BY AMY CALDER | WATERVILLE John Wallach, an award-winning journalist and executive director of an organization that promotes peace in the Middle East, will speak Friday at the Mid-Maine Global Forum. Wallach heads up Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings together Arab and Israeli teenagers before fear, mistrust and prejudice blind them from seeing the human face of their enemies, according to Martha J. Denney of the Global Forum. Seeds of Peace, founded by Wallach in 1993, began as … FULL STORY

BY ANDREW FRIEDMAN | Maybe if presidents and prime ministers shared hotel rooms, shot pool down in the lobby in between negotiating sessions, sneaked into one another’s rooms at night for some rowdy horseplay or sat in the hallways way past bedtime laughing about funny stories from camp last summer—maybe if they really cared about one another—there would be peace in the Middle East. The 75 Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and American teenagers who convened recently in Villars, Switzerland, to negotiate … FULL STORY

Her Majesty Queen Noor on Friday delivered the keynote address at the opening of the Middle East Youth Summit in Villars, Switzerland, outlining to participants the requirements of a just and sustainable peace treaty for the Middle East, according to a press release. “You must build your peace treaty on a foundation of justice by ensuring the full human and national rights of all sides. More specifically, we hope that your treaty will affirm that the peoples of the Middle … FULL STORY

BY RACHEL GOTTLIEB | The tangled world around Nora Epstein and Bushra Jawabri blended into a simple background as the two concentrated on spelling out their dream with sugar on a restaurant table at a Jerusalem mall. “Bushra + Noa = Peace.” What would peace mean for these teens who live less than an hour apart in vastly different worlds? Bushra, 16, who lives in al-Arroub, a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Hebron, “will be able to walk … FULL STORY

NEW YORK | As released by the Office of the Spokesman, U.S. Department of State (as delivered): SECRETARY OF STATE MADELINE K. ALBRIGHT: John, thank you very much, and thank you very much Nancy, Passant, Noa, Sa’ad, Kheerallah and Shouq. I have been honored to receive a number of awards in recent years, but I never have received one from Seeds. I will put it right in my office so that every time I look at it, I will be encouraged … FULL STORY

BY GEORGE SARRINIKOLAOU | NEW YORK Having taken on the task of “Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders,” a private, not-for-profit organization in the United States is preparing to offer its services for the first time to 40 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot teenagers later this summer. Founded in 1993, the organization, Seeds of Peace, brings together teenagers from conflict-ridden areas, such as the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia, at a summer camp in Otisfield, Maine. The camp, described in the organization’s … FULL STORY

BY JUDY SIEGEL | Seeds of Peace, a New York based organization that promotes coexistence programs for young people from regions of conflict, has announced plans to convene a Middle East Youth summit to be attended by Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian and Egyptian youths. The summit convening in Villars, Switzerland from May 1 through May 7 will feature speakers such as Jordan’s Queen Noor, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, coalition whip MK Meir Sheetrit (Likud), Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian … FULL STORY

ELANA PREMACK | Discussing the effects of Arab-Israeli animosity on their lives as young people, four Middle Eastern students gathered in the Student Union Ballroom on Thursday evening to present, “Transforming Hatred: Sowing the Seeds of Peace in the Middle East,” a program sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Office of Jewish Affairs. Abdasalam al-Khayyat, from Nablus, West Bank, Shani Raz-Silbiger, from Jerusalem, and Shouq Tarawneh, from Amman, Jordan, lived together during the summer of 1997 at a peace encampment … FULL STORY

BY JULIE WIENER | As they mingled at Tribute Restaurant last Sunday, their plates laden with delicacies, it was hard to believe that thousands of miles away their people continue to be involved in one of the longest, bloodiest conflicts in the world. For one night, local Arab and Jewish leaders were friends. And organizers of Sunday’s event, a 100-person benefit for Seeds of Peace, hope it spawns a lasting relationship between the two communities. Founded in 1993 by journalist … FULL STORY

BY JULIE WIENER | Abdasalam Khayyat was skeptical at first. The 16-year-old from Nablus, along with other Arab teens from throughout the Middle East, was about to spend a month with Israelis. But he didn’t see how he’d be able to endure living with them. “I couldn’t imagine how I could eat with, talk with and sleep next to someone who’s my enemy,” he said. “I was afraid what my family and friends would think of me. Finally, I told … FULL STORY