2023 Palestinian & Israeli campers share reflections in Rolling Stone

By Pierce Harris

IN THE RURAL town of Otisfield, Maine, sits the Seeds of Peace Camp, a rustic sanctuary for cross-conflict relations. Seeds of Peace was founded 40 years ago by the foreign correspondent John Wallach, with a vision of bringing “the next generation of Arabs and Israelis together before they had been poisoned by the climate of their region.” That first year — the year of the Oslo Accords — Wallach hosted 15 high school-aged kids each from Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. This summer, 198 children from conflict regions, including Israel, Palestine, India, and Pakistan arrived in Otisfield for the same purpose, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.

A central feature of camp was a portion of the day we called “dialogue”: two hours spent talking, listening, and, with any luck, reaching a point of understanding with a small group of campers from different backgrounds. Those sessions taught me just how pointless arguing is. One side will say: I’m right. The other will say: No, I’m right. And, in most cases, they both are right. Multiple truths can exist, and we have to acknowledge that if we want to find a way to move forward.

Last summer, after weeks of dialogue — and canoeing on Pleasant Lake, and performing camp chants during dinner, and playing Gaga, a game that involved hitting a ball at another player’s shins — my fellow campers and I boarded buses bound for our outside lives. We worried that leaving camp would weaken the bonds we had developed, so we traded contact information, determined to keep in touch despite great distances that would soon stretch between us. By the time the buses pulled out of the parking lot on August 15, many of us were already chronicling our journeys home on a shared WhatsApp group.

“Send pictures!”

“I’ll open a Google album.”

“I have 43 photos from the Boston airport.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you the most.”

“Hour 57. We are almost home.”

“Can’t believe you’re still traveling. I’ve been home for a day.”

Those first few weeks home from camp, we shared photos of our pets and families on the WhatsApp group, marveled at the fact that we had the same TV remote, and FaceTimed at 3 a.m. when some of us were too jetlagged to sleep.

Then came October 7. I awoke in the middle of the night to a stream of WhatsApp notifications on my phone. I flicked through the group chat half-asleep, not quite grasping what had just occurred. “Hey. Hope everyone’s okay. I would really appreciate some type of sign from the Palestinians to know no one’s dead or hurt. Love y’all. Stay safe,” one Israeli camper wrote. “Yes, and from the Israelis too,” wrote a different camper. “Stay safe,” one after another chimed in. Soon, the news of Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens and Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hamas was everywhere.

As the gravity of the situation began to sink in, the tenor of our group chat changed. Explosive fights broke out among friends who had shared tents and cabins just weeks before. The fighting eventually got so heated that the moderator temporarily shut our thread down. It was not just the campers who were struggling, either: In late October, the camp’s executive director stepped down and several other members of Seeds of Peace leadership resigned.

“These events have deeply impacted the Seeds of Peace community — this is a really painful, difficult time,” Seeds of Peace’s communications director, Eric Kapenga, told Rolling Stone by email. “We know the only viable path forward is one that is forged together, so we will continue to bring people together, across lines of conflict. And we will continue to support our alumni, who are leading in sectors critical to peacebuilding, to work towards systemic change.”

The moderator eventually re-opened our thread. Regrets were expressed, and apologies made. Scrolling through our chat history today, the most bitter exchanges are missing, replaced by a notification: “This message has been deleted.”

The group chat wasn’t the right forum for these conversations, so I asked four Seeds of Peace campers — two Israelis and two Palestinians, each of whom has been impacted by the ongoing conflict — to join me one Sunday afternoon for a dialogue session, like the ones we had this summer. Omri is an Israeli teenager living in Central Israel; Yafa is a teenage Palestinian living in Jerusalem; Lila a Palestinian teenager, originally from the West Bank now studying in Israel, and Tzvi, a teenage Israeli.

For their protection, Rolling Stone is identifying all four individuals by pseudonyms. This is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.

What has this time been like for you? How safe do you feel right now?

Omri: I’ve felt safe in my region because I live in Tel Aviv, which is a really safe area in Israel. But [another Israeli camper who attended Seed of Peace], his grandma’s house was burned down. The cars in his neighborhood were bombed. Some places in Israel haven’t been touched by the situation. And some other areas have been destroyed.

Lila: I’m in a school in [a city in Israel]. I was warned by the staff that I cannot say I’m Palestinian. I’ve been cursed at just for being in the dining hall we share. I really feel unsafe, actually. It’s a lot of pressure because in my community, I’m kind of shamed [for studying here]: ‘Why would you go study with Israelis and be with them when they hurt us?’ It’s really tough. I think a lot of Palestinians in the West Bank feel really guilty because we cannot do anything to help people in Gaza. A lot of people have been dying — children, women — more than [30,000] people have died. We can’t do anything. We’re helpless.

Tzvi: I feel generally safe because I live in a pretty safe region, but my grandparents became sort of refugees because they had to flee their homes. I have a family friend whose family lives near Gaza, and their entire family was either killed or taken hostage. Fortunately, most of them returned because of the [November hostage] deal, but it wasn’t easy [before that].

Yafa: I’ve been experiencing lots of hate and violence on my way to school and back… There are so many police [check points] set up there. They stop us, search us all the time. They once hit both of my friends; they had bruises all over their bodies, just for having any pictures of the news on their phones. They were beaten by four police officers in front of us and we couldn’t do or say anything, because then they would take us and search our phones. We’re trying to figure out another way to school because it’s so scary to go back: You remember seeing your friends being beat up here.

