|
What do we do? Each summer Hands of Peace brings Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, and West Bank Palestinian youngsters to the northwest suburbs of Chicago for a two-week experience of coexistence with one another, as well as with a comparable number of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim American teens. The participants are 15-16 years old – old enough to be able to speak with knowledge and passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but not so old that that their views are set in concrete. Our hope is that the young people, through their encounters with one another – with “the enemy” – will come to see the humanity on both sides of the conflict and to realize that peaceful cooperation is the only way to resolve the issues that lay at the heart of their shared conflict.
|
It was a great opportunity for me to meet new people from different places. Sometimes we shouted and cried, but at the end of the day we all laughed.
Afram (West Bank Muslim Palestinian male)