A joint initiative of the Youth Federation for World Peace and Martin Luther King III’s Realizing the Dream has opened the peace process in Israel to a largely overlooked stakeholder: its youth.

"I define success by a life well lived, a life full of generosity and service and love—a life lived for our families and friends, but ultimately for our communities. Everyone has something to give. Never let the rejection of your gift prevent you from giving.”

These were not the words of a pastor or imam, but of a youth participant of a pioneering peace initiative in Israel that is appealing to the faith and ideals of a new generation in the Middle East.

Sponsored jointly by the Youth Federation for World Peace (YFWP) and Martin Luther King III’s Realizing the Dream (RTD), the inaugural International Youth Leadership (IYL) initiative gathered forty young leaders from the United States, the European Union, and Israel in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to deepen their understanding of the beliefs and experiences of all sides and work for peace through the principles of nonviolence and interfaith service.

The initiative builds on the history of Middle East inter-religious pilgrimages, now numbering 34, sponsored by the YFWP’s partner organization, the Universal Peace Federation, that have brought men and women from every faith and continent to the Holy Land to work for peace.

Some 70 percent of the population in Israel and throughout the Middle East is under thirty. Young people are both the victims and, too often, agents of violence, but have largely been excluded in the pursuit of peace.

“If future leaders learn about and respect the experience and beliefs of those on both sides,” believes YFWP secretary general Yeqing Li, “compromise, accommodation, and, eventually, friendship can take root. They have seen what doesn’t work, and they have the energy and open-mindedness to try something different.”

The eight-day program in March 2008 followed a tragic flare-up of hostilities. In a familiar sequence of violence, a rocket attack into Israeli territory from the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, a harsh response by Israeli forces that left more than a hundred Palestinian dead, and a retaliatory suicide attack at a Jewish Orthodox seminary killing eight students shattered what had been months of relative calm. Talking about peace to embittered victims of such violence requires exceptional sensitivity and, for Israelis and Palestinians, a courageous willingness to set aside accepted narratives to listen and learn.

The IYL initiative sees the rich religious heritage of the Abrahamic faith traditions in Israel not as an obstacle to peace but as a vital resource. And King’s message of nonviolence, grounded in his father’s celebrated role in the U.S. civil rights movement, is a natural counterpart to YFWP’s principles of service, leadership grounded in character, and interfaith cooperation. The partnership offered a potent alternative to Israeli and Palestinian young, wearied of failed tactics of war and nationalistic politics.

It was amazing from the first moment,” Li observed, “the bond between the participants was so strong. After a few days the idea of one family under God was no longer just a nice concept, but a living experience. As we met with Israeli leaders and traveled through Arab villages we could see these young leaders were filling a vacuum of hope. They weren’t just stirring a feeling but a strong desire to take action.”

Bringing the ‘Dream’ to Israel

King addressed the Tel Aviv–based Geneva Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and one of several local partnering organizations, upon his arrival in the Holy Land. “This is our first [youth delegation] visit but this is a crucial time,” he told the gathering. “A nation is judged by how it treats its most precious resources—its children and generations yet unborn.

As a fourteen-year-old child,” King remembered, “my mother took me to her undergraduate college where there was a statue of an educator. On the statue was the inscription, ‘Be afraid to die before you have a victory for humanity.’ Now some may say that that task is huge but we should be ashamed to die before we make a contribution to the community that we all share.” King’s Realizing the Dream later announced an ongoing commitment to cross cultural bridge-building through an International Youth Corps.

The IYL initiative wasted little time in taking to the streets and engaging Arabs and Israelis with real-life concerns that largely escape media notice. Tel Aviv is Israel’s largest city, economic hub, and cultural capital. Unlike historic Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is a magnet for vacationers drawn by its Mediterranean beaches, night life, and secular ethos. Yet serious economic problems persist in the city, which blight the lives of many Israeli citizens.

In south Tel Aviv, delegates met with the Democratic Mizrachi Keshet, an activist Jewish organization looking beyond conventional political approaches to address the reality of poverty in Israel. Delegates planted trees and painted a school in the community, and at the invitation of the Israeli-based Save a Child’s Heart Foundation talked and played with the Iraqi, African, and Palestinian children in treatment for heart problems.

“We should take a lesson from children,” commented one delegate, “to be unbiased and view others with an open mind and heart.” Later, in an impromptu walk through an Arab village well off the usual tourist grid, villagers greeted the international guests in the streets with shouts and well wishes.

For Europeans and Americans, but perhaps even more for Arab and Israeli participants, these outreach activities cast a new and welcome light on relations within the country, so often portrayed as irreconcilably hostile. “I cherish the hospitality of Muslim people,” commented one participant, from Poland, Kate Korda. “As a social worker I know the methods. I worked in similar places in my country.”For people in our delegation, these experiences helped breakdown stereotypes some of us didn’t realize were there,” said another UK delegate, Shiraz Ahmad. “Some people were surprised to find Israelis so supportive of Palestinians and their sense of their identity, and of Palestinians who were so keen on reaching out to Israelis.”

