BY MEG BARONE | KENT The significance of the man who delivered a message of hope for peace in the Middle East Sunday was perhaps lost on the 85 high school students at Camp Kenwood. The teen-agers were born more than a decade after Henry Kissinger made his mark on U.S. foreign policy, trying to broker a peace deal between Arabs and Israelis. But Kissinger’s optimism for peaceful co-existence among the long-time enemies was shared by the teens—many of them … FULL STORY

Arabs, Israelis Go to Summer Camp on Neutral Ground BY MATTHEW HAY BROWN | KENT When Hilly Hirt first learned her bunkmates at her American sleepover camp would include Palestinians, the Israeli youth worried she wouldnt survive the first night. “We live so close together back home, but there’s no contact,” said Hirt, a bright-eyed 15-year-old from Arad. “You’re kind of hanging on the images in the media: Palestinians as terrorists, the bombing and the hatred. Before my first year … FULL STORY

BY DAVID PARKER | KENT Israel and its Arab neighbors may finally be ready to take the decisive steps needed to negotiate real peace, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told a crowd of 250 people here Sunday. “I think we’re now at a moment when peace can be made and when peace will be made” said Kissinger, who worked to secure what he called “tiny steps towards peace between long-time Middle East enemies in the 1970s. Kissinger made his … FULL STORY

The Israeli and Palestinian teen-agers looked slightly dazed as they boarded buses at Kennedy International Airport, heading for Kent, Conn. They had just spent 12 hours on an airplane, jammed elbow-to-elbow in coach seats. Despite different allegiances, languages and religions, all shared the bond of growing up with terrorism, their daily lives shadowed by the threat of war. For the first time since it started in 1993, Seeds of Peace, recipient of a 1997 UNESCO Peace Prize, has left its … FULL STORY

BY LINI S. KADABA | OTISFIELD, MAINE The big news at the Seeds of Peace camp, tucked deep in the towering pines, had been the raucous pillow fight a few days earlier. Then details of violence half a world away hit this placid spot. A young Palestinian furniture salesman on a suicide attack had rammed his car into hitchhiking Israeli soldiers, injuring 11 before police shot him to death. In Maine, the campers—Israeli and Arab teenagers—listened. Then something astonishing—and unthinkable back … FULL STORY

At Maine camp, Arab and Israeli youths hurdle barriers BY CINDY RODRIGUEZ | OTISFIELD, MAINE Manal Abbas, 15, slipped into her sleeping bag, her heart booming in her chest. She stared at the wood-plank roof, scared of what the girls—the Israelis—sleeping next to her might do if she closed her eyes. Manal, a Palestinian, lives in the crowded West Bank, where Arabs encounter Uzi-toting Israeli soldiers. She had never before met an Israeli girl. She only knew what family, friends, and … FULL STORY

A Summer Camp Unites Kids from the Middle East Tall pine trees, a fresh water lake, hundreds of kids in green T-shirts playing soccer, canoeing and singing together: It looks just like another summer camp, but the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine is more than that. Some people call it the “Miracle in the Maine Woods” because here 14- to 17-year-old teenagers from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Qatar, Turkish and Greek Cyprus live together in peace—a … FULL STORY

BY ARTHUR M. HORWITZ | Empathy. Webster’s defines it quite simply: “Intellectual or emotional identification with another.” Yet its absence has been a primary obstacle to peacemaking between Israel and its neighbors. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s jump-starting of the meandering Middle East peace process, literally hours after taking office last week, is rooted in the understanding that both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered over the years. By acknowledging the mutual pain, Barak has suddenly put a human face on … FULL STORY

BY IAN HALPERN | Bushra Jawabri, a 17-year-old Palestinian from the al-Arub refugee camp near Hebron, sits inside a rickety minivan discussing the dreaded tawjihi matriculation exam. A third-generation camp resident, Bushra is escaping her studies today to meet the Kosovar Albanian refugees who’ve found shelter at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael. She’s traveling north with another Palestinian and two Israeli teens on a trip organized by Seeds of Peace, a group that brings together youth from Israel and the Arab world. … FULL STORY

AMMAN | In tribute to the late King Hussein, U.S. President Bill Clinton, former President George Bush, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak and U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross honoured the memory of the King at an evening organised by the “Seeds of Peace” in New York. In his video remarks, Clinton addressed the dinner gathering on Thursday saying, “the ideals that King Hussein lived by were embodied in the Seeds of Peace … He … FULL STORY