Some say Israelis and Palestinians are like oil and water — they just don’t mix.
Creativity for Peace, a Santa Fe-based organization, is proving a means by which peaceful coexistence could eventually be possible.
The organization has been bringing young girls from Israel and Palestine to New Mexico for the last nine years. During their stay, executive director Dottie Indyke said girls from both sides of the historic conflict can learn to open up to each other on neutral ground.
“They are raised with enormous stereotypes about the other side,” she said. “The Israeli girls think all the Palestinian girls are suicide bombers; terrorists. For the Palestinians, the stereotype of the Israelis is a soldier — the soldier who stands at the checkpoint and unnecessarily humiliates Palestinians going through.”
This common misperception stems from media coverage focused on the military and political figures in either nation as well as the citizens’ limited contact with “the other side,” said Rachel Hammer, Creativity for Peace volunteer.
“They’re right there, a matter of miles away, but they’ll never meet them,” she said. “So (here) they’re able to meet the other side and get to know the other person as a person and not just label them … They all figure out they have a lot more in common than they originally think. They’re all just teenage girls that can relate in all these different ways.”
The program accepts 16 girls every year after an extensive application process. Because they invest $5,500 in each girl, they want to be certain those selected are the most promising candidates for inspiring change.
The methods for creating this new bond are grounded in what Indyke said are called “authentic speaking and compassionate listening.”
Every day, the girls spend a few hours relating their personal stories in the morning. Throughout the day they do various activities together, such as the ropes course and circus training with Wise Fool, a circus group in Santa Fe.
This continues daily for three months. Hammer said one of the most notable changes took place in a Palestinian girl.
“She thought about killing Israelis and doing all these awful things because her life was so hard over in Palestine,” she said. “She said if it wasn’t for Creativity for Peace, ‘I would probably be over there killing people. I just didn’t see a way out.’ She really could see hope, see them as friends instead of enemies.”
While politicians seek to make changes through rhetoric that’s never heard by their peers, Indyke said they are able to fundamentally change the girls’ perspectives through the heart rather than a meeting of minds.
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“How is anything going to change if you don’t have compassion for where the other person is coming from?” she said. “Whether that person is your enemy, the opposing political party or that person wants to actually kill you? What we believe is the only kind of connection between people that’s going to last and change minds is when you really get to know someone and listen to their point of view.”
The program is designed to send the girls back to their home countries with coping and leadership skills by the end of the summer. To establish inner peace first, Indyke said, is a crucial step in facilitating peace around you.
“Whether I think that’s actually something that could realistically happen — no, I’m too old and cynical for that,” she said. “But I think our girls, they don’t have to be world leaders in order to be peacemakers. I really believe that societies change before governments do.”
