BY DORIS ABRAMSON | Sunday, December 14, was a sunny but very cold day. Inside the Washington, Conn. home of Pat and Dick Abrams it couldn’t be warmer.
The room was filled with about 40 Jews, Christians and Muslims attending a gathering for an international project called “Seeds of Peace.” The program, now going into its fifth year, brings 13- to 15-year-olds from opposing sides of the conflict in the Middle East and the Balkans to a summer camp in Maine where they get to know one another in a relaxed and supportive environment. The aim is a simple one: to build friendships between teenagers who have been taught all their lives to hate and distrust one another, and to use these new friendships to foster communication, negotiation, and interchange so that they can better understand each other’s perspectives on the important issues that divide them.
Conflict Resolution
The program emphasizes the importance of developing non-violent mechanisms for resolving conflicts through education, discussion and emotional growth with competitive and co-operative activities. Young Palestinians, who were accustomed to throwing rocks at their adversaries, are coached in new skills of throwing an American baseball and football. Stones that they used to hurl when they were at home are used here to establish footholds in the steep climbing wall where an Israeli is taught to hold the rope for a Palestinian and vice versa. They play tennis and soccer together. They paint their own peace posters. They were given the monumental job of writing their own Peace Treaty which John Wallach, the founder, plans to present to the heads of the concerned governments.
“Seeds of Peace” has brought together over 300 male and female teenagers from Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. No government funds are used, only tax-deductible charitable contributions. They don’t want government interference. Campers are selected in a competitive process; the only prerequisite is that they must have a working knowledge of English. Each candidate is recommended by his or her school and then asked to write on the subject, “Why I Want to Make Peace with the Enemy.” In Israel, Jordan and Morocco, the essays are judged by the Ministry of Education. In Egypt, the West Bank, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, they are judged by a mixed panel of officials and private citizens. The final step of the selection is a personal interview. Candidates are awarded extra points if they demonstrate skill in speaking English. Points are also awarded to children from refugee camps or other underprivileged backgrounds.
Conducted under the supervision of professional American, Middle Eastern and Balkan facilitators, the conflict resolution sessions focus on teaching tools of making peace—listening skills, empathy, respect, effective negotiating skills, self confidence and hope.
Sad Stories
A two-day orientation and seminar takes place at the John F. Kennedy Shul at Harvard with the Director of the Centre for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East. Each of them is asked to speak about the ‘bad things that have happened to the good people they know.’ One after another, the youngsters tell tales of friends or relatives who have been killed in the Arab-Israeli or Bosnian conflict. The stories were harrowing, even producing tears among the participants and the invited audience. Shouq Tarawneh from Amman, Jordan was one of the campers who spoke very eloquently to us. She has been to the summer camp for three consecutive summers, living and sleeping in wooden bunks with the first Israelis she ever met. An extraordinary young woman, she is a senior at Gunnery and is now applying to several top colleges in the States. She told us she was taught to hate Jews. They are the enemy. After completing her stint at the camp, everything changed for her. When she went home, she conducted seminars at the schools in her area and used the format she learned at camp. She truly feels she has made an impact. That’s what “Seeds of Peace” is all about.
Common Ground
Hiba Darwish, a tenth grader from Beit-Jala, just outside Bethlehem, told us how she invited her Israeli friend home for supper. Her mother liked the girl and told her she could invite her again. She tells her friends at home all about her experiences and tries to change their attitudes towards Israelis. She said it isn’t always easy. Roy Cohen, an Israeli from Ashdod, in the ninth grade, is a delightful young man with a wonderful sense of humor. He told us how they went on hikes and played competitive sports and participated in the camp-wide ‘color war.’ The teams pitted against each other, one wearing black t-shirts and the other red. He said that there were no gold, silver or bronze medals for the winners. Instead, the victorious team gets to jump in the lake first. The losers have to wait their turn. He recalled discovering how much he had in common with his Egyptian, Jordanian, Moroccan, Palestinian, Qatari and Tunisian fellow campers. He told us that when the terrorist attack took place in Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market, their new Arab friends comforted them—a thing one never imagined could be possible.
Roy told the story of how angry he got when he and a few friends were pasting posters for a scouts ceremony. “A man asked, “Why aren’t you pasting posters that say ‘Kill the Arabs?’ I told him, ‘Because I just hate that kind of horrible poster.’ My friends did not argue with him; they just told him that, ‘The scouts are not political.’ I told my friends that was the stupidest answer I ever heard. And they understood one of the differences between us. I’ll stand up and argue against prejudice. But my friends, who have never met the other side, won’t argue on behalf of the Arabs.”
Future Leaders
Everyone at this gathering was so moved by these marvelous kids. They are the future. John Wallach believes that these youngsters have such extraordinary qualities that some are bound to rise to positions of leadership in their respective countries. When they do, they will have trusted friends in high places in other countries, and will be able to talk with each other.
Wallach quoted Isaiah. “The wolf shall live with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf with the lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them.” Perhaps that is the most important lesson of all: after all these years, the emotional and moral power of children can still be harnessed to point the way for adults. To paraphrase Warren Christopher, who said, by reaching across communities, these children are resolving a conflict that for too long has divided their peoples. It is their spirit, their lives, their dreams, their future. Let us not betray them.
John Wallach, president and founder of “Seeds of Peace” left a high-powered journalism career to launch this program. He had been a White House correspondent for thirty years. He broke the story of the CIA mining Nicaraguan harbors and covered the Middle East. He won the National Press Club Award and the Overseas Press Club Award for uncovering the “arms for hostages” story that led to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Personal Destiny
He didn’t feel satisfied being, in his words, a “fly on the wall.” Perhaps he felt a sense of personal destiny because his parents had escaped the Holocaust. Perhaps he has always had an instinct for seeing beyond superficial differences because Catholic priests had guided his parents through the Pyrenees to safety. He instituted a program he called “Citizen Diplomacy” at the Chantauqua Institute to bring together ordinary Russians and Americans to search for common ground. For this work, Wallach received the Medal of Friendship, the former Soviet Union’s highest civilian award, from then president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. He is also the Executive Director of the Eli Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
Amgad Naguib from Cairo wrote the following anthem:
People of peace, rejoice, rejoice,
For we have united into one voice
A voice of peace and hate of war
United hands have built a bridge
between two shores …
We on the shores
Have torn down the wall
We stand hand in hand
As we watch the bricks fall
We learn from the past
And fear not what’s ahead
I know I’ll not walk alone
But with a friend instead …
Article appeared in Chavurah (Jewish Federation of Greater Waterbury and Northwestern Connecticut).