From
Jerusalem, reporter Lauren Gelfond's (LGelfond@zahav.net.il) headline was:
"Israeli and Palestinian teens succeeded where their leaders have
failed."
Before that March, 2003 "Model UN'"
conference, Ramzi Sfeir, a 17-year-old from the Palestinian village of Bet
Jalla, "never
believed that Palestinians and Israelis could agree on anything" but
conclude "I learned that you can talk without fighting."
Arabic-speaking students from Israeli and Palestinian
villages joined up with Jewish Israelis and foreign nationals -- 250 students
representing 16 Israeli, Palestinian and international high schools.
"At a time when there is so much bloodshed in the
Middle East," said Jewish student Oren Pasternak, "we sit
side-by-side, Israelis and Palestinians, and discuss how to solve this problem.
The Israeli teen concludes: "If our leaders can't
meet and reach a solution, we can do the job for them."
Lauren Gelfond's report is on the Web at:
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Articles%5El365&enZone=Democracy&enVersion=0&
In Ontario, Canada, resident
Israeli high school junior, Michelle Divon (dvivon@hotmail.com), helped
organize a successful Muslim-Jewish evening for University of Ottawa students
from the Muslim Student Association and Hillel.
A light dinner together preceded their cultural and
personal exchange.
Michelle reported: "After watching students who
have never spoken or had any interaction, come together, laugh together, and
even decide to work together in order to accomplish a common goal, I am filled
with more hope then ever.
The Israeli high schooler concluded: "There
is nothing more important then realizing and helping others realize that the
enemy has a face. There is nothing more fulfilling then bringing people
together."
Michelle's own start in Middle East
relationship-building is described at http://traubman.igc.org/youth3.htm
.
At San Francisco Statue
University, Palestinian American Nora Khouri and Israeli Jewish American
Orli Bein have teamed to begin that campus's first sustained Jewish-Arab
Dialogue. April 1, 2003 they sponsored a model Dialogue panel of
Palestinians and Jews In Dialogue telling their stories to a full room that
included both students and administrators. Orli and Nora can be reached
by e-mail at SFSU_Dialogue@yahoo.com .
Rice University student
Liora Danan (Liora@owlnet.rice.edu) writes from Texas that their second
Dialogue "went incredibly well - much more so than I was expecting. People
stayed for 2.5 hours - they didn't want to stop talking! I introduced the
session by re-explaining dialogue. Then we determined what guidelines the group
wanted to have for our session, and then we got started. And the dialogue
really took on a life of its own, and people got into it and were asking each
other the right kinds of questions. It was definitely difficult - I had to
reorient us a number of times when we got sidetracked with numbers-comparisons
and finger-pointing, but all in all, I think people really started to get the hang
of it - and I think it will get better with time and more sessions. Best of
all: I feel like I really learned something - it is so liberating to talk in a
way that isn't just brain-cycling but is actually about expanding
understanding."
New York Univeristy senior,
Shana Kirsch (SLK228@nyu.edu) writes about some of the dynamics and group
decisions of their new campus Dialogue. She points us to an article about
them in the on-line version of their school newspaper:
http://66.33.215.160/mt/blog/middleeast/archives/000129.html
"This past Thursday night, we had our second
dialogue meeting.
"We were worried that the attendance would be a
lot less this time, because we had trouble reserving a room again and only a
day to let everyone know where the meeting was, but we ended up having a good
25 participants, most of whom were at our first meeting, plus several new
faces.
". . . we split into two groups (2 student
facilitators per group), went around and had everyone explain their personal
connection to the Middle East region or the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and
then started to talk about issues relating to media/public opinion/history,
because those are the "topics" that the group chose at the end of our
first meeting.
"We discussed in our smaller groups for about 45
minutes, then came together in a larger group and shared with one another what
we had discussed, and continued the discussion in a larger group for about half
an hour.
"Then we had some time for feedback/suggestions,
during which several people mentioned that they felt the discussions they had
that night really skirted around the real issues, and that people wanted it to
get more personal.
"I was very happy to hear THEM saying this,
because it has been my intention from the beginning to keep this personal, but
I didn't want to impose any topics... I'm glad that through their first
dialogue, they came to the conclusion that it needs to stay personal.
"One of my friends who was in the facilitators
group has decided to switch over to being a full participant in the group
instead - it was a difficult thing to figure out, but she felt that she is just
not yet in a place where she can stay 'neutral' enough to facilitate dialogue
on these issues, and feels that she'll get more out of participating fully, so
we decided as a group that is what would be best."