Fatten, an 18-year-old Palestinian, beheld the vista of the Rocky Mountains from 30 feet off the ground. She stood on a log with a rope fastened to her safety harness. Her support team at the other end of the rope, those keeping her from falling and smashing into the ground, included teenage girls from Israel.
Fatten, who emphatically declares that Israelis are her enemy, prepared to step backward off the log and plummet to the ground.
“We’ve got you,” called out the Israeli, Palestinian and American teenage girls in her support group. “We won’t let you fall. Trust us.”
Fatten stepped off the log and into space. At that moment, she discovered new eyes with which to behold her enemies.
Safely on the ground, Fatten gestured to the Israeli girls. “I had to trust them. They haven’t done anything bad to me,” she said in accented English. “Perhaps if I trust them here, I can trust them enough to make peace with them back in our homelands.”
Fatten, with 14 Israeli, 11 Palestinian and 10 American young women, was participating in a three-week intensive program in non-violent conflict management, leadership skills and multiculturalism. The program, Bridges for Peace, was founded two years ago by Melodye Feldman of Denver. (The last names of the Israeli and Palestinian girls are not used in this story for security reasons.)
“World peace will come through women’s involvement in the political process,” Feldman said while watching the young women dangling from ropes. “Young women need appropriate preparation and training to become effective leaders. One of the most unique aspects of the program is the global feminist philosophy which serves as its guide. We also have a year-long follow-up program for the girls in their communities.”
Back home, the young women of each group meet monthly for additional workshops and training in peer mediation and non-violent conflict negotiation. The Palestinian girls work with the Jerusalem Women’s Center, the Israeli girls with Bat Shalom. Both organizations are dedicated to finding peaceful means of coexistence in their shared homeland. The American girls continue to work with the Bridges for Peace program.
Feldman, 39, worked with battered women, children and men before founding Seeking Common Ground, which organizes the Bridges for Peace program.
“This is my full-time job now,” she said. “I spend most of my time fundraising for Bridges for Peace. As soon as this year’s camp is over, I need to raise $30,000 to pay for it.”
The young women’s first day of training began with the ropes course at West Pines on the Lutheran Medical Center Campus in Denver. They took turns walking across logs suspended from 30-foot poles. Their support team held the safety rope and called encouragement.
“If you are the person up high and you are experiencing a lot of fear, you look to your support team below for assurance that you are safe,” said Rudy Pucel, an experiential educator from Joliet, who was assisting with the ropes course.
“The team supports you in what you may think is impossible for you to do, like to jump off a 30-foot pole.
“That may be parallel to what is happening in Israel, Palestine and America. For people to reach out and have peace, that deals with a lot of fear. People doing that need support to say, `I want peace for myself, my people, my country.’ These young women need courage to work for peace within their communities.”
Lindsey Mathews, 15, from Denver, jumped off the 30-foot pole and was caught in midair by her support team.
Afterward, still glowing from an adrenalin rush, she gushed: “It took courage to jump off that pole. It takes courage for the Israeli and Palestinian girls to talk to their enemy, to trust them. We have problems in this country with discrimination, racism and sexism that can result in violence. It takes courage to confront those problems.”
The next day, the girls went to Camp Shwayer, a private camp 40 miles west of Denver at the base of Mt. Evans. For the next two weeks, they attended training workshops, seminars in leadership and dialogue groups. At times, the dialogue was politically raw between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
“I’ve not come here to make friends with the Israeli girls,” said Diama, 16, from the West Bank. “They take our land, put our men in prison, kill us. I come here to let them know that Palestine is our country and they must move from our country.”
Aleshia Cook-Estes, 16, an African-American from Denver, injected: “I see a similarity between the American, Israeli and Palestinian girls’ experiences in that we all have violent conflicts in our societies. We all see pain, hurt, people die.
“Here in America, we have our own internal war with people of different races. Young women can be leaders in helping create peace because women are probably the most strong-willed creatures on Earth.”
Interest in boys, clothes, music, movies and a passionate striving for equality bonded the young women. The belief that women are equal to men and can be equally effective in influencing world peace transcended the young women’s political differences.
They found a common cause in the shared perspective that women everywhere are treated like second-class citizens and are victims of discrimination, disenfranchisement and poverty.
“We all realize that as women we face a common problem of discrimination,” said Rachel Levy, of Denver. “We are the underdogs, so we need to band together and find common goals.
“If the Israelis and the Palestinians realize that their common goal is peace, then they can band together and work for that goal. If we as women from three different cultures realized that our common goal is equality, then we can band together and work toward that goal.”
In the dialogue group on global feminism, one American teenager declared: “Feminism is the right to be different from but not less than a male, to do my thing and be respected for it. My being a woman doesn’t make me less than a man.”
“I want to be a doctor,” declared an Israeli. “I don’t want to be a doctor like a man. I want to be a doctor.”
“Femininity is honesty,” said a Palestinian. “A woman must be honest with herself to be who and what she wants, even if that goes against her tradition, culture and society.”
The young women voiced a determination to be visible leaders toward peace in their communities.
“Everyone is so ready to give up on our generation,” said Mathews. “But every single girl is here because she wants to effect a change. They don’t like how things are now, and they are willing to work for change.”
Nataly, from Tel Aviv, said she would go to the Israeli media to get exposure for programs that work for peace. She is a school counselor and intends to give peace-building workshops for 4th and 5th graders.
Hagit is the editor of her school newspaper in Israel. “I will write about what I have learned from the Palestinian girls here,” she said. “We must learn to understand each other as people and go beyond the stereotypes we have been taught.”
“I am here to change some of the stereotypes people have about the Palestinian people,” said Waffa, a 16-year-old from Palestinian Jerusalem. “When I go back to Palestine, I will tell my friends and family what I have learned about the Israelis as people.”
Carmit, a feisty 15-year-old from a small town in southern Israel, jumped into the discussion.
“As a young woman I don’t have a real influence on the government. But I will make all teenagers protest about terrorism, against the wrong acts committed against the Palestinians. I want peace and I want it right now. I don’t want any more killing. The Palestinians don’t want any more killing. There is a very simple solution. Peace right now.”
A young, impatient woman feeling the budding of her power is a formidable force. The Israeli, Palestinian and American girls left the Bridges for Peace leadership camp primed to make changes for a more peaceful and equitable world.
“Just because we’re girls doesn’t mean we can’t do it,” Mathews said in parting. “Just watch us.”
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Bridges for Peace is a program of Seeking Common Ground, 51 Grape St., Denver, Colo. 80220, 303-388-4013.
