Palestinians, Jews unite at
Sunday, 14 October 2007
"There
can be no dark where there is light.
Too
often we spend our time and energy worrying about how to dispel darkness.
We
focus on difficult situations wondering how we can get rid of them.
When I
aim to bring light to these situations, the darkness is automatically
dispelled.
Today
let me remember to bring light rather than fight darkness."
"Don't
spend your energy trying to kill the dinosaur. Instead, invent the
gazelle."
"Be
the change you wish to see in the world."
October 5-9, 2007, 150 Muslims,
Jews and Christians gathered in
It was the 5th Oseh
Shalom ~ Sanea al-Salaam Palestinian-Jewish
Peacemakers Camp.
Included were 45 women and men from 32 towns in
Determined to become the change they wish to see.
"All I can say is Thank You for what you do
for both peoples," e-mailed a Palestinian participant.
"I think that I have made lifelong friends,"
wrote a Jewish woman.
"My life in
"I met the most amazing people and felt I was in
the presence of great, future leaders," reflected a Palestinian woman.
"Finally, I now feel like there is hope of peace
in the
"What did I take from this experience?
"I have a more appreciation and pride of my own
heritage and also have a greater love of all humanity.
. .especially for my cousins -- the Jewish people."
VIEW SHORT VIDEO at http://bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/iba/2007/player/?f=1014peace
.
SEE PHOTOS and MORE on the Web at:
At the big, end-of-week San Francisco public
report-out, a Jewish attendee was "impressed with the futuristic,
action-packed" plans and intentions of the Peacemaker
participants for the coming year.
That night, almost all the Middle East participants
and supporters spontaneously found their way to a
Until 2 a.m., the Jews and Palestinians dwelled
together at a long table of 60 -- with 20 more in the patio -- celebrating
their new community and planning their future together.
Not a bit interested in ever letting go of their new
relationships.
Inventing the gazelle.
Being the change they wished to see in the world.
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Published in the San Mateo County Times -- Sunday, 14 October 2007
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_7176362
Palestinians, Jews unite at Yosemite
camp
By Christine Morente, Staff Writer
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
CROUCHED at the edge of the Tuolumne River, Nick DeGroot scooped his hands into the cold, clear water and
washed another man's hands.
It was a moment of spiritual awakening and their
opportunity to let the negativity and pain of their collective pasts wash away.
The quiet emotional moment capped a unique four-day
retreat held last weekend in this natural cathedral known as the
Palestinian-Jewish Peacemakers Camp.
The journey
As each person walked
to the river to take part in the cleansing, they sang in Arabic and Hebrew:
Eeshee hilu
k'tir, lama neekun mabad
Henei ma tov
uma nayim shevet achim gam
yachad
(Translation: How good it is to be together.)
DeGroot, a student at the
He washed 54-year-old Jonathan Silverman's hands.
"It was an opportunity to come together with a
person I never met before and found we have the same heart and same mind on the
issue," the 25-year-old said. "We were able to pray for peace."
DeGroot said he will go home
full of pride.
"Oh, my goodness, I have a newfound love for
these other nations," he said beaming. "
But the powerful moment at the edge of the river might
not have happened if the campers hadn't committed to begin the hard work of
learning about each other often the first but difficult steps in the process of
reconciliation.
At camp
Standing upon a small
boulder on
Alone, she smiled and tipped her face up to feel the
warmth from the early morning sun's rays.
Naanish, after all, is
working toward peace.
For 21/2 years, the 35-year-old Palestinian woman was
an inmate in an Israeli prison after her brother was killed during a missile
attack fired from Israeli gunships on his wedding day
in 2001.
Naanish was arrested and
jailed for convincing her husband to join the Kataab Shuhada al-Aqsa, the military
wing of the Fatah organization and terrorist group.
She wanted to avenge her brother's death. Her husband
was soon on the Israeli Army's wanted list and was a fugitive for two years.
"They tried to assassinate him three different
times," said Naanish in Arabic as Mira Almubaied translated. "Every time, he got bullets in
different parts of his body. On the fourth attempt, they succeeded. He got 77
bullets."
More than a month after her husband was slain, the Israeli Army broke into her home and took her
away while she was breastfeeding her 1-year-old son.
She did not want to describe in detail what happened
to her while in prison.
"We were beaten on a regular basis," she
said.
She now lives in a refugee camp at Tulkarem
in
To attend the Peacemakers Camp, Naanish
left her children again this time for the greater good.