My assumptions of Israel have definitely changed,” agreed an American Muslim, Muhammad Wada. “I expected to see a lot more hate and ignorance in its citizens. Instead, people seemed very aware and determined to find the means of peace.” The IYL participants also met with Israeli leadership at the Yitzhak Rabin Center, not only to listen to the concerns and perspectives of Israel’s major political parties but to present a methodology to move the peace process forward. King spoke about the lessons of the civil rights struggle, and YFWP executive vice president David Caprara discussed the federation’s preparations for a series of Global Peace Festivals to be held on every continent, bringing together an international, inter-religious coalition to meaningfully address persistent conflicts around the world.

Caprara and David Yoo also met with Palestinian Youth and Sports Minister Tahani Abu Daqqa and Mohammad Edwan of Palestinian President Abbas’ office to discuss the Peace Dream Football Academy and YFWP’s Young Ambassador for Peace initiative. “The next generation must be willing to sit with our enemies,” Daqqa agreed, noting that the future prospects for peace in the Holy Land lay with the young leadership.

Later, Israeli Middle East Peace Initiative organizer Hod Ben Zvi expanded on Caprara’s vision in relation to Israel’s troubled history. A child of Holocaust survivors, Ben Zvi said the goal was not only to bring peace to a particular conflict, but to have the power to move the hearts of communities around the world, to convey that spark of hope in the hearts of others. “In the absence of peace people conceive of peace as merely a state of nonviolence rather than a state of joy,” he said. “We get locked in externals—border issues, political issues. . . . But naturally there are no borders. We are already proving the fact that people of other cultures and faiths can bond in genuine unity.”

Uniting the children of Abraham

From Tel Aviv the international delegation moved to the Golden City of Jerusalem, revered by the great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. A city of beauty and mystery, Jerusalem is also the scene of centuries of bloodshed and religious warfare. From biblical times through the era of the Crusades until the present day, the Gordian knot of religious strife seems most tightly tied in this ancient and holy city. The divisions between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, all children of Abraham, seem to typify divided humanity. Solving this primordial “family quarrel” is the world’s priority and a principal reason for the YFWP-RTD collaboration.

One important outcome of the eight-day initiative was to build a model of unity and mutual respect among the religiously diverse participants. Thus, upon arrival in Jerusalem the delegates spent important days in pilgrimage to the sacred sites of the three faiths—the Western Wall, the remnant of the Second Temple and Judaism’s holiest site; the Temple Mount, site of Islam’s earliest and most revered architectural masterpiece, the Dome of the Rock; and the streets of Old Jerusalem, Nazareth, and the region of the Sea of Galilee, the landscape of Jesus’ life and ministry.

It is very beautiful, the hills are covered in flowers and it is amazing to see the very ground where Jesus walked,” one delegate reflected. “The entire area feels extremely sacred and I felt deeply moved to see a place where the spirit of God was expressed to so many people. It was truly one of the most inspirational places I have been to in my entire life.”

Bringing reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, and Jews, Christians and Muslims also requires consensus building. Like past popular movements for peace and social justice, such as the U.S. civil rights movement and efforts to overcome apartheid in South Africa, coalitions can build a critical mass to change both public opinion and move institutions of authority. The IYL initiative accordingly sought partnerships with existing groups, such as the Geneva Initiative, the Democratic Mizrachi Keshet, and One Voice, a grassroots movement that seeks to empower the moderate majority of Israelis and Palestinians to transcend the “left vs. right” and “Israeli vs. Palestinian” paradigms that perpetuate division.

Breaking down boundaries of ignorance and prejudice is a prerequisite for building the social and political infrastructure for enduring peace. Young people are communicating across divisions of race, religion, and geography with unprecedented capacity. Facebook, MySpace, instant messaging, and other tools have enabled a free exchange of ideas and the building of friendships where ignorance and stereotypes once persisted. But face-to-face encounters and immersion in a new culture have a further, transforming effect.

I understood that it was the extreme sides that are heard in the media, without moderate views,” said one participant from England, Zishan Jiwa. “Coming here I learned that there is a strong, unheard moderate voice, and that there is really a lot of diversity.”
“This experience was quite challenging—challenging in the sense that many concepts were broken and stereotypes explained,” added another delegate from Maryland, Rachael Herbers. “I knew that I didn't want to just trust the media and all of the images that they portray, but it wasn’t until I came here and met people face to face that I realized how much I had come to believe in the media’s stories.

Many of the lessons I learned were quite subtle,” she said. “For instance, on the flight over I was kind of nervous about possible violence or the rough nature of the people having to live in such an environment. But over the past couple of days I could see how peaceful and casual many people live. People are not angry and aggressive as the media like to suggest, but rather committed to finding a solution with as little conflict as possible. I hope and pray that not one moment of what we experienced here is lost so we can really give value to this trip to form it into action.”

Another delegate, Eli Flores, spoke for many when he summed up his experience. “Looking back on the past, I realized that this week isn't about me,” he said. “It’s about something else, something bigger than all of us together. This week was about a dream, a vision, an inspiration, the future and about our lives.”

These are bold words. But only a bold dream and the actions of a new generation of leaders can transcend the tragic stalemate that is holding hope hostage in Israel. “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission,” said the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, “can alter the course of history.”