NEW YORK | The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) honored Seeds of Peace with a special mention of the Madjaneet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence. The award was presented at a luncheon at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on November 17, 2000.
Seeds of Peace is the only American organization selected to receive this coveted award and is the first U.S. organization to be cited since former President Jimmy Carter received the prize in 1991. The prize was accepted by John Wallach, President and Founder of Seeds of Peace, and by Seeds of Peace graduates Netta Corren (Israeli) and Fadi Elsalameen (Palestinian).
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: “There can be no more initiative than bringing together young people who have seen the ravages of war to learn the art of peace. Seeds of Peace is certainly an example of the world the United Nations is actively working for.”
In accepting the prize, Mr. Wallach said: “This is meaningful recognition for us because it comes from the world’s most important international body and because it underscores that without human understanding there can be no lasting peace. It is particularly significant that this comes at time when violence and hatred are destroying the few remaining Arab-Israeli bridges of understanding.”
Seeds of Peace shares this year’s award with Salaam, the pro-reform Iranian daily newspaper banned in 1999, and with Mir, a Russian radio and television station that teaches its listeners principles of tolerance and understanding.
In a press release dated October 19, 2000, UNESCO wrote that Seeds of Peace deserves the honor because it “has been particularly active in seeking to promote peace between Arabs and Israelis and since its founding in 1993 has been teaching tolerance and peace conflict resolution skills to young people through a variety of programmes.”
Remarks by Fadi Elsalameen (Hebron)
I’m Fadi Elsalameen, a 16 year old senior at the Gunnery school, in Washington, CT. I was born and raised in the city of Hebron in the West Bank, which is 45 minutes north of Jerusalem. I became part of Seeds of Peace international camp when I was 13 years old in 1998. As anyone would expect, throughout these years, I have learned many lessons in my life. I would like to share with you some of these lessons, so perhaps you can learn too.
Seeds of Peace, as most of you know, is conflict resolution camp for teenagers from the Middle East and other parts of the world. Kids who are “enemies” discuss the issues of the conflict they live in. Palestinians and Israelis live in the same bunk, sleep right next to each other, and are scared to death of each other. All they know is that they are sleeping next to their enemy, next to the monster that has nothing else to do on earth, but to kill and humiliate them. Those are the thoughts that every young man and woman have in their minds, before the Seeds of Peace Camp starts. In a situation like this, where people have been in a conflict for more than 50 years, trying to get freedom, and live in peace, they never realized that they are both keeping each other’s freedom. They never realized that they both have the key for peace in their hands. They have never realized that all the lives that are being lost represent a loss for both sides. They have never realized that losing a human being’s life is a step backwards from achieving peace. It is never an accomplishment.
I realize how hard it is to run such a great camp, like Seeds of Peace. Where young kids who grew up as enemies, end up being great friends. After the camp, you start thinking about the other side, as a group of people that are known to you. When I first thought of Israelis, the first thing that came to my mind was soldiers, guns, and nothing else. Now when I think of Israelis, I know that there is something more important that guns, and soldiers; I know I have friends, with feelings, I know that I’m thinking about human beings, who feel the same way about me. That’s what Seeds of Peace is about. It’s about making me start thinking about my enemy, and eventually I’ll realize that there isn’t really a great difference between me and him. We both are human beings, we both deserve to live in peace, we both have rights, and we both should defend our rights.
I really think we do believe in these principals very strongly. A great example is Asel Aslih, a 17 years old Arab Israeli, who gave up his life because of what he believed. What he learned at Seeds of Peace, forced him to do what ever he could, in order to keep the bridge of peace that he was building. Asel tried to escape from the soldiers, they chased him into the woods, where his life was ended by a bullet in the head. Asel that day was wearing a Seeds of Peace shirt; he was killed in that shirt, and was buried in that shirt too. Asel believed that if he would save his friend’s life, he would have added something to the bridge between Israelis and Arabs.
In a conflict like this, it is the ordinary people who are victimized the most. They are the ones who lose, not the politicians or the military leaders. The ordinary people are the main targets, indirectly, and the ordinary people are the ones who have no control over it. Those who have hope and goals for their lives, are not the ones who wage war. It is waged by people who seek the power they do not have and have nothing to lose by attacking their enemies.
Until the two sides see their problems as shared problems and see their goals as shared goals for the whole region, fighting will go on. What Seeds of Peace is trying to do is encourage understanding between the Palestinians and the Israelis so that they will see that their problems and goals are true for both people, who live on the same land and are not going to move. Until both sides give up on trying to have the whole thing for their side alone, the war will continue and more and more innocent people will be its victims. The hope of Seeds of Peace is that, by fostering friendships, based on respect and understanding between teenagers from both sides, there will eventually develop into a network of adults who will be able to recognize their goals and problems as mutual, to be resolved together, without war.
