On a sweltering summer’s day in the heart of Israel, in Ramat Ef’al, Israeli adolescents quietly sit in a meeting area, attentively following a lecture. The topic at hand spans across the military dominance of the West Bank, the encirclement of the Gaza Strip, and the acts of aggression committed by settlers against Palestinians. In the midst of the lecture, the seminar leader pauses to reflect on events of October 7th, discussing Hamas’s assault on southern Israel, and the way it was portrayed in Arab media.
The lecture was devised by the Parents Circle-Families Forum, an association of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost family members to the region’s conflict that has raged on for close to 80 years. With the ongoing war in Gaza constituting a new, gruesome chapter to this prolonged struggle. This particular session in Ramat Ef’al forms part of the preparation for these young Israelis who are due to join a summer camp in Cyprus, accompanied by Palestinian teenagers. The peaceful camp, which Israelis authorities declined to have held in Israel this year, was moved instead.
An equivalent session was held for the group of Palestinian teenagers attending the camp, where they received insights into the Israeli perspective. This encompassed both historical and contemporary subjects like anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the role of military service in shaping the Jewish-Israeli individuality.
Highlighting a prevalent standpoint, the camp’s Palestinian co-coordinator, Arab Aramin, aged 30, spoke from East Jerusalem explaining that many Palestinians and Arabs disbelieve in the Holocaust as they resist extending sympathy towards what they perceive as the “enemy.”
While this is not the first camp for many of the teenagers, the return rate of the Israeli teenagers this year is less. After the October 7th event, one of the Israeli teenagers who’d been part of the camp, changed his viewpoints, according to former camp attendee, Yuval Harif.
In online interactions with previous Palestinian camp-goers, one Israeli teen of 15 years, noticed that on October 7th, some shared distressing photographs of deceased Israeli soldiers accompanied by laughing emojis, evoking discomfort due to existing friendships. Another 15-year-old Israeli compatriot, Meshi Taglicht, contemplates whether these posts were merely due to peer influence or expressed true feelings.
This brings us back to the Cyprus camp.
In their journey to the camp in Cyprus, the Israeli contingent flew from Ben Gurion Airport while their Palestinian counterparts crossed the border to Jordan and flew from Amman. Over the course of nine days, the 40 teenagers, engaged in challenging conversations, hiked across the Troodos Mountains and enjoyed beach activities. Due to limited Arabic proficiency amongst the Israelis and no Hebrew speakers amongst the Palestinians, the vibrant discourse largely occurred in English, their shared second language.
During these conversations, Israeli teens expressed their anxieties over family members enlisted with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) currently posted in Gaza. A participant named Harif expressed his initial feelings of the Palestinians’ disinterest but insisted on persevering with the dialogue, viewing it as a learning opportunity.
Throughout the length of the camp, Palestinians often presented Israelis with videos on their mobiles portraying the destructive results of Israeli missile assaults on homes and families in Gaza. One Israeli teen confided about her cousin’s demise whilst on duty with the IDF in Gaza, branding him a defender of Israel despite the sadness it brought her family. This sparked a harsh retort from a Palestinian teenager who labeled the departed cousin a criminal without any remorse, resulting in a heated argument between the two. But the camp coordinator, Aramin, recounted that post hoc they grew more amicable and even embraced each other during departure.
The Palestinian teens, whose identities are undisclosed due to security reasons, frequently questioned the Israelis about their prospective enlisting in the military. In an earlier camp, one Israeli participant named Taglicht revealed how a Palestinian camper stated that her aunt was assaulted to death by an Israeli policewoman. The sentiment expressed was that a ‘good’ person may have been able to stop the assault and her aunt would still be alive. “We explain our desire of joining the IDF stems from our ambition to bring a change. IDF is not going away anytime soon,” asserts Taglicht in response to such queries.
On the introductory two days of camping, Aramin shared how a bullet from an Israeli soldier’s rubber gun took his young sister Abir’s life in 2007. Her life and death play a significant part in the narrative of “Apeirogon”, penned by Colum McCann hailing from Ireland. The account intertwines Aramin’s father, Bassam, with the agonising tale of Rami Elhanan from Israel whose young daughter, Smadar, lost her life to a suicide bomber of Palestinian origin.
Aramin narrated his personal experience to the group at the camp, recalling his teenage years when he harboured violent resentment towards the Israelis, that is, until his educational exposure to the Holocaust and his visit to a German concentration camp. He experienced a metamorphosis on this journey to peace within himself, ultimately leading him to become the final addition to his family’s membership in the Parents Circle. This occurred seven years post Abir’s death.
However, according to Aramin, Palestinians are not granted equal justice or rights compared to Israelis. To some, Aramin is seen as a ‘terrorist’, a ‘criminal’, or an individual planning their demise.
He proceeds to point out that Palestinians are caught between two choices; an easy route of death, or the challenging path of dialogue. He notes that engaging with one’s tormentor or detainer can be a gruelling task. Comparably, facing death can appear facile as one would merely need a knife in hand and position themselves at just a 100 metres distance from a checkpoint.