A pax on both your houses
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8/10/2007 -
Anyone who regularly reads the news might conclude that large swaths of the planet are being sucked into a maniacal downward spiral originating in the Middle East. But, what if there is an exit from such black holes? What if human societies, like ice, are composed of millions of separate yet interconnected entities capable of melting? What if we can learn to hear another's opinions, to understand that all sides in violent conflicts suffer unspeakable pain, and commit ourselves to making peace? What if thousands of people talked with their enemies and understood that they are not so different from themselves? What if those thousands told millions what they had learned? What if the urge to kill, to seek vengeance, to wage war became an aberration?An idea so simple is easy to dismiss, yet Israeli peace activist Anael Harpaz says her whole belief system was shattered when she met and listened to Palestinian women at a workshop in the West Bank city of Nablus in the early 1990s. In the years since that workshop, she has worked with New Mexico resident and peace worker Rachel Kaufman, who often visits Israel.
"After the second Intifada [which broke out in September 2000] both of us were in a lot of pain about the situation, and we thought, why bother with the grown-ups?" Harpaz said during a recent interview. "My generation, on both sides, is so entrenched in cultural prejudices, but the youth can release that. The youth are ready to see that the enemy is a friend."
On a recent overcast morning, Harpaz sat in a circle with four young women at the Creativity for Peace camp that has convened each summer since 2003 at the home of Kaufman and Rick Phillips near Glorieta. Harpaz's companions in the gazebo, a meditation temple decorated with prayer flags, were Adi Goldstein and Noy Kochva, both Israeli Jews; Diana Friaijah, a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank; and Baraa Darawshe, an Arab Israeli. Dottie Indyke, the camp's president, and Val Carpenter, the camp's art instructor, also joined the circle.
The four young Israeli and Palestinian women had spent three weeks at Creativity for Peace last summer, and they have returned as young leaders, ready to lead 15 other girls between the ages of 15 and 17 through the program. "I am not coming here to tell what I learned, " Goldstein said. "I am here to help girls my age to come to an understanding. At the end of this journey, we learn that we are all the same. ... I don't think we have to forgive each other. We learn that we didn't do anything to each other. But what we learned in school, in our history lessons, half of it wasn't true."
As an Arab Israeli with Israeli citizenship who understands Arabic and Hebrew, Darawshe said she used to feel pulled in half. "In the end I realized I shouldn't have to choose sides."
Friaijah said she approached the peace camp as a challenge and an opportunity to present the Palestinian side. "When I came, I wanted to let the other side know what I was going through, " she said. "I was an extremist and stubborn. I didn't want to open. I believed only the Palestinians were suffering.
"The first day in a room with two Jewish girls was upsetting; it was killing me. At the beginning of camp they taught us how to listen, how to accept others' ideas."
But during the first week she found it nearly impossible to listen during the compassionate dialogues each morning. "I felt alone, " she said. "Then we became like sisters. ... I learned that a lot of what we hear in the news is not true. I understood what is happening on their side, why they are coming with such deep pain." Suffering pushes people into extreme actions, Friaijah continued. "The extreme people are making us all live in war."
"After the morning dialogues we have a lot of fun, " Kochva said. "We go shopping, see movies, and go to a spa, and to the pueblos. It's what it would be like to live in peace."
The work and the connections continue after the girls return to their homes. "It's not really hard for me, " Goldstein said. "I can e-mail, and there are meetings throughout the year."
But, Harpaz said, Friaijah's trips into Israel to attend meetings are arduous. "It takes a lot of hard work on our side to get permits, and it takes a lot of suffering for her.
"After waiting four hours at one checkpoint, I told the soldiers I was going to a peace-camp meeting, and they let me through, " Friaijah said. The group inhaled as one when Friaijah said she told the soldier where she was going. When she said he let her pass, they exhaled in unison. "I was afraid that story was going to have a different ending, " Indyke said.
Many peace camps now exist in Israel, the United States, Canada, and Europe, Kochva noted. "We take it as our mission to make the circle bigger." But when she tells Israelis that the Palestinian girls she met in New Mexico feel like sisters, many warn her that "the Palestinians are only pretending, " she said.
Tile mosaics covered posts on a rolling, grassy field in front of the gazebo. The camp spreads over 40 acres that once were home to a hippie commune, Indyke said. Each year's campers make an artwork that stays on the land. One post is covered in pink, yellow, red, and turquoise handprints; another is decorated with the kind of sun a child would draw, complete with yellow rays. The artworks' colors evoke joy and hope. Near the dirt road that leads to the house where the campers live, a sunflower blooms next to an adobe goddess that also was made last summer.
At camp Jews and Muslims live in close physical contact for the first time in their lives. Three to four girls are assigned to sleep in each room; some sleep two to a bed. If this proves overwhelming, a camper can take a sleeping bag and stay outside. "When I came to camp, I believed that all Israelis wanted to kill Palestinians, " Friaijah said. "After about a week I understood that the other side was suffering."
The camp's peaceful, natural environment helps the girls let go of their grudges, Darawshe said. "We have hope for the future, " she said. "We have to have hope, or we don't have anything."
"After you go home, you know this space exists, and the process continues, " Kochva said.
When asked to stand together for a photograph, two girls jumped onto a long bench next to the gazebo and helped the other two girls up. All four huddled together, laughing. The light behind them was so bright that their faces were lost in shadow, so they ran to the other side of the open-air meditation room and climbed on another bench. They leaned on one another, horsing around like little girls at a slumber party.
With the interview over, the four walked together down the dirt road that leads to the tiny guesthouse they will share at camp.
When she returns to Israel, Goldstein will serve in the army. She plans to work with a security division that issues visitor permits to Palestinians. Kochva said she will spend a year studying leadership skills before her compulsory military service. As an Arab Israeli, Darawshe will not serve in the military; she plans to study medicine. Before attending peace camp, Friaijah wanted to be a doctor, but now she believes that effective communication is essential for peace, so she plans to study journalism.
At 7 p.m. Aug. 20, 23 Israeli and Palestinian women who have participated in the Creativity for Peace camp speak at a screening of Promises, an Emmy Award-winning film by Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg, at the Center for Contemporary Arts. Promises was filmed between 1995 and 2000 in Palestinian refugee camps and an Israeli West Bank settlement.