I’m so sorry to hear that — for all of you. I truly hope things get better for everyone. Do you have a story that you would share from October 7?

Omri: I woke up around 6:30 a.m. because the bombings had started. And I thought to myself, ‘Oh, this again.’ I got back to sleep. When I woke up I saw a lot of videos of the Toyota trucks entering the kibbutzes near Gaza. I was terrified of the idea that something like this had happened. And I felt terrible for everyone who was going to get involved — including the Palestinian population that is suffering because of the situation.

Lila: I was back in the West Bank. And I woke up to a lot of messages of people asking me, ‘Are you okay?’ Because they thought I was [at school in Israel]. I was shocked because we never thought something like that would happen. And it was really scary. A lot of attacks happened on the West Bank [after October 7], I know a couple of people who got shot for just walking in the streets, by IDF soldiers, and they died. I know a lot of people who went to prison for just being there. It was very scary to even go out of my house. I stayed in my house for, like, a month. I didn’t see any of my friends. And it was really depressing because a lot of people from my school left because of the conflict.

Tzvi: I have a family friend who was in a kibbutz in the south. I don’t know the specific details, but I know that his mother and brother were killed, and that all the rest of his family was taken captive.

Did our experience this summer at Seeds of Peace prepare you, in any way, for what is happening now?

Tzvi: It is something that I will cherish, but I don’t think it prepared us specifically for this conflict very well. But I can’t blame them because everything that happened has been so extreme, way out of anything that I expected to happen. Everything that has happened since certainly soured what camp was a bit, but I still appreciate that experience a lot.

Yafa: Camp was really fun. I really enjoyed it. But I do agree that it didn’t really prepare us for this. I don’t think anyone can prepare you for something like this. But I think camp helped me try to understand the other side more and try to listen to what people are experiencing.

Omri: In my perspective, I think camp hasn’t prepared us at all for this situation.

Lila: I know camp did not prepare us for a conflict like this — the whole war — it couldn’t, even if we spent two years in camp. It’s really tough to lose some of your loved ones and see people dying around you. It hurts, and it’s really hard. But for me, personally, before I think of saying something insensitive or that would belittle someone’s life I just remember, “Oh, I had Israeli friends too.” I think about them. No, I don’t want people like them to die. There are a lot of nice people, and people who had nothing to do with the conflict. People that are not politicians. People that deserve to live.

In your view, what actions or policies have contributed to the escalation of this conflict?

Lila: I see violence as a circle. And as long as there is violence, like there will always be violence — from both sides. I know people in Gaza suffered a lot, they’re in an open-air prison. They’ve lived through traumatizing experiences all their life. That’s one of the main reasons that the attack happened — because they have been oppressed most of their lives and it just creates hatred and violence.

Tzvi: I can say that I think in order to have a better future, and a chance of peace in the region, then the thing that needs to be done is that Hamas, who initiated the attacks, lose control of Gaza. If the Palestinian Authority takes over there, we could have some kind of negotiations with a united front.

Omri: I think that every time something happens in Israel, it creates hatred towards the Palestinians and then the Palestinians [retaliate]. Like Lila said, this thing is a circle that’s hurting everyone. If we want any kind of peace, or negotiations towards peace, we need to end Hamas. It’s not as easy as it sounds because I think that Hamas is an idea — an idea of liberation. I don’t think we can [end Hamas] in a short amount of time.

Lila: I don’t necessarily think just ending Hamas would be the ideal situation because say we end Hamas, and then people in the West Bank, and people in Gaza, and people in Jerusalem, and even Arab Israelis — they would still be suffering from the violence they experience at the hands of the IDF. As Yafa said, they’ve been assaulted by police officers and it’s nothing new. I had a gun pointed at my head by IDF soldiers for, like, literally doing nothing — just because they want to travel to another city in the West Bank. It’s not just about ending Hamas, it’s also like treating Israelis and Palestinians as equals — that would be a big part of a resolution for the conflict.

Tzvi: In order to have negotiations for peace, which is the ultimate goal, then we need to see Hamas as an organization that doesn’t uphold these values of equality and freedom and quality of life. Because I think they’ve proven [that they don’t stand for that].

Lila: Let’s be real: Not the Israeli government, not Hamas, nobody cares about the lives of the other side. Nobody cares — even people in Hamas and people in Gaza, they don’t even care about their own lives anymore. I saw a video of little children saying, ‘I’m going to be dead anyway.’ Like, ‘They’re gonna kill me anyway.’

Yafa: I don’t think that getting rid of Hamas is gonna actually solve the problem because another group is going to form wanting liberty, wanting their rights. Hamas is not something that you can get rid of — it’s a mindset. That’s why I don’t agree with the bombing of [Gaza] because how are you going to know if you killed the Hamas members? You can look at a person and not know what’s going on in their mind. I think we should try to listen to the people — not to the government — because the people are the ones that are actually suffering.

Do you think one side is more responsible than the other or are there shared responsibilities?

Lila: Both sides killed innocent civilians. I’m not gonna deny the fact that innocent Israelis, including children, died as a consequence of their government’s actions. But this thing started, initially, from the Israeli government treating Palestinians really badly. The whole conflict started because of their treatment.

