FORWARD: …Seeds of Peace, the hopeful brainchild of a Washington journalist in the early 1990s, has been growing for 22 years now. But the well-funded summer camp, which plucks an elite group of teenagers out of the cauldron of the Middle East and sets them down in the wilds of Northern Maine each year, is taking place this August in the immediate aftermath of the third, and bloodiest, Israeli military incursion into Gaza since 2008…
But the one activity that I was never allowed to participate in, witness or enter was the camp’s Dialogue Sessions. This is where the unfiltered force of strong, emotionally charged opinions from the various sides of the conflict collide head-on. For 110 minutes per day, or 70 hours over the whole three and a half week session, campers divide into carefully ethno-balanced groups of about 15. They meet in small one-room, plywood huts, built for the single purpose of dialogue. There are both Middle East dialogues (Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Americans) and South Asian dialogues, each dealing with the unique issues surrounding the respective conflicts into which these children were born.
With trained facilitators present, the teens lay it all out. Emotions boil over, tears flow, voices shout, accusations fly and — sometimes — hugs occur. This summer, many participants, unable to contain themselves, walked out of the session at points. Shira, a 15-year-old Israeli, said that in her group, much of the intensity, including kids walking out, occurred when Gaza was mentioned… (more)