I’m very thankful for Seeds of Peace, for teaching me a great lesson, for teaching me that, no matter, what country, color, or religion I am, I am always a human being just like everyone else. A human being who feels, and cares for all humans on this planet.
Remarks by Netta Corren (Haifa)
Right now as I speak, miles away from here across a wide ocean, terrible things are happening. People are getting killed. People die, life destroyed.
During the past weeks I had to face myself time and time again and ask myself some very hard questions. How on earth can I continue having faith in peace and if I really do when all these horrors happen every day around us?
Last year, I attended Seeds of Peace camp — it was an amazing experience. Just the idea that such a big group of people from different nationalities which are in a bloody conflict with each other, singing together, hugging each other, is incredible. And for the first time, I actually realized not only as a face but on me, that there are human beings across the border. And those human beings for a month they are your best friends. It’s suddenly the easiest thing to bond with people when you all live and share the same reality, the same daily life experiences. I suddenly realized how easy and simple the whole thing could be if only we let it.
I came back from camp feeling that the sky had burst open and right there beyond a magical truth was exposed to me.
Life in the Middle East adjusts you very quickly. Back home you can’t see your friend every day nor can you talk to them on the phone. Each and every one of us has his own local friends, family, school — a lot of daily obstacles. My friendships which I started at camp has moved to another level. A level of growing slowly but steady. Mostly throughout all the activities the Seeds of Peace Center in Jerusalem has pulled in order to return our connections and bring us together again.
But throughout all the times we laughed and talked and exchanged ideas I still had the feeling that I was missing something. Is this a real friend of mine or just my Palestinian other side friend. This human being which I respect and appreciate and recognize — can they ever be that close to me as my Israeli friend back home?
My doubts accompanied me for a while until one day I remember very clearly. It all started when Seeds of Peace pulled a bring-a-friend program. The concept was that each Seed bring a local friend from back home and the whole group meets. The purpose is to open new people who are not connected to Seeds of Peace to new ideas to different perspectives of thinking.
Mai, a very good friend of mine, she’s a Palestinian from Rammallah, called me in advance and asked if I wanted to do that with her. We set a date and on that day we met with a whole bunch of Seeds and I remember that day with a big smile. The four of us, two Israelis and two Palestinians, hung together in the mall for a whole day. We talked about every topic possible and had such a good time. We discussed some really serious issues like boys, school, family and other matters that meant a lot to all of us.
And as I looked to the side for a moment I caught a glimpse of two of my best friends one Israeli and one Palestinian and the amazing connection they’ve managed to establish. And that I moment I really realized that I love them both the same way. No doubts, no limits.
Right now in a dusty divided desert like land, people die. It’s not an action movie nor a horror book. It’s real. And if anyone asks me how on earth can I keep my faith that things will turn out right, it’s in the realization I felt that day. Knowing that I can still call Mai, and talk to her and cry on her virtual shoulder and laugh with her and yell and accuse and discuss and share the same pain we both feel is my source of belief and this is also where my optimism lies. In the very same core in which human beings coming from different backgrounds, different cultures, different religions can still in spite of everything else hope together for a better future and believe, yes believe in peace as they are laying on each other. This is real, just as pain is and suffering is. We might not be able to determine everything about our reality; there are things which are simply beyond us. But I do believe that each and every one if us is able to determine his own reality. The reality in his mind in his thoughts and this is the reality combined all together that could us to a better life for all of us.
May the dead rest in peace. But as for the living may they live, live, in peace.
Remarks by Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
November 15, 2000
Dear John and Members of Seeds of Peace:
Congratulations on being awarded UNESCO’s Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence. Seeds of Peace rightfully deserves to be recognized for its extraordinary efforts to promote conflict resolution, reconciliation and peace in the Middle East.
Although I am unable to join you on this special occasion, I want to express my personal appreciation for your organization’s good work. Seeds of Peace, perhaps more than any other organization, is helping to pave the way to a peaceful future in the Middle East. It has given thousands of young people a better understanding of each other and the world in which they live. It has given them an opportunity to meet and develop lasting friendships across otherwise daunting political and cultural divide.
Now, more than ever, the strength of your program is being tested, as the situation in the Middle East deteriorates. We can only hope that the lessons these young people have learned through Seeds of Peace about tolerance and understanding will bear fruit in these hard times. I am heartened to hear that Nardeen Asleh, who lost her brother Asel to the violence last month, has called for her brother to be memorialized by more children coming to Seeds of Peace.
Your organization is extraordinary. It has given the children of the Middle East and the adults in the rest of the world a reason to hope and believe.
For that, we should all be grateful.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Richard C. Holbroooke