Her journey took her through eight Israeli
checkpoints, then a 15-hour flight to
Naanish's story was just one
of many that brought tears, anger, frustration and stunned silence to the campgoers who hailed from
"They refuse and insist not to be enemies,"
said Len Traubman of
Peacemakers is the only camp
in the country that brings youth and adults together, Traubman said.
But there are 13 other diverse camp programs in North
America supporting the
"Much of the world's eyes are on
Knowledge
The camp's dining hall, with its roaring
fireplace, was a refuge for the 150 people who would otherwise have been soaked
by pouring rain.
In contrast to others in their homeland, most of whom
will never meet a Palestinian Israeli or a Jewish Israeli, they were there to
understand each other.
"Listening has the power to transform and change
a relationship," said Traubman who, along with wife, Libby, leads a
monthly Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue group in
It took awhile to get to that point, though. First
they had to go through icebreakers such as learning the meaning of each other's
names. The next day, they got a course on listening with compassion and intent
but it seemed much of the group already knew how to do that.
Participants such as Mohammed Atwa,
originally from the Gaza Strip, worried they had traveled to the camp for
nothing.
"I did not come here to tell people what my name
means," said the 26-year-old, who now lives in
So in an impromptu discussion that lasted into the
early morning hours Sunday, more than 30 people convinced the camp's planning
committee to allow them to come up with an activity that let them talk about
the deeper issues they felt were missing.
"I came here seeking," Atwa
said. "We know we have a problem between the Palestinians and the
Israelis. We know that in this four-day event, we are not going to solve this
problem. But if I'm sitting next to an Israeli serving in the
army or who might serve in the future. ... It's important for me to hear
the other side and explain myself to the other side."
Rina Kedem
is on the camp's planning team. The 26-year-old said young leadership is the
key to change, and the people that were invited have a lot of power and
potential of creating change in Israeli and Palestinian societies.
"A solution is not what you're going to find
here, because it's not that easy," Kedem said.
"I see this as a beginning. What really matters is what happens after
this. People have a lot of high expectations, even though we clarify the goals.
It just demonstrates the despair people are at."
Connection
The intense dialogue began on Sunday.
In one circle, 23-year-old Reut
Tondovski of
A Palestinian asked if it is part of the Jewish
mind-set to protect
Twenty-two-year-old Beth Peres of Oak Park, Ill., said
that in her Hebrew school she was taught that if there was ever another
Holocaust,
"That is what I was taught," she said.
"That is what I believe."
"The main problem is occupation," said Ranin Boulos, 23, a Palestinian
Christian who lives in
Citing security reasons in 2002, the Israeli
government started building a 25-foot-tall barrier with watchtowers and firing
posts mainly inside the West Bank and partly along the 1949 "Green
Line" between
The structure, according to the Jerusalem Post, is
expected to be three times as long as was the Berlin Wall. It is expected to be
completed in 2010.
Atwa said the barrier
destroyed many farms and villages on the Palestinian side, and thousands of
families were separated. Special permission from the Israeli army is needed to
visit a family member, and 99 percent of permits are rejected because of
security concerns, he said.
Atwa doesn't have family in
the
After Hamas a Palestinian
Sunni Muslim militant organization won the Palestinian parliamentary election,
"
He hasn't seen his family since 2002.
"I call my family every single day, because I
want to have that feeling that I'm still one of them," Atwa
said. "Sometimes I'll call and tell them to keep the phone on and tell
them just do whatever they want. I just want to be as if I'm sitting there.
That's how much I miss that home."
Cautious optimism
Libby Traubman, Len's wife, said spending time
with the younger generation gives her hope that there will be peace in the
"Every day, we hear really bad news, and it's
easy to think that things aren't working," she said. "But when you
meet all these people we know are very engaged in a very grassroots level,
these are the things you don't hear in the news. I guess that is what sustains
me."
Elad Vazana,
an Israeli Jew who is the director of the Sulhita
Youth Project, agreed.
"They are more modern, less religious and less
conservative," said the 35-year-old, who lives in
Now, the real work for the young Palestinians and
Israelis starts once they're home.
"We all need to work on ourselves and to be
strong enough to deal with reality," said Boulos,
the 23-year-old Palestinian. "What we did here is amazing, but it's not
enough. We don't live here. The problem is not here. I don't want to let
reality hit you and let what you learned here to go down."
Christine Morente can be reached at
CMorente@sanmateocountytimes.com.