It's not easy to grow up in Israel, whether you are Jewish or Arab.
It's not easy growing up here, knowing that you've been brought up to believe that the other side is always wrong and that it is ok to be angry with, and even hate them instead of looking for ways to live together in peace and partnership.
I was never told at home to hate the Arabs. In fact, I never really knew what I felt or what I believed until came to the camp. There I learned that it didn't matter if you were Jewish, Christian or anything else, we are all human beings, and more than anything else, we all want to live our lives in peace.
When I was told that I had been accepted to the program, I got very excited, but I was also concerned. I didn't know, what to expect, how the others would be like, would they be nice and friendly, whether the place was good and if the activities would be fun. There were many other
worries, actually.
My biggest concern was that we would fight all the time, the Jews and the Arabs: that we would not get along, and that bad energy would poison the whole experience.
And that how it went, at the beginning. There were arguments and fights that caused tension and anger between us. What was so special however, about those ten days at the camp, was that despite the huge conflict we managed to put the problems aside and become very close friends.
Soon enough we stopped caring who was who and who came from which religion. We understood and realized that we all shared very similar lives as teenagers and that peace amongst us was possible despite the difficulties.
A major reason to our ability to have a good time together was the camp overall atmosphere of joy and laughter. People were cool, friendly and mature. We simply had a lot of fun with one another. It didn't really matter where people came from and what language they spoke.
That could be clearly seen at the final night when everybody sang, hugged an felt a very strong connection between us accompanied by a deep understanding of how we had been affected, as humans, by the camp experience.
In all, for myself, I see this experience as a success. It made realize how difficult to is be "the other". It also helped me to understand myself better and made me see my friends in new and different ways. I made myself friends for life and I even picked up some Arabic, German and even Hungarian, let alone improving my English.
At the end of the day, we succeeded in showing everybody that if we only wanted, different people can live together and even become good friends.
That is how Peace Camp was for me.
Danielle Raviv
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