Omri: I also think that since the beginning — and in recent times — Israel has always treated Palestinians differently than Israeli people, in every kind of way. Most of the conflict has started since Palestinian people have been treated differently.

Tzvi: It’s true that Palestinians have been disadvantaged and, in some cases, are still oppressed. It is something that needs to change, to stop. But I think this war, however horrible it will be — and you can definitely disagree with parts of what the Israeli government is doing and its policy, obviously, that’s totally legitimate. But I think it’s also very true that this war was started by Hamas. The attack on October 7 is what set off this entire thing.

Lila: Yeah, but the conflict didn’t start on October 7. It started 75 years ago, with the establishment of Israel, when the Nakba started. Half a million people were displaced. Personally, my grandpa was a refugee. My mom had to live in a refugee camp. She couldn’t even continue high school because she lived in a refugee camp. They had no rights, barely any food, barely any money. And during the Intifada, they were banned from going out of their house because they would get shot. It didn’t start on October 7. Yes. Hamas started the attack on October 7, but the thing didn’t start on October 7.

What did the Seeds of Peace experience teach you about the other side of this conflict?

Lila: It made me realize that it’s not just Palestinians that are affected by the whole conflict, and occupation. Israelis, once they turn 18, they need to go to the army and a lot of people don’t want to do that. There are consequences for them too.

Omri: Everyone has a story to tell; everyone has his side. When I thought of Palestinians before Seeds, I thought of them in general. But after camp, I could relate.

Tzvi: When you don’t know anyone from a specific background, you tend to generalize. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is less nuanced. When you have a face to put on something that helps to understand it.

Yafa: It helped me understand that a government doesn’t represent all of the people living in that country. Like Lila, I met some people that didn’t want to join the army. And some people that think that their government isn’t perfect — both on the Palestinian and Israeli side.

What do you wish people from the other side understood about your culture, history, and experiences?

Yafa: I hope or wish that Israel can recognize that there were people living here, and they are Palestinian, they have their own traditions, they have their own community. And I hope that we will be treated equally because the inequality of treatment is what led to this happening. I’m not in support of it, but Hamas wasn’t formed for no reason. I just think that if we were treated equally from the beginning, none of this would have happened in the first place.

Tzvi: I’ve heard a lot of people saying that Israeli culture is colonial, or that Jews don’t have any ties to the region. I think that is very false. Israeli culture is very rich — I don’t think you can label it as colonial. But it is certainly something different that developed here, with art and traditions. That’s what I wish people would stop saying.

Lila: I agree with you. I would not deny that Jews have been living in this land too. Before Israel was established, Palestinians and Jews used to live together, and it was totally fine, actually. I know someone whose parents were saved by their Jewish neighbors during the Nakba — that’s why she’s alive. It’s your right to ask for your culture not to be denied. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have their history here. But one of the main points of the problem is that both sides deny that they have rights to be in this area.

What actions, if any, are you taking or willing to take in order to contribute to peaceful resolution?

Lila: I would speak to people in my community, raise awareness about the conflict, [say that] Israelis are also humans, and they deserve to live. I would also explain that to them: We cannot just kick people out of their homes, like what happened to us.

Tzvi: I think that, as individuals, the only thing we can do is try to educate and maybe inspire other people in our community to be more compassionate to the other side. I’m Israeli, it’s important that I talk to other people and try to make them empathize with people from the other side. And Palestinians should do the same. I try to empathize with the other side because empathy is one of the most important things that could lead to the conflict ending, and it has to come from everyone.

Yafa: I’m not sure what I could do to help. But we need to stop glorifying death because we’re seeing it all over the internet: People being happy to see innocents killed — Israelis or Palestinians — it’s very disgusting and very sad and we need to start there.

What don’t outsiders understand about this conflict?

Tzvi: They don’t understand living it. People can take sides in different countries, but they can’t actually understand the experience and what it means to be here.

Yafa: Yeah, I agree: you need to live it to feel it and understand what it is. As much as you can, be compassionate. It’s a very hard situation. Even if you’re not suffering directly from the war, even if your house isn’t being bombed out, you are still experiencing racism in the streets, and that’s dangerous. It’s also very mentally draining; the news is very tiring every single day.

What kind of future do you see for an organization like Seeds of Peace?

Tzvi: I don’t know what will happen to them in the future. But bringing people from areas of conflict together and having them talk civilly and respectfully to each other is something valuable, and that should be continued.

Lila: I totally agree. Organizations like Seeds of Peace should always be there. It plays a huge part in how we see each other, how we interact, and it changes our perspectives. But I don’t know if the same amount of people are still interested in investing in it. I know a lot of people must have lost hope about the whole situation, and don’t want to continue but I hope that won’t be the case.

Yafa: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think that after the events that happened many people living here are willing to join. What I’m seeing around me, if there was, at one time, hope for people to understand each other, now it might be harder. I hope it gets better.

Read American Seed Pierce Harris’ article in Rolling Stone ››

A tale of three cities: Burlington and her sisters, Bethlehem and Arad | Vermont Public

Burlington has sister cities all over the world. We explore Burlington’s relationship with two of its sisters: Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and Arad, in Israel.

Seeds of Peace

Talia Manning: I was really excited.

Josh Crane: This is Talia Manning. She grew up in Essex, Vermont. And she remembers the moment she was invited to attend a summer camp called Seeds of Peace.

