Israelis, Arabs pursue peace at model UN

EVEN YEHUDA — Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators have rarely spoken to each other during the last three years, but that didn’t stop a group of Jewish and Arab teenagers from trying to settle the decades-old conflict.

More than 500 students gathered last month in Even Yehuda, a Tel Aviv suburb, for the Israel-middle East Model United Nations. The conference capped six months of meetings by the group’s “conflict resolution committee” to analyze the dispute that has shaped their lives.

They didn’t resolve it, but many said they understand the other side better now.

“I always dreamed of changing. I never liked the situation we’re in,” said Lisa Rahamim-flam, a teenager from central Israel.

While high school students around the world participate in model United Nations conferences, many attending the Israeli version had first-hand experience with conflict.

Rahamim-flam comes from a small village that lost three teenagers in a 1996 Palestinian suicide bombing. Outside the grounds of the conference’s meeting place at American International School, the signs pointing to nearby bomb shelters provided a clear reminder that this is the volatile Middle East.

The mock conference included a Security Council and several committees, including disarmament. human rights and territorial disputes.

Most of the participants were Israeli Jews and Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about one-fifth of the country’s population.