Camping with the enemy can be a step in the right direction 
5/13/2009
Imagine spending the first night at summer camp, awake in your bunk bed, scared that other campers might “get you” during the night. Why? Because you’re Palestinian and your bunkmates are Israeli. Your first reaction is that you're camping with “the enemy.”
That was the scene Asmaa Maloul, a young Palestinian woman from Jenin, described at the Upper School assembly, May 11. Students heard her remarkable tale about “Seeds of Peace,” a New York-based program which brings together young people from politically tumultuous regions, offering an opportunity to exchange blind hatred for empathy and trust.
Maloul is now a PhD student in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto. Her experience at the Seeds of Peace camp in Otisfield, Maine in 1999 changed her life. A key part of the camp, which also includes arts and sports, is a daily session in which campers are able to confront each other about their preconceptions of each other.
“My fear was that one day I would see [one of the campers] as a checkpoint soldier,” said Maloul. “But as we talked about our future, we were able to see our similarities and our common dreams for the future. I was able to make new friends even as I knew how much effort it would take to go home and explain all this to my family.”
But long-term outreach is the ultimate goal of the program, explained former counsellor Dan Ettinger. Former campers are expected to become ambassadors for the cause of “peaceful co-existence” around the world.
“It’s about rehumanizing the conflict,” he said. “The goal is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other side’s perspective and break down barriers of mistrust and suspicion.”
Speakers from Seeds of Peace were the final guests in a series of spring assemblies entitled “Lost Voices in History.” Speakers have included a school principal who was a witness to Idi Amin's genocidal rule in Uganda and a survivor of the civil war in Yugoslavia.
“The goal is to foster compassion for other cultures, to increase the awareness of historical and cultural reasons for global conflict, and to take a stand against global atrocities,” said History Department Chair Reem Aweida-Parsons.