Talia Manning: I was really excited to be asked to participate and to learn that Americans, you know, could be involved in that way.

Josh Crane: Seeds of Peace is an international nonprofit based in the United States. It was founded around bringing American kids together with kids from the Middle East at summer camp, so they could better understand the Israel-Palestine conflict, and each other. It was established in the ’90s, around the same time as the Burlington-Bethlehem-Arad sister city relationship. And both programs share a similar ethos: emphasizing person-to-person connection, and trying to move beyond the geographical and political boundaries that separate people.

That’s why in the late ’90s, Mousa Ishaq and other leaders of the sister city program wanted to sponsor a Vermonter to attend camp at Seeds of Peace. Talia, then age 15, was an obvious fit.

She’s Jewish, and her family has roots in the Middle East. It started with her great-grandfather, who was living in Germany in the 1930s.

Talia Manning: And the night that Hitler was elected, he said, “This is not going to be good, we need to leave.” And so they left Germany that night.

Josh Crane: After leaving Germany, Talia’s great-grandfather moved to Jerusalem. This was the 1930s, before Israel was created and when the city was still under British mandate. Even so, Talia says she’s always felt a connection to Israel, and what it represents for the Jewish people.

Talia Manning: And so for my family, Israel was the safe place that he was able to go and that he found refuge and was able to grow up.

Josh Crane: Talia learned about Seeds of Peace in social studies class in middle school. And the idea of meeting kids from the Middle East at summer camp — it was exciting. So, her rabbi recommended her for the program, and in 1999, she packed her bags for a special session of Seeds of Peace highlighting sister city relationships.

Talia met kids from Burlington’s sister cities in Bethlehem and Arad, specifically. Like Hilly Hirt.

Hilly Hirt: Usually Seeds of Peace didn’t come to the periphery. It would take people from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, you know, main cities.

Josh Crane: Hilly grew up in Arad. She says it was a tight-knit, progressive community when she was growing up. Lots of artists, like Bethlehem and Burlington. And she says it was not a common location for Seeds of Peace to find campers. It was beautiful — views of the Dead Sea, nice sunsets — but also, kinda out of the way, and very much the desert.

Hilly Hirt: And at night, porcupines, like the huge ones, just cross your, you know, kind of like your garden and it’s full of scorpions that bite you in the tush.

Josh Crane: While attending Seeds of Peace, Hilly met Talia.

Hilly Hirt: She was such an extrovert. You see her and you definitely automatically want to be her friend.

Talia Manning: This is a picture of Hilly. Hilly played piano. Well, here she is in black and white with with the song that she wrote.

Josh Crane: Seeds of Peace had all the normal summer camp activities: sing-alongs, campfires, talent shows. And there was also programming more specific to the Seeds of Peace model. Cultural shows, where campers got to present something important to their heritage. Which, for Talia …

Talia Manning: This is me, I dressed up in overalls and cow flannels to represent Vermont.

Josh Crane: Talia brought a few photo albums to our interview. And she’s pointing to a photo of herself on a stage in full “Vermont” regalia, holding a sign.

Talia Manning: The sign says, “Vermont, the Green Mountain State and home of Ben and Jerry.”

Josh Crane: In addition to these cultural displays, campers also participated in two hours of “coexistence sessions” each day. During this time, they would gather in small groups to discuss the state of the conflict, sharing their experiences and their family histories.

Talia says it worked, and that the difference in campers’ comfort level at the beginning versus the end of the summer was palpable.

Talia Manning: On the first day, people would say they were afraid to go to sleep, because they were worried that the enemy was sleeping right in the bed next to them, and what would they do to them that day?

By the end, we, you know, we had the strength and bond of anyone who has attended summer camp and just, you know, falls in love with their bunk mates and their, their friends there.

Josh Crane: Hilly Hirt, from Arad, remembers her time at camp like this:

Hilly Hirt: For the first week, I probably cried that I wanted home. And then by the second week, all I was thinking was crying that I didn’t want to go home.

The older you get, the more of the complexities you understand. But the simple truth of “We’re people who want to get along” stays as the base value of any complexity that comes along.

Like, I think everything that I believe today, all my understandings, the values, are due to the fact that as a child, a 12-year-old kid, I was like, “Hey, I have a crush on this Jordanian Arab named Eyad. And he’s gorgeous and sweet and a person.” And, forever, every Jordanian will be somebody who wants peace for me.

Josh Crane: One of the people Talia remembers most from her camp experience was a boy named Asel Asleh.

Talia Manning: We referred to him as the boy with the 1,000-watt smile, because he was always beaming. He just had a joy and a character. And in this photo here, he’s leading, like, one of the chants.

Josh Crane: Talia’s pointing to a photo of Asel in full camp mode — mouth open, leading some sort of song as his fellow campers swarm around him. They stayed in touch even after Talia returned to Vermont and Asel returned to Israel.

Talia Manning: And he actually was my first instant message on AOL. It was just so cool to be able to talk with him, you know, across the world, just spontaneously like that.

Josh Crane: They talked a lot about identity: Talia, a Jewish-American; Asel, an Arab-Israeli — ethnically Palestinian, but a citizen of Israel.

Talia Manning: And he talked a lot about how he felt like he didn’t fit anywhere. Because he was a proud Palestinian. He also felt a strong connection to Israel, which was his home.

