BY MARK MURPHY | OTISFIELD, MAINE A luscious dawn settled on Pleasant Lake as the local Loch Ness Monster, Brian Scalabrine, crawled to the edge and then unfolded his 6-foot-9 frame out of the water.
Not far away on a picnic table, LaMarcus Aldridge made a silent whistle and shook his head while watching the Celtics veteran’s cross-lake swim, which covered approximately a mile under the guide of a rowing camp counselor.
“That’s good for him, but not me, man,” said the Portland Trail Blazers rookie, the second pick in June’s NBA draft. “I’m a city guy.”
Clad only in a swimsuit and flip-flops and a little stiff from his ambitious workout, Scalabrine edged past the camp’s outdoor dining area, where in honor of Monday’s esteemed NBA guests, a special Middle Eastern feast was being assembled. Carved lamb, various rice dishes with chicken, barbecued steak, warm pita bread, ribs, taboule, hummus, spinach and artichoke dip—B.J. Armstrong’s eyes gleamed.
“Look at this,” said the former Chicago Bulls guard, who is now an ESPN analyst. “Who would want to be anywhere else? My whole thing is to look for the differences in people.”
The early evening, with campers encouraged to don traditional garb, was emerging in a colorful flash. Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian girls wore long, brightly threaded dresses and skirts. Muslim girls, as they had during the afternoon’s basketball camps, kept their arms covered with long sleeves and wore head coverings known as hijabs. Arab-Israeli and Palestinian boys draped black-checked scarves called kafiyah over their shoulders.
Seeds of Peace Camp, a collective that was founded 14 years ago by journalist John Wallach to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth together to share stories and differences in this idyllic summer setting, has always been held against the tumultuous backdrop of life back home in the Middle East. Arn Tellem, the Los Angeles-based agent who attended this former boys sports camp as a youngster when it was still called Camp Powhatan, introduced his NBA clients into the mix five years ago.
Tellem’s goal was admittedly as much to educate his players as to treat the camp’s “seeds,” as they are called, to a high-level basketball clinic and autograph session. But now, with the militant group Hezbollah shelling cities in northern Israel, and the Israeli army bombing Lebanese cities and towns identified as Hezbollah bases, the contrast has never seemed so severe.
A right from a wrong
“Every year it’s something new,” said Scalabrine, who attended his third straight camp Monday. “They come here and they really have fun, but when they all go into their dialogue sessions, it can get real emotional. You get a lot of, ‘We can’t do this, and you guys do that,’ and you hardly ever get both sides of the story. “But what hits you is what these kids go through when they’re at home,” he said.
“In the same way kids here argue about who’s better, Kobe or Dwyane or LeBron, these kids are talking about what’s right and wrong with their country. I don’t think they really care if Kobe or Lebron is better.”
Monday’s clinic was run by Scalabrine, Aldridge, Armstrong, Wizards forward Etan Thomas, Lakers rookie Jordan Farmar and Andrea Stinson of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock. Though some athletes leave the camp with a better-developed world view than others, they aren’t asked to come in with a command of the situation—merely a willingness to listen and liven the day.
Scalabrine, running a shooting drill where the losing team has to do five pushups, drew giggles from the rest of the group when he grabbed a girl wearing a hijab by the back of her sweatshirt and started lifting her up and down. The 6-11 Aldridge held his arms up in feigned defense, but sent his pack of young boys into delighted squeals when he swatted the shot of the smallest kid in the group across the gym. They all start clamoring for a rejection.
Armstrong, running the clinic’s passing station, instructed a group of girls to attempt a right-handed, behind-the-back pass, and tried to suppress a smile when every ball flew off in an errant direction.
“I feel really glad that they care,” said Ghassan Salama, a 17-year-old Arab-Israeli from Taybeh in central Israel. “I hope they also enjoyed being here with us. It would be easy for them not to come.”
Considering basketball’s growing popularity in Israel, especially in the wake of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s European title two years ago, the Israeli campers in particular relish this NBA connection. Many are mourning the loss of Anthony Parker—Maccabi Tel Aviv’s best player last season—to the Toronto Raptors. Others don’t quite feel the passion. “I know one player in the NBA—Michael Jordan,” Ghassan Faqes, a 17-year-old Palestinian from Ramallah, said before pointing to the soccer cleats on his feet. “Now, if you want to talk about Zidane or Ronaldinho, I am interested.”
But even here, where sports create a pleasant diversion, and Israelis and Palestinians can play sports, canoe and, yes, argue in peace, solutions are rare. Indeed, agreement is just as remote in this quiet, peaceful camp 40 miles northwest of Portland.
“The first time I came here in 2004 the situation (in Israel) was complicated, too,” Faqes said. “It was really hard for me. I didn’t know how an Israeli would treat me. People told me that if I met an Israeli, he would beat me. “This time is complicated too, but it’s easier because I know who I’m coming to see,” he said.
“I know it’s hard for them, too—especially for the (Israelis) who live in the north. But like I tell them, ‘Hezbollah has the right to fight because you are on their land.’ “I came here to explain that. They can’t respond to me about that, because it is the truth.”
Breaking down dialogue
The latest round of fighting nearly aborted this year’s mission on several fronts. If not for the efforts of several politicians, including feverish letter-writing by Maine senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the camp’s 60 Israelis and 40 Palestinians may not have left Israel two weeks ago.
With the entire West Bank closed, the Palestinian contingent was eventually forced—after traveling through six checkpoints—to fly out of Jordan.
This was also the first year that Tellem arranged for his players to visit Israel on a 10-day tour. Hezbollah’s bombing of Haifa put that plan on hold until next summer.
“I would have loved it, because I would have been in their environment,” Scalabrine said. “This experience has changed me a lot. I pay attention to the news a lot more. But at the end of the day, I’m still watching it on TV. These kids live through it every day.”
Scalabrine, like his fellow NBA counselors, instead connects to the world of the Seeds through their group dialogues— often-emotional sessions that can last up to 2 hours.
“In my first year, there was a lot of shouting and arguing, and now I have been through the same process many times,” said Yael, a 17-year-old Israeli girl from Jerusalem who was in a dialogue group with Salama, Faqes, an American named Tim from Lewiston, Maine, and Scalabrine on Monday.
“Now I am kind of sick of the dialogue,” she said. “I want to hear what my Palestinian friends have to say, but it is also annoying because you hear the same stuff again and again. I hear what they think about the Six Days War, and they hear what I think about suicide bombers. Being here now, I feel totally disconnected from what is happening.”
“But from my first year I had a very good Palestinian friend,” Yael said. “I still talk to him once a week on the phone, even though he now lives in Jordan. I never knew a Palestinian before that. If you’re not a soldier, you don’t have a chance of meeting them where I live.”
For too small a group, that opportunity exists in Maine.
“We talk about war, but these kids have lived it,” Armstrong said. “The thing I’ve learned from this is that I don’t know anything.”