8-25-2014 Planting Seeds of Mideast Peace in Time of War Can Israeli and Palestinian Teens Bond at Camp While Conflict Rages? - Yardain Amron Jewish Daily Forward

http://forward.com/articles/204492/planting-seeds-of-mideast-peace-in-time-of-war/?

 

…When John Wallach, then the foreign editor of Hearst Newspapers, hatched the concept of the camp as a peacemaking venture, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was already many decades old; Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza had been in place for 26 years; thousands and thousands had been killed.

Wallach believed that a good part of the conflict's intractability was due to the mutual demonization of the people on the other side. Amid the burst of optimism that accompanied the 1993 Oslo peace talks, he convinced Israel's then-foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and officials from Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organization to send 15 boys each to launch the camp the next summer. Five thousand two hundred graduates later, the camp's mission has grown to include girls, and also teens from other conflict areas whose people are at similar loggerheads: South Asians, Greeks and Turks, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants…

 

…it's hard to ignore the inspirational stories from Seeds alumni, who have returned to their own communities to lead lives and establish enterprises that connect Israelis and Palestinians. 2004 Seed Micah Hendler, for instance, created the YMCA Jerusalem Youth Chorus to bring together Israelis and Palestinians through music. The American Jew, who just returned to Israel, where he lives, from a 10-day Japan tour with the choir, said the idea was a "direct outgrowth out of my work with Seeds." There are a multitude of Seeds graduates like Hendler, and it's difficult to see how their efforts aren't improving the situation…

 

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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