Josh Crane: Around this time, Talia also started participating more actively in the Burlington, Bethlehem and Arad Sister City Program. She helped Mousa and other program leaders make a push for Bethlehem and Arad to formalize a sister city pact with each other. To that point, both cities only had direct agreements with Burlington.

Talia Manning: This is the speech that I gave—

Josh Crane: As we talk, she points to a copy of a speech she made in 1999, in Burlington. It’s a joint statement from Talia, a camper from Bethlehem and Hilly, the camper from Arad.

Talia Manning: “We hope that the direct contact between the mayors and eventually the citizens of our sister cities — Bethlehem, Arad and Burlington — will have the same wonderful results that we experienced at camp.”

Josh Crane: The direct agreement between Bethlehem and Arad never came to pass. As best anyone can remember, politics got in the way. But, Talia remained involved by attending meetings for the sister city program.

Talia Manning: I think we had monthly meetings at the Burlington police station.

Josh Crane: In the backdrop of those conversations, as well as the conversations Talia and Asel were having over AOL Instant Messenger, tensions in the Middle East were starting to rise again. The year 2000 marked the beginning of the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

And then she got a call from a Seeds of Peace friend who lived in that area.

Talia Manning: And, um, he just, you know, he just said, “Asel is dead.”

Josh Crane: Asel was killed by Israeli police.

Talia Manning: When he was killed, he was wearing his Seeds of Peace t-shirt. And the reporting is that he was there observing the protest in his town. And that he was chased and beaten and shot at point-blank range in the neck by the Israeli police, who were there responding to the protest.

Josh Crane: Asel was one of 13 Arab citizens of Israel killed at that protest.

Josh Crane: How did you react?

Talia Manning: Um, I think I was in shock for a little while. I remember just kind of getting off the phone. I was up in my room, I went downstairs. And I told my mom, and my mom started crying. And I remember that sort of — it scared me, because she doesn’t normally cry. She’s not a crier.

I think for a while I questioned a lot of my love of Israel, and my support of Israel, because it had been Israeli police officers who brutally killed my friend. And the death of Asel was a catalyst for me to becoming more of an activist and more outspoken.

Josh Crane: Talia says that camp alumni rallied together in the years after Asel’s death. They even protested Israel’s Ministry of Justice after it announced that none of the police officers involved in the fatal shootings of Asel or the 12 other Palestinian citizens of Israel would face criminal indictment.

Talia’s been holding onto these experiences since Oct. 7, and the beginning of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Though she says the bonds of summer camp, and their shared experiences, haven’t been enough recently to hold the Seeds of Peace community together.

Talia Manning: And in this latest outbreak, that has also been really hard to watch. I think everyone is being pushed to take a side and I feel like you are either expected to stand with Israel or to free Palestine. And I have trouble with that limited view.

Josh Crane: She says that even some of the group chats and other lines of communication with her fellow Seeds of Peace alumni have felt challenging and unproductive. Some have been put on hiatus entirely.

So, in thinking about our guiding question with this episode: What relationships are possible right now?

Well, Talia and Hilly attended Seeds of Peace in the ’90s. It was a time of optimism and momentum for building consensus, and finding peace in the Middle East. That’s certainly something Hilly felt coming out of camp.

Hilly Hirt: I remember coming out and saying, “This is going to be my future career. Like, this is what I’m going to do. I am going to be in the peace-making business forever.”

Josh Crane: Hilly hasn’t lived in Arad, or been involved with Seeds of Peace, for a long time. She’s still grateful for the role camp had in her life for the three summers she attended.

But these days, she says it’s much harder to be optimistic.

Hilly Hirt: I’d say the situation today is the opposite. On all sides. You talk to Jordanians, and you talk to Egyptians and to Palestinians. There is a — what’s the word for “kituv” in English? A polarization.

Josh Crane: And so, do those same programs that were created in this moment that felt completely different, do they still seem useful to you now?

Hilly Hirt: Um, that’s kind of like asking Xerox if their camera is still relevant in the digital age. The answer is yes. But, but it’s, it’s really contingent on how innovative you are.

Josh Crane: She says she needed more support from Seeds of Peace in the years after she was a camper, like when she started her mandatory military service.

Hilly Hirt: When it comes to continuing the connection with Palestinians and the Arab world when I’m a grown-up, with what happens when we’re at war, when what happens when there is conflict … and I felt that when things got tough, they weren’t there enough for me.

Josh Crane: Talia goes back to Asel, and one of his favorite passages, in times like these. It’s from the 13th century poet Rumi, and it goes like this:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
Doesn’t make any sense.”

Talia Manning: And so Asel always said, “I’ll meet you there in that field.”

Listen to Josh Crane’s interview atVermont Public ››

I Can Help Rebuild Gaza. First I Need to Survive Today. | The New York Times

By Kamal Almashharawi
Mr. Almashharawi is a lawyer working with SunBox, a solar power company based in Gaza.

I was a young child, living in the Jabaliya area, in the north of Gaza, when I first saw an Israeli soldier up close. The Israel Defense Forces invaded the camp and our home. They stayed for three days. After that, I was afraid of Israelis. I always thought that they were coming to kill or kidnap me.

