All Talk
This feature appears in our Spring 2021 issue. Subscribe now to receive a copy in your mailbox.
IN THE SUMMER OF 2014, as Israeli bombs rained down on Gaza during the military incursion known as Operation Protective Edge, Salma Faysal, a 17-year-old from Ramallah, was at sleepaway camp in rural Maine. Faysal was a second-year camper at Seeds of Peace Camp, a coexistence initiative that brings Israeli and Palestinian teenagers together each summer on the shores of Pleasant Lake, an hour northwest of Portland. Every day for a little under two hours, in facilitated dialogue sessions squeezed between regular camp activities like basketball and sailing, participants discuss their experiences on opposing sides of a geopolitical conflict; beyond those sessions, staffers discourage political conversation. But in 2014, as Palestinian campers struggled to reach family members back home cell phones are prohibited at camp something gave way.