This Special Camp Brings Together Young People From Areas of Conflict to Become Ambassadors of Peace
BY JEFF GERRITT | Hate can be as addicting as crack, and almost as tough to kick. For the last 10 years, the Seeds of Peace camp in Otisfield, Maine, has served as a kind of drop-in detox center for young minds.
For teenagers coming from the blood-stained Middle East, the supply of hate is as pure as it gets and available on demand. As tensions have risen over the last two years, even pushing for peace has become uncool. Back home, some of these kids will be called sell-outs or traitors because they have made friends with someone from the other side. No longer will they feel at ease living in the black-and-white world of their friends, where Israelis are evil land-grabbers and Palestinians are rock-throwing terrorists.
“I feel lonely when I go back,” Osama Jamal, 16, a Palestinian refugee spending his third summer at the camp, told me. “I tell someone I have an Israeli friend and they say, ‘What, how can you?’ ”
At the Seeds of Peace camp, Jamal has eaten and slept next to Israelis, and he has gotten tight with a few of them. “Before I came here, I was closed-minded,” he said. “I thought Israelis were terrorists. They’re bad people. Here, I’ve had a chance to change.”
Since 1993, the nonprofit camp has brought together more than 2,000 teens from regions in turmoil worldwide. It combines sports and other outdoor activities with group discussions designed to get young people out of their own skins. “You see the human side of your so-called enemy and nothing looks the same again,” said Tamer Shabaneh, a 17-year-old Palestinian.
Journalist John Wallach, who died last month, founded the camp, starting with 40 Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian teenagers. The Middle East remains the camp’s signature program, but Seeds of Peace now works with youths from 22 countries, including the United States. The young people usually are picked by the departments of education in their own countries. Black, white, Latino and Asian youths from nearby Portland have also gone through the three-week programs. Daily coexistence sessions give young people a chance to run down the issues, role play, confront each other and, most importantly, learn to trust and respect those who think differently.
The Free Press visited the camp on Wednesday, arriving on a corporate jet provided by a local Seeds of Peace board member; the newspaper shared the expenses.
In one session, nine Israeli and Palestinian teenagers debated Israeli settlements, whether it was an honor to die for your country, and media images of each other. Instead of shouting or shooting at each other, they spoke with an equal measure of passion and calm. And they listened—really listened.
The last time I heard Israelis and Palestinians talk about these issues was in October, when I spent a week in the West Bank and Israel. There, Israelis and Palestinians talk plenty about each other, but rarely with each other. That’s too bad, because both sides can make sense. When you see the daily indignities that nearly all Palestinians suffer in their own land—the security checkpoints, the curfews, the leveled homes and blocked streets in their neighborhoods—you feel their frustration. When you understand the daily random terror that Israelis face in the most ordinary places, you know why they feel under siege.
Seeds of Peace graduates returning to the Middle East are like former drug addicts going back to the streets. When the killing starts—and in the Middle East it never stops—the easy way out is to start hating and resort to stereotypes and easy answers.
Even in this wooded sanctuary overlooking Pleasant Lake, the conflict back home looms large and often sends campers jetting to the telephone. The teens heard the news last week when the Israeli government bombed a Gaza City neighborhood, killing a Hamas leader but also 14 other Palestinians. And they heard Wednesday, the day I spent at the camp, of the bombing that killed at least seven people at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Such incidents can cause some heated exchanges in camp, but for the most part the young people stay focused. They are realists who know there will be no peace in the Middle East until there is a just political settlement both sides can live with. And there will be no progress toward that peace as long as both sides have no trust. The teenagers I talked with were not necessarily optimistic about the chances for peace, at least in the short-term, but they remain hopeful and determined.
“The fact that I’m hearing what other people have to say is enough for me, personally,” said David Shoolman, a 17-year-old Israeli. “I’ll tell people that I have a Palestinian friend, and he’s a great person. That’s how I measure progress.”
Making a friend from the other side is a small victory that enables these teens to carry on. Life back home for these ambassadors of peace will not change soon, but at least they know that change is worth fighting for.
“I would not say I’m optimistic about peace, but I know how the world can be, and it makes me want to fight even harder for it,” said Netta Berg, a 16-year-old Israeli. “Whenever I see how bad things are, I think of here, this place, and I know what the future should look like.”
But by the time Berg gets home, Israel will probably have retaliated for the university bombing, which Hamas called revenge for the Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip. Just as certainly, Hamas will retaliate for Israel’s retaliation.
And on it goes. The body bags fill up and hate becomes the drug of choice in the Middle East. A clocker waits on every corner. I can only hope that Berg and her classmates stay clean.