And yet I know the world can be better. I’ve seen how people in other conflicts have worked toward coexistence, and I know that one day I will work to better Gaza, to rebuild our community and to move forward. But this week I took the only opportunity that secured my immediate future: to flee.

I’m a Palestinian raised in the Gaza Strip, so I have long known conflict. My family are refugees from 1948; my grandmother used to tell me really great stories about our village, Al Muharraqa. It was on the eastern border of Gaza, about nine miles from Gaza City.

Still, every other time there has been a war in Gaza, it hasn’t really come to this level of intensity. This is the first time in my life I really didn’t know where to go or if I would survive at all. But because I have seen a different version of this world, I still held out hope.

Seven years after those first soldiers invaded my home, I met Israelis on my own terms. I was 15; my brother encouraged me to apply to attend Seeds of Peace, a summer camp in the United States that promotes coexistence and looks for future community leaders. Seeds gave me a full scholarship. It was 2015; one year after another war with Israel and seven years into the blockade that made travel into and out of Gaza nearly impossible. Attending camp was my first chance to leave the strip. The opportunity changed my life.

Gazans don’t really get to meet people outside the region. We don’t really get to travel and explore the world. With Seeds, I not only got to see beyond Gaza; I also learned how to describe my story in a way that touched others, connecting my life to the lives of others. I took the chance because I wanted Israelis and others to see how a Gazan has lived and survived. I wanted them to learn that we deserve to live. And I wanted to educate them about the culture here in Gaza in a way that could push them to take serious actions back in their communities.

After Seeds, I continued to take courses in political science and peace building. I attended law school at Al-Azhar University in Gaza and focused on conflict resolution. Two years ago, I attended a program based in Jerusalem — remotely — that also helped me build the skills I need to work toward peace building in and outside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. I traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and met with people who had been involved in reaching the Good Friday Agreement. I now have friends from conflict zones around the world. And, this summer, Seeds of Peace asked me to help plan and set up its community action program, trying to teach the kids how to take serious action in their communities.

Meanwhile, I went to work as a legal officer at a solar energy company, SunBox, trying to bring electricity to Gazans who, even before this conflict, would often go many hours without power. I had relocated to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for my work. I returned to Gaza for my sister’s wedding party and to visit my company’s solar projects in Gaza just before Oct. 7.

The past seven weeks were horrendous. When the war began, I was with 85 members of my family. We didn’t stay in one place for long. Instead, we moved across the strip from Gaza City to Khan Younis, Khan Younis to Rafah, Rafah to Khan Younis and then back to Gaza City, to my parents’ home, forever in search of safety.

For weeks, our daily routine consisted of finding clean water to drink and charging our phones. Even that could take hours and hours. Each morning, some people would go to get bread, some people to get other food and some people to get water. The luckiest were those who came back with something. But then as the fighting got closer, we had to hide in our basement, and we couldn’t go out at all.

We returned to Khan Younis earlier this month, traveling for hours by foot and donkey cart. All around us were shots and explosions. The roads were full of sand and sewage and bodies. It was very dangerous, but we couldn’t stay in Gaza City — all the kids in my family were starting to get sick. We simply had nothing to give them. I myself had gone days without food. Nothing felt certain.

Then, on Thursday, I had the enormous good fortune to cross into Egypt with part of my family, including my parents. To depart Gaza is excruciating. We leave behind friends and family to face the continued horrific reality of life lived amid the rubble of their houses. I am so grateful my family has survived but saddened the people of Gaza are not surviving.

After all this, I still know two things for sure: Civilians should not be in the middle of this, and coexistence remains the only solution to this conflict.

I think there are two main steps toward making this happen. The first is on the personal and community level: People need to believe that there’s a chance for both peoples to exist at the same time and live peacefully. This could happen through schools, starting from raising awareness and promoting coexistence activities. That was a major part of what happened in Northern Ireland.

But there then must be another step at the government and international level. Countries and governments around the world have to promote the idea of coexistence and acceptance that both peoples deserve to live on the same land, peacefully, without the need to be biased toward one people over another.

I believe in coexistence as a solution because I’m fed up. And the more than two million people living in Gaza are fed up with conflicts. We need to live peacefully, as the people live on the other side of the fence. I think it’s possible; there just needs to be more effort invested in making it happen.

It’s going to take so much time to rebuild everything. But the devastation I see is not just about reconstructing those pieces of concrete. It’s about the stories behind those walls and houses. We need to restore those lives, those stories, too. And for that we need people to care about those stories — the very sort of connections I’ve made in my experiences with conflict resolution.

I think we can rebuild, even if it takes 50 or 60 years. We can find global interest in reinvesting in projects affected or damaged by the war. We need peace. Whatever the war does to this beautiful place, we will fix it. When I return, I will work to fix it.

Kamal Almashharawi is a lawyer working as a business and legal officer for SunBox, a solar power company based in Gaza.

Read Kamal’s op-ed in The New York Times ››

Message from the Board of Directors:
Seeds of Peace leadership transition

Dear Seeds of Peace community,

The Board of Directors has announced that our chief operating officer, Vishnu Swaminathan, and our chief impact officer, Eva Armour, will jointly lead Seeds of Peace on an interim basis.

They replace Joshua Thomas, who has stepped down as executive director.

Eva and Vishnu bring a diversity of thinking and complementary strengths. We are confident their combined expertise will make them effective leaders of our global team at this critical moment.

