Thanks to Joy Totah Hilden, a
Palestinian from Ramallah who co-facilitates the East Bay Jewish-Palestinian
Dialogue Group -- one of ten Dialogues here near San Francisco -- we received
this Ha'artez newspaper article from Israel today, Sunday, June 22, 2003.
It is an update on additional, significant steps
forward taken by Seeds of Peace, whose inspiring work reminds us
of these words:
"Do not go where the
path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Many people "want" peace,
but they do not want relationships. It cannot be.
The conflict and the solution are about people and
about human connections.
Relationship is a pre-condition for peace.
Seeds of Peace, seen on the Web at http://www.seedsofpeace.org/
, recognized this a decade ago and pioneered bringing together Palestinian and
Jewish youth annually in a summer camp environment in Maine to begin shaping
different kinds of young women and men.
After several years it became clear that classes,
seminars, conferences, and summer camps alone were not adequate to transform
people and relationships.
Dialogue needed to be Sustained Dialogue -- a
process far more than an isolated experience, casual interest, or pastime.
Dr. Harold Saunders, former
Assistant Secretary of State, and negotiator of Camp David Accords, wrote his
defining 1999 book --A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform
Racial and Ethnic Conflicts
. He has gone on to establish the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue,
described on the Web at:
http://www.sustaineddialogue.org/
Seeing the need for year-around
ongoingness, Seeds of Peace became active in the Middle East, where they help
the young "seeds" continue to relate after they leave camp.
Taking yet another step, Seeds of Peace now brings
together the parents to expand the circle and encourage the youth to maintain
their idealism, their relationships, and their courage.
We can all be seeds.
Seed yourself in the midst of the "others."
Grow together.
-- L&L
Published in Ha'aretz newspaper -- Israel -- Sunday, June
22, 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=307219&contrassID=2&subContrassID=16&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Sowing the Seeds of Peace:
Israeli and Palestinian kids refuse
to give up
By Neil Bar-Or
Ten years after the first "seeds"
witnessed the historic handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and
prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn, Seeds of Peace an
organization that brings Israeli and Palestinian children together in order to
promote peace, coexistence and mutual respect today finds itself swimming
upstream in a region often fraught with despair and mistrust. Still
reeling from the untimely death of its founder and visionary John Wallach,
Seeds of Peace is continuing and expanding its programming in the U.S. and here
in Jerusalem at its Center for Coexistence.
Children around 15 years of age enter the program
through International Camp, in Maine, U.S., where they spend three summer weeks
together in a "neutral, supportive environment" living in cabins,
sharing meals and participating in activities such as canoeing, arts and crafts
and computer classes. The core of the three-week program is the
coexistence sessions led by professional facilitators where the teens have a
safe space for expressing themselves while gaining a deeper understanding of
the other.
But International Camp is just the beginning.
While the camp provides kids with the basis for coexisting and mutual
understanding, those skills can be difficult to put to use upon returning to
the region. That's where the Seeds of Peace Center for Coexistence in
Jerusalem comes in.
The Center's co-Director, Suzan Khatib, explains:
"The camp does great work. There is a good mix of the fun and the
serious, but when they come back here they're coming back to reality. For
the Israelis that means suicide bombers, for the Palestinians its closures and
curfews. Sometimes when the kids come back they are frustrated, they are
not connected, they think camp was a dreamland. Here at the Center in
Jerusalem, we help them and support them and give them a secure environment where
they can discuss tough issues and continue connecting [with the other
side]."
The Center is a safe, neutral home base where Israeli
and Palestinian seeds can meet. But the main event at the Center is the
coexistence sessions that consist of 12 three-hour long meetings every other
week. "Usually we have twenty kids 10 Palestinians, 10 Israelis and
two facilitators one Israeli and one Palestinian," Khatib explains.
"We help them understand the other side without giving up their
identity. They're learning how to have sympathy and empathy for the other
side."
