Summer peace program erases chilling
Monday, 31 July
2006
Middle East peoples and others on
Earth are investing themselves in "wars against wars,"
Caught in the lowest, most primitive reflexes of human
response that defy common sense and principles of faith traditions.
Denying that the means are the ends
in the making.
In contrast, youth from
The ten 2006 camps are described at http://traubman.igc.org/camps.htm
.
One for 200 Jews and Palestinians -- both adults
and youth -- is illustrated at http://traubman.igc.org/camp2006.htm .
Today's
At this moment, they are at Building Bridges for
Peace -- http://s-c-g.org/buildingbridges/
-- in the
They are connecting and changing, working very hard,
becoming more human together.
Melodye Feldman ( Melodye@s-c-g.org ) writes tonight:
"I wanted to share this
article with you - and more importantly share with you the fact all these young
women are working hard to understand the 'other'. Every day they show their
strength and desire to understand each other - the days are long and the
emotions are raw - yet they continue to move forward. They inspire me daily and
give me hope when at times all feels hopeless. I can't imagine any other
place I would want to be right now except here with this exceptional group of
women. Our motto this year is MAKE IMPOSSIBLEPOSSIBLE!"
Do
you want to know how war begins to end?
Then read this story.
Read it several times.
This is how authentic change begins.
Hand in hand.
Face to face.
Heart to heart.
Story for story.
There is no skipping steps.
Treaties and politicians cannot move beyond the
human condition. People must somehow change.
No one can do this for another person -- know the
"enemy," transform fear to trust.
Change confrontation to cooperation.
Change ignorance to knowledge of the "other"
-- the equally human, excellent neighbor.
It's about People crossing borders, getting
together, refusing to be enemies.
It's what works.
Published by Rocky Mountain News -- Denver, Colorado --
Monday, 31 July 2006
On the Web at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4882575,00.html
Peace program aims to erase chilling
distrust
Muslim, Jewish, Christian girls gather in Denver to create bonds of
familiarity
By James B. Meadow
For the first time in their 16-year- old lives, the
Jewish girl in the WHY BE NORMAL? T-shirt and jeans and the Muslim girl in the hijab covering her head and full-length dress
covering the rest of her are able to sit in the same room and talk and smile
and share.
Yes, 7,000 miles away the maelstrom of war, fear,
mistrust and percolating hatred that has swirled through and defined so much of
their lives whorls on, taking more lives, poisoning more souls. But here, right
now, in
There is a beginning.
"She is wonderful," says Islam of Ofer.
"She's very cool," says Ofer
of Islam.
And all of a sudden, they had more in common than
"peace, music, the color green" and the fact that both "like to
talk too much."
Which is just what Melodye Feldman is hoping for as she watches and hopes
while a delicate process is set in motion.
Thirteen years ago, Feldman helped create the Building
Bridges for Peace program, which brings together adolescent girls - Muslim,
Jewish, Christian - from
Feldman knows that a yearlong program - two weeks of
that time spent in
"If I can get a kid who says to me, 'I'll never
talk to a Palestinian,' or 'I'll never share about myself with an Israeli,' to
sit down and share something of herself, then that for
me is success," she says.
Feldman is thinking of the Israeli girl who came to
the program years ago inflamed with the memory of her three 9-year-old friends
being stoned to death by a Palestinian mob. She is thinking of the Palestinian
girl whose father died at the hands of Israeli soldiers and told her, "I
am the face of a suicide bomber. I only came to tell the Israelis how much I
hate them."
She is thinking how both left, shedding tears of
revelation and nurturing a new sense of understanding.
Every year there are new candidates, candidates whose
last names cannot be given because there are those in their country who do not
approve of their peace mission and would hurt them or their families.
Dalal is 18; a Christian, a
Palestinian. Her dark eyes sparkle as she talks about Beit-Jala,
her village that is near
But the sparkle recedes and something hard replaces it
when she talks about how Israeli rockets destroyed her family's first home.
About how Israeli soldiers came into her family's second home and stole money.
How they climbed to the top of the roof of her family's home and shot at
Palestinians "who were doing nothing." About how
bullets have passed above the head of her and her brother many times and once
lodged in the leg of her sister.
"Always there is tension living there. We don't
know if we are going to live tomorrow. If bullets and bombs can take a family
eating dinner, they can take us, too."
Is she hopeful then that the Building Bridges program
will help?
"Maybe. I'm not
sure."
But she is sure that "I want to know the Jewish
opinion about our current situation. This is my first time to meet them."
Tslil knows how she feels.
"This is my first time to meet Palestinians; I
want to learn more about them. I want to talk to females who will share with me
and tell me how they feel. I only know the Israeli side and I want to know
more," says the 18-year-old from Karkur, in the
middle of the country.
Tslil knows this will be her
only chance for a long time - maybe ever - to talk to Palestinians. Two days
after the program ends on Aug. 13, she will return home and begin her required
two-year stint in the army.
Perhaps over the next two weeks Tslil
will be able to sit down with Hiba, a 19-year-old
sweet-but-very-serious Muslim from Hura in the south
of
Around her, the room is filled with many girls in
casual dress - T-shirts, cut-offs, short skirts, sleeveless blouses. She
doesn't mind, just as she feels they shouldn't mind that she wears the hijab and her dress. "I am happy to wear it; it's
religious wear, to cover our beauty. The only person who can see your beauty
not from your family is your husband."
But for Hiba, today and
tomorrow aren't about clothes, they are about ideas.
"I am here to meet people who I don't know, to
learn things I never knew. This is very exciting."
Fun is part of program
It is also much fun,
this first day of two weeks in the
After lunch there is singing, one of the cornerstones
of BBP. If I Had a Hammer and The Circle Game are two favorites,
as the girls follow along to Deedee Huntingon's guitar. At times, the singalong
takes on the trappings of a sleepover, pajama party
and tent show revival all at once, with the girls laughing and singing,
twirling and hopping.
After this comes a drawing exercise. Girls are paired
off - Israeli and Palestinian, American and Israeli, Palestinian and American -
and work together to discover similarities and differences. Though all the
girls speak English, translations in Arabic and Hebrew are provided as the
girls are given instructions.
The exercise is interesting as strangers encounter
common ground, first tentatively, then in widening circles.
Noga, 19, a Jew, and Amira, 17, a Muslim - both from
With a grin that stretches for 7,000 miles, Noga says, hanging out with Amira
is "great, so natural."
And so it goes through the afternoon. Smiles. Discovery.
Of course, there is more work to be done. Overcoming a
legacy of dark mistrust does not happen overnight. Wading through a history
stained with rivers of blood to reach a peaceful place takes time. When you've
grown up being taught that you must choose sides, listening to what the other
side has to say with an unclenched fist isn't easy.
But as she watches the scene unfurl, as she watches a
shy smile slide across Hiba's face, as she sees Delal and Stav, Sarah and Rawan, begin the first awkward steps toward bonding, Feldman
doesn't look worried. She's seen this before and she has come to know a thing
or two about building a bridge for peace.
And what she knows is that the task isn't about making
waves. It's about creating ripples