Our staff, many of whom are personally impacted by the ongoing violence, war, and heartbreak in Palestine and Israel, are working tirelessly to support our communities, adjust our work to meet this moment, and build actionable plans for the future.

We are grateful for their commitment and the support of our broader community.

Sandra Wijnberg

Seeds of Peace Board Chair on behalf of the Seeds of Peace Board of Directors

The Israel-Hamas war has not quashed their compassion, their empathy, their hope | National Public Radio

A bullet in his spine, hope in his heart

By Ari Daniel
Yousef Bashir has a permanent physical reminder of the stakes of the long-running conflict between Israel and Gaza — a bullet lodged in his spine.

Bashir grew up in Gaza. In 2000, during the Second Intifada, when he was 11, Israeli soldiers occupied the second and third floors of his family home. As for why they did so, “the short answer is because they could,” Bashir says. The house was isolated from the rest of the neighborhood and it gave the soldiers a lookout that let them “see all the way to the sea.”

The soldiers “demolished our greenhouses,” he says, “and pretty much every night, moved the entire family to sleep in the living room while they controlled the rest of the house.”

Bashir says he had to ask the soldiers for permission to use the bathroom.

In the face of that difficult time, Bashir recalls his father explaining that “we should not allow them to turn us into hateful, vengeful people. I’ve watched my dad insist that the only way forward for both sides is peace. And it isn’t only just because it is the right thing to do, but if we are to move forward and become doctors and engineers and husbands and fathers and productive members of the international community, we must do all we can to preserve our humanity.”

His father drew on the Quran. “Never let hatred for any people lead you to deviate from being just to them,” he quoted in Arabic.

Bashir says his father told him “it is one thing to lose one’s home and one’s land and even a loved one. But it is another thing — the most tragic thing — when one loses their humanity.”

It wasn’t always easy for Bashir to agree with his father. For instance, one summer, the soldiers prevented Bashir and his family from going to the beach, which was 15 minutes away. Bashir snapped. But his father said to him, “imagine you are at the beach, imagine the air, the breeze, the waves, the ocean, the sand, imagine, imagine what would you be doing?” Bashir couldn’t quite put himself on the shore in his mind that day, but ever since he’s practiced his ability to imagine. And it’s helped him imagine a different reality for himself and his people to this day.

Peace and tolerance are the core lessons that Bashir was taught as a boy — “as a person, as a Muslim, as an Arab, as a Palestinian,” he says. “I became peaceful in Gaza. I became peaceful when my house was besieged and when my family was shot at, when my farms were demolished. And I think that is a miracle.”

Without those important lessons, Bashir isn’t sure whether he would have survived his youth. “My dad saved my life,” he says.

Roughly a week after he turned 15 years old, just outside his home, a soldier fired the bullet that embedded itself in the center of Bashir’s back, in his spine. “I was lucky to survive,” he says. “I collapsed to the ground. I was looking to figure out what was happening because I felt no pain. I saw no blood, but I could not speak and I definitely could not feel my legs.”

“I think I was shot only because I was Palestinian,” he reflects.

“Quite frankly,” he admits, “I did want to die because it was not normal for a child to be subjected to that way of living. But at the same time, I’m just 15. Why should I go now?”

Bashir was rushed to a hospital in Tel HaShomer, Israel. Up until that point, he’d only met Israeli settlers and soldiers. But now he was meeting Israeli doctors trying to repair him.

“I don’t think Israel intended to show me their human side,” Bashir says. “But I think some higher power wanted me to see that.” He recalls an Israeli nurse who frequently rushed to his side, explaining to some of the other health workers that he was shot for no justifiable reason. All this made Bashir understand his father’s perspective better.

He also came to recognize that he’s from a very particular part of the world. “I come from the Holy Land,” he says. “The land of Jesus and Muhammad and Moses, the [land of the] Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

Bashir was in a wheelchair for two years, but he did learn to walk again. He still does physical therapy and takes regular shots of cortisone to relieve the pain.

Today, half his lifetime later, 34-year-old Bashir lives in Washington, D.C.. where he’s finishing his Ph.D. in international affairs at Johns Hopkins University. The residual bullet causes him ongoing discomfort — “a 24/7 ordeal for me,” he says. “When I watch movies, when I hang out, when I sleep, when I play, when I do just about anything.”

To Bashir, it’s a constant reminder of the conflict — and why the fighting must stop.

“I am here,” he says. “I still believe. I’m still committed. Despite the pain that I will experience tomorrow, I am convinced that [peace is] the only way forward.”

The present moment, however, is a difficult test of Bashir’s conviction.

“With every image, with every video, with every report I see of innocent Palestinians being killed and targeted,” he says, “I get very close to screaming in my apartment. And breaking.” Bashir’s voice cracks.

And then he remembers his father who insisted on peace.

“It’s bad enough,” says Bashir. “My people lack freedom and a state and so much more. I think to be deprived of [our humanity] is just unacceptable. And so in preserving my humanity, in my mind, I am somehow still giving my people and the world a chance for a better life.”

The right to live in peace and security, Bashir argues, “belongs to the Palestinians just as much as it belongs to the Israelis.”

Read Ari Daniel’s op-ed at National Public Radio ››

Seeds of Peace campers appear on “This Teenage Life” podcast

This summer, Molly, the adult who works on This Teenage Life, visited the Camp and its program that brings together youth from regions of conflict, including teens from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and the United States.

