. It is these same outcomes that we hope to facilitate.

The participants in Seas of Peace will be chosen from the pool of campers who apply to return to Seeds of Peace as second-year campers. This allows Seeds of Peace to offer more opportunities for dedicated campers to continue to work across borders. It also ensures Seas of Peace can choose participants who have shown continued commitment to the mission of Seeds of Peace.

Opening the program to Seeds of Peace alumnae guarantees that everyone will come to this new program with a common experience and a common commitment to the mission of Seeds of Peace. It also allows the participants to return home to the regional programming that Seeds of Peace offers in the Middle East and United States.

Through this program, the sailing Seeds will have the opportunity to prove to each other and the world that peace is an attainable reality.

Maine Seeds participate in World Affairs Council summit on Citizen Diplomacy

Apr 11, 2014 / No Comments

PORTLAND, MAINE | On April 11, Maine Seeds joined the World Affairs Council (WAC) of Maine’s Summit on Citizen Diplomacy. The topic of this year’s summit was “Citizen Diplomacy through Education: Promoting Awareness, Networking, and Partnerships.” The event was a great opportunity for Seeds to share the work they do in the context of Seeds of Peace, and to network with other people invested in the field.

The Summit, which took place at the University of Southern Maine, was focused on four goals:

1. To increase awareness and understanding in Maine of citizen diplomacy and why it is important to individuals, institutions, and communities, as well as to increase understanding of education as an instrument of citizen diplomacy;
2. To generate enthusiasm for citizen diplomacy through education, thereby advancing global citizenship;
3. To build the capacity of Maine’s schools and international educational institutions to become more globally engaged, and to encourage partnerships, networking and cooperation among them; and
4. To showcase local initiatives in global education.

Seeds heard from the President of the World Affairs Council of Maine, Clifford Gilpin; from Harold Pachious, former Chairman of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy; and from Ed Gragert, Director of the Global Campaign for Education in the U.S.

Also presenting were representatives two citizen diplomacy grassroots non-profit organizations, Africa School House and Safe Passage, who spoke about founding, organizing, and implementing grassroots non-profits in rural Tanzania and urban Guatemala.

For Seeds, the opportunity to hear about the challenges and successes within these organizations and to ask questions was exceptional.

The second part of the day was focused on citizen diplomacy specifically as it relates to youth and student exchange. Students learned about cultural exchange programs in Maine and how schools are working towards building global perspectives in their classrooms.

Lisa Cronin, a participant in the Seeds of Peace Educators Course, and a teacher at Dexter Regional High School where she uses technology to connect her students to classrooms around the world, also presented to the group. She spoke about how Seeds of Peace opened doors for her students to engage in citizen diplomacy, as they connect to other Seeds of Peace educators and their classrooms worldwide.

Maine Seeds Program Director Tim Wilson was invited to speak regarding local initiatives in global education. He addressed what Seeds of Peace means in the context of Maine and the local community issues Seeds deal with. Speaking proudly, he shared how he’s seen schools transform as Seeds became more actively involved in the community.

As they networked with professional citizen-to-citizen diplomacy practitioners, Seeds came away from the day was insight into how to engage with the world, not just learn about it.