When Waleed Issa walked into the
Americans for Peace Now (APN) Washington, DC office on the first day of
his summer internship in June, the 25-year-old Palestinian from the
Dheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem was startled by what he saw.
“I never saw so much blue and white in my
life,” he says. “Everywhere you look, there’s a Star of David and the
colors of the Israeli flag. As a Palestinian, I thought to myself, ‘This
is not good news. How am I going to work here for the next six weeks?’”
After stepping outside to catch his breath, Waleed decided to return to the office.
“When I came back, I met APN spokesperson Ori
Nir and he took me out to lunch. Immediately, I was impressed by his
level of knowledge about the conflict and the way he made me feel
extremely welcome.”
Nearly a month later, Waleed describes his internship with APN as “beyond interesting.”
“I never had the chance to get to know
Israelis and the American Jewish community from the inside,” he says.
“By sharing an office with them, I’ve been struck by how they’re trying
to do good things for the new generation in Israel and Palestine by
working toward a two-state solution.”
One of the biggest changes to Waleed’s daily
routine, he says, is his “addiction” to websites like the Jerusalem
Post, The Times of Israel, and Ha’aretz.
Another change is the addition of someone he
calls “a new lifelong friend,” Or Amir, a 25-year-old Israeli intern
with The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), a pro-Palestinian
American organization that advocates for a two-state solution.
Or and Waleed are among 10 young people – five
Israelis and five Palestinians – brought to Washington this summer by a
group called New Story Leadership which, according to its website,
“introduces a radically different approach to peace-building, one that
does not pretend to solve the historical controversies or mediate
between antagonists.”
Instead, the group offers what it calls a
“narrative-based program” that wants participants to focus on creating
new stories based on mutual interest and cooperation, rather than
“stories that endlessly recycle old grievances, inflate differences and
inflame passions.”
Or says she doesn’t pretend that she’ll be
able to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but believes
person-to-person programs like this are the only way to eventually reach
a solution.
“Smarter, wiser, and more accomplished people
than Waleed and I have tried to settle the conflict and failed,” she
says. “Politicians cannot do what Waleed and I have done – establish a
close friendship that humanizes the other side.”
Or is a second-year student from Rishon
Letzion studying political science and communications at Tel Aviv
University. Before that, she spent four and a half years as an officer
in the Israel Defense Force’s Medical Corps. Waleed says it would have
been nearly impossible for their friendship to have taken hold back in
their native lands.
“Before I came to the program, if you told me
an Israeli officer would be working closely with me, I would’ve been
like, ‘Holy moly! How am I going to deal with her?”
“As a Palestinian, I only saw Israelis on top
of tanks holding their guns over Bethlehem. I wondered, ‘What if she
served in Bethlehem? What if she was the one who made me sit at home for
40 days under curfew? What if she shot one of my friends?’”
“But when I started talking to Or and getting
to know her, she started telling me about her life and what army life is
like. At that point, I started seeing a different angle about the
Israeli army. I saw that she was a medic and helped a lot of people. She
probably helped treat some Palestinians.” [She did].
For Or, working with Palestinians at ATFP was less jarring, she says, because of her Sephardic heritage.
“My family is from Morocco, so the art, food, and culture feels very familiar to me,” she says.
On a typical day, Waleed and Or do what most
Washington, DC interns do – compile media clips, attend briefings, and
help keep the offices running. But the two have a more ambitious goal
than most summer interns. They are working on a joint social media
project, perhaps a Facebook group page at first, where Israeli and
Palestinian youth can meet to exchange views “in a safe place without
finger-pointing and name-calling.”
Having just earned a BA in Economics from St.
Cloud State University in Minnesota, Waleed plans to return to Bethlehem
and grow his project with Or into something bigger and, eventually,
more profitable. His dream is to launch a website or app where joint
Israeli-Palestinian innovations can be ‘crowd-funded.’
Although they’ve grown close over the past
month and pledge to stay in close touch, neither Or nor Waleed want to
be citizens of the same country. They are firm believers in a two-state
solution.
“I’m a Palestinian,” says Waleed. “I want to
live among my people in an environment that honors my history and
traditions. And Or’s grandfather in Morocco had a dream that his
children would live in a Jewish homeland. There is no reason these two
dreams should be incompatible.”
Help support the American Task Force on Palestine in its mission to create a viable Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in
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