More than 100 Arab and Israeli children visit Boston August 17-21 as part of 2nd annual program designed to promote Middle East peace
BOSTON | More than 100 teenage boys and girls—Egyptians, Israelis, Jordanians, Moroccans, and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip—will be guests of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Thursday, August 18 for the 7 p.m. exhibition game with the Washington Redskins at Foxboro Stadium. The game highlights the young people’s month-long visit to the United States through Seeds of Peace—a unique summer camp for Arab and Israeli children created to promote peace in the Middle East.
The participants, who will travel together from the Middle East, arrive in Boston on Wednesday, August 17 for a 5-day orientation tour at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Tufts University. Beginning Monday, August 22, the two-week summer camp experience in Maine is designed for the youngsters to get to know one another in a relaxed and supportive environment. In addition to the sports and arts activities, daily coexistence sessions are held at the end of each day, conducted under the supervision of professional American and Middle Eastern facilitators. The program concludes with the delegation’s visit to Washington, DC, September 5-10.
Inaugurated in 1993 by John Wallach—Middle East expert, author and foreign editor of Hearst Newspapers—Seeds of Peace is guided by the belief that if peace is to become a reality in the Middle East, its foundation must be launched by the next generation. Last year’s Seeds of Peace program brought together 46 Arab and Israeli boys for a historic visit to the United States. The youths, who traveled from Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, spent two weeks at Camp Powhatan in Maine, and a week in Washington, DC—where they were guests of honor at the September 13 White House ceremony for the signing of the Middle East peace accord.