Aaron Miller recently left the U.S. State
Department where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and
the Arab-Israel peace process to become President of Seeds of Peace. He
sees the coexistence sessions as an essential component of the ongoing peace
process. "All the peace processes we know of even the peace made
between Egypt and Israel are transactional; they are deals made between
governments, not between people. We need a peace process that is
transformational, which means people need to build relationships with each
other so they understand the needs and requirements of the other side.
Breakthroughs are always made by a leader coming out ahead of his people.
In a generational conflict such as this one, it's important that we have young
leaders with the skills critical for making connections that are beyond the
transactional level."
Walking in to the Center leads through a photo gallery
of what seems like an era gone by: images of that handshake at the White House
in 1993; Jordan's King Hussein and Queen Noor happily chatting with children;
kids enjoying a trip to Egypt. It's a timeline that abruptly stops in the
late 1990s. But the determination of those inside the building belies
what at times has been a conflict that has challenged the most hard and fast
optimists.
While the intifada affects the programming at the
Center, it also motivates the staff to double their efforts. Program
Coordinator, Jen Marlowe, says that when the intifada began "all our
programming here at the Center went out the window. It was a tidal wave
of crisis. One of our seeds was killed in Nazareth in the first few days
of the intifada. So for the first six months of that year, we completely
abandoned our programming and did a lot of trauma counseling. We spent
hours a day calling kid after kid talking to them trying to help them through
the fear and anger."
Sixteen year-old Israeli Adir Yanko had his own doubts
over the past year. "During the year I questioned why I am involved
with Seeds of Peace. Camp was great, but was it a fantasy? When I came
back, it was still the Middle East, you know. But I concluded that I have
to continue. I have to be a dreamer, if I dream, maybe we can make the
camp's reality here."
Amani Zuater, 15 from East Jerusalem agrees, "the
escalation of the conflict doesn't make me want to leave Seeds of Peace.
If I don't stay, how will we come to understand each other? "
Even with the progress made at camp and at the Center
in Jerusalem, the facts on the ground still often dictate the relationships
between the kids. Yanko says he made good friends at camp but only keeps
in touch with them via sporadic e-mails and at the sessions at the
Center. "I don't have a chance to see them because I'm afraid to go
there. I know the Palestinians I know aren't average; anyway, my parents
would never allow it."
As the intifada vacillates between war plans and peace
plans, Marlowe says "it's still a lot harder to bring the two sides
together, both psychologically and logistically [than before the
intifada]. It's getting better as the kids' coping skills have kicked in
and this reality is not so new anymore. There was a period of time when they
needed to retreat into themselves. But more and more I'm getting calls
from kids who two years ago said `I don't want to talk to anyone from the other
side,' now saying, `hey I want to come to the Center, I want to help plan an
event.'"
New this year at the Center in Jerusalem are
coexistence sessions for parents. "The kids asked for this,"
says Khatib. "The parents want to not only understand what their
kids are doing but they want to experience it for themselves. We had a
Hanukkah-Ramadan party at the Center this year that included the parents, and
everyone learned about the traditions of the other side."
Ten years after he started Seeds of Peace, the last
thing founder and visionary John Wallach who passed away a year ago would have
hoped for was an escalation in the very conflict he so yearned to see
end. In a letter just days after his death, John's son Michael wrote the
Seeds of Peace staff: "Now the job lies with all of us. We are his
life continued, and more than that we are his dream."
Miller says he's pleased that Seeds of Peace has been
resilient over the past few difficult years. "Of all the
organizations that sprang up in the hopeful 1990s, Seeds of Peace is the only
one that is continuing to grow. These kids just won't give up."
In the end, the success of Seeds of Peace comes down
to the seeds themselves becoming leaders and spreading the ideal of coexistence
in their own communities. Amani Zuater says she believes in the
"whole idea of dialogue; not like the politicians making deals. Even
before I started Seeds of Peace I knew that there would be differences. I
knew that what I call a freedom fighter, they call a terrorist. But I
also know and understand now, that when I hear Israelis' feelings and ideas and
worries, it's a good thing."