At camp, girls strive for peace
Creativity for Peace provides a space for Israeli and Palestinian teens to hear both sides of conflict
Many of the girls arrive at the camp scared. With the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, all they have ever known is fear. But in an isolated Northern New Mexico village, there is some hope for change. Every summer, between 14 and 20 Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls fly into New Mexico to attend a three-week intensive camp where they train to be leaders and peacemakers by sharing their stories and getting to know the girls from the opposite side of the conflict.
“It was really new and exciting and scary to hear stories from the other side,” 19-yearold Naama Shlomy told Generation Next. Shlomy attended the Creativity for Peace camp in 2015 and returned as a young leader this summer to mentor younger campers.
She and three other young leaders told their stories during a public fundraiser for Creativity for Peace that was held at the Railyard in late July.
Creativity for Peace, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, has hosted 19 camps to date. The camp takes place near Glorieta on a site where girls from both sides of the conflict share living quarters. Creativity for Peace participants often hear about the organization from friends and family members. Some find it through the internet. If they apply and are accepted, they join a small group of other young women — of which, half are Jewish Israelis, and the other half are Palestinian — at the camp, where they participate in a variety of activities and workshops ranging from attending The Santa Fe Opera to working on a ropes course in order to learn trust and support.
The fact that the camp focuses on the women impacted by the conflict allows the girls to open up more about what they are feeling, according to organizers and participants.
“This camp is the beginning of a process that we hope will last for a long time,” said Dottie Indyke, executive director of Creativity for Peace. “We ask each girl who comes to camp to make a two-year commitment to our program.” After the camp, the girls attend seminars back home in order to continue learning leadership and peacemaking skills, and a few, such as Shlomy, are invited to return to the camp as young leaders. “They work at camp as junior counselors,” Indyke said. “For the 16 campers who are here for the first time, they are kind of like big sisters to them. They provide a lot of emotional support and they help with a lot of other things.”
Shlomy, who grew up in Sderot, Israel, said she originally joined Creativity for Peace because she was interested in “getting answers” and hearing the “truth” about the painful, often violent conflict between the two cultures.
Sderot, which is near the border with Gaza, suffers from constant threats of rockets. “When the alarm goes off, you have 15 seconds to get to the shelter,” Shlomy said. “For those couple of minutes, it is just so scary.”
However, Shlomy said that while she could choose to stay in her own pain and fear, she, instead, “Took steps to understanding others’ pain,” which is a large part of compassion. “Since I’ve joined Creativity for Peace, I’ve met girls I can talk to, who can talk to me.”
Young Leader Shay Keidar, who is from Harduf, Israel, said that before the camp, while she was interested in peacemaking, it wasn’t in her daily life. However, the 19-yearold said, once she joined the camp, she, “couldn’t get [the peacemaking] out of her.”
Keidar began as a camper in 2013, and — after working as a young leader — was excited to return to Creativity for Peace this year as a facilitator-in-training. “[The organization] gives me many, many skills for life, for my growth and developing as a person and as a leader and as a peacemaker. So it is important for my own growth, and for being part of such an important work.”
Sana Zahalka who attended the camp in 2015, is a 17-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel — a position that has led to many additional challenges.
“Most people do not know this, but 20 percent of Israel is Palestinian,” she said. However, the majority of Palestinians who live in Israel face equal discrimination from Jewish Israelis. Zahalka told a crowd during the fundraiser that one time when she was eating with her 8-year-old sister, an Israeli woman approached them and said that she did not feel safe because Zahalka’s sister was holding a fork.
“I have never felt so humiliated in my life,” she said.
Instead of being angry, she worked to turn the situation into one of strength, because, as she put it, “We are all human beings. We are all equal.”
Indyke said that because of the separation resulting from the conflict, “The Palestinians living in Israel don’t even know the story of the Palestinians living in Palestine. They are separated so much in their everyday lives.”
And while many Palestinians have relatives living in both areas, they cannot go to school together or otherwise hear one another’s stories. “I haven’t met a Palestinian and actually spoke to them before camp,” Zahalka said. “It’s not only about meeting Jewish Israelis, it’s also about meeting people of our own, who we never had the chance to see or speak to.”
Liza Masri, who is 21 and has a degree in marketing, is also Palestinian, but lives in Nablus on the West Bank in Palestine. Before the camp — which she first attended in 2013 — Masri said that she had, “Never thought about peace, peacemaking or living with Jewish people in the same house and sharing stories together.” But joining the organization gave her a chance to listen to them.
Before joining the camp, Masri said, she had never met a Jewish Israeli away from soldiers who guard various checkpoints in the West Bank. “I live in a safe place, compared to other Palestinians,” Masri said. But when she began attending Birzeit University — an hour away from Nablus — she had to pass through many of the checkpoints. “[The soldiers] don’t let you go without checking you. Whatever they ask you, you have to answer them.” This is in large part because of the scattered Israeli settlements that exist in the Palestinian territories.
“It is not comfortable,” Masri said of the Israeli settlers, “I’m afraid of them. They are dangerous to the Palestinians.”
But Masri said that Creativity for Peace has taught her that we are all human beings, each one of us full of stories to share and learn from.
“I believe that we should hear the other side because we are all suffering from this conflict,” she said.