Can Israeli and Palestinian Teens Bond at Camp While Conflict Rages?
By Yardain Amronfor The Jewish Daily Forward
OTISFIELD,
MAINE — “My name is Mustafa, and I am from Gaza,” declared the
16-year-old perched, however improbably, on a picnic table near the
shore of Pleasant Lake, Maine. His backdrop — just days after sheltering
from the Israeli mortars exploding near his home — was New England’s
White Mountains. “I lived 20 days in third war. I come to Seeds of Peace
camp to share my suffering.”Despite his peach-fuzz mustache, Mustafa speaks with the responsibility of a foreign ambassador and in a way, he is one: He’s one of just two Gazans who made it out to this rustic camp setting during the recent war. And now he’s primed to participate in the latest annual gathering of children from Israel, the Israeli-occupied territories, nearby Arab countries and America in a privileged summer camp: an idyll of sports, games, good times — and intense, life-wrenching encounters with children from other groups whom many of them have been conditioned to see as mortal enemies.
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