She spoke with campers from youth from the Middle East and South Asia who had taken the leap to meet folks “the other side.” Many of them defied the opinions of their political leaders and communities, traveling thousands of miles to speak with teenagers on the opposite side of their national conflict.

In this episode, teens from Seeds of Peace shared their experience doing what they think is right in order to hear from their neighbors and nominal enemies. Then teens from This Teenage Life share their own experiences of connecting with folks from another side in their daily lives.

Listen to more This Teenage Life episodes ››

Peace’s Now’s new leader, Lior Amihai, on building peace, finding hope, and being inspired

Lior Amihai (1999, Israeli Delegation) is Executive Director of Peace Now, an Israeli non-governmental organization that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You are in the thick of conflict and have been at it for a long time—for the longest time with the Palestinians. This would drive many to despair. How do you keep the joy and hope alive? What makes you carry on?

I will start by saying that it is okay to be in despair, because as human beings we realize that sometimes situations are tough, and it can be very hard to find hope in some circumstances. Therefore, I believe it is important to be part of a political community, a community of people with shared values. It is important to surround yourself with people who want progress and equality for everyone, people with whom you can share your struggles, and who can help achieve sound political aims. Community gives hope.

The second thing that I find hope in is action. I can do things; I do not have to just sit in front of the TV and feel frustrated. I am lucky I am paid to do this, but one can volunteer too. If you are an engaged political citizen, you are in a position of privilege and can do a lot. That is something that helps in dealing with despair and struggles—knowing that you are actually doing something! If there’s positive value in your work, it contributes to the overall system, leads you to a better place, and is in solidarity with colleagues who are also trying to figure it out, it is all good.

I also keep my strength from being inspired by others. I look at the brave women in Afghanistan, who are resisting a harsh regime. If they are finding hope in their resistance, who am I not to resist my government? I am also inspired, for example, by Palestinians who resist the occupation. They deal with a foreign military that acts against them. Just last Friday, 400 of us at Peace Now marched to a Palestinian village that a settlement took over its lands. We marched together with Palestinian colleagues from the village. However, we were met with military resistance who did not want us to meet our Palestinian partners. They blocked our buses, so we marched for two miles in the sun, and they even used tear gas and stun grenades against us. But I am still here. Only few miles away, other Palestinians from a different village were doing something similar. They were met with live ammunition. I would say it was my privilege to have to deal with less dangerous attacks.

We must use the powers we have to affect change. In the words of Christopher Robin: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem.”

From aspiring team leader at Camp to being the Peace Now Executive Director: how has the journey been and what have some of the more remarkable milestones along the way?

It has all been fascinating, with different emotions inspiring me at different times. Camp was one of the first truly eye-opening experiences, followed by my higher education in London, where I studied alongside Palestinians. There, we were more than just our usual national and religious identities. Life was very unlike how it is in Jerusalem or say, Tel Aviv. In the company of my Palestinian peers, it became clearer to me the large gaps in perception that we have. It taught me a lot about power relations and narratives.

The next milestone was when I joined Peace Now. In my initial years in the organization, I was assigned to settlement watch where monitoring and ground research is done on the effects and implications of settlements. It was the first time I was going regularly into occupied territories, and I learned a lot from seeing the geography, the Palestinian communities, the settlements, the political architecture and mechanisms and the dynamics of military occupation first-hand.

I also learned a lot as the Executive Director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, that gives legal representation to Palestinians under occupation that are victims of violence from Israeli citizens or soldiers. In addition to learning about the dynamics of occupation, I also got to witness and learn from the dynamics between the Israeli and Palestinian members of the staff. In some variation, it shared elements the power dynamics of the world outside. Using dialogue as a technique, I had an opportunity to influence the power relations within the organization.

Presently, I continue to do similar work with Peace Now where the biggest challenge is to get the Israeli public—a chunk of which thinks of itself as liberal—to act. We want them to stop being afraid of the idea of ending occupation, and mobilize them to take decisive steps.

Who is your greatest inspiration?

I was lucky enough to have many role models, but right now, one person that comes to my mind is my colleague, Hagit Ofran. She is an intellectual, who is dedicated to ending the occupation, and who demonstrates a lot of courage and persistence. She has a very clear compass of what needs to be done. I have seen her persistence for over 20 years now, and despite all the political and social changes, her clarity of values has been unwavering.

If you could magically change one thing about the world right now, what would it be?

You know, there are so many things, but if I had to pick one thing, it would be to return to a world without populism! I wish for a world where facts and frank discussions would be the way forward, and not the way things operate on lies and propaganda and majoritarian narratives now. I think we would all love a world where genuine dialogue and democratic collaborations would be used as tools of problem-solving and growth.

If you could ask every Seed to do one thing for sure in their lives, what would that be?

I would tell everyone—Seed or not—to be civically engaged and do so with solidarity! Life is so hard, and there are different ways of dealing with different problems. There are thousands of people around the world, who believe in liberal values and do humanitarian and human rights work. But their vision may not be 100% aligned but we need to work together to fight the “bad ideologies.” Even if we agree only on 80% or 60% of their way, I believe that it is a lot to work with. We must forgive one another, build solidarities, and support each other. We must find ways to be engaged and keep working to create a world that is better, more just, and more equitable.