Editor's Note: Linda Wolf is coauthor of Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century : Stories from a New Generation of Activists (Gabriola Island [Canada]: New Society Publishers, 2001). Wolf runs the Daughters-Sisters outreach program, the Youth Activism site and is an award-winning photographer. We are privileged to publish these self-reflective dispatches from Wolf's journeys, throughout Israel and Palestinian territories, as part of the Compassionate Listening Project, a peace initiative created by Leah Green that enables citizens to take part in the reconciliation process.

July 7, 2002
Israel

Dearest Girls,

We just heard about the shooting at LAX. How horrible. We stopped and prayed for the families when we heard, and I'm sure we all had the thought, now what? Most likely, soon, we won't even be able to walk into the airport without going through a metal detector.

We just left visiting one of the unrecognized villages, where I photographed an old Bedouin woman, living in abject poverty. The village is on a hillside overlooking a settlement camp on a distant mountain top, we later visited. I'm enclosing a photo I took of a beautiful Bedouin woman and some children. I can't begin to tell you how it feels to know that the people in the settlement overlook these villages and know that children are living here in such squalor and don't make care packages for them. I know there are a lot of Israelis who are making packages of food and clothing and necessities and getting them into the refugee camps. But apparently, no one from the neighboring settlement cares about this place. There is a young woman with us who lives in Israel, Devorah, and she works with an organization that has built a small school here and with donations has stocked a room being used as a medical clinic. Devorah will be coming to the US on a speaking tour organized by Leah, so you'll have a chance to meet her.

We're on our way to Yizrabl Valley, near the Sea of Galilee, on our way to stay overnight at a Kibbutz. We'll be meeting with a young lady, named Anna, who was injured in a bus bombing, and a young soldier who served in Jenin. We'll be having Shabbat dinner with them.

We've just come from Iblin, where we met with Father Abuna Elias Chacour, director of the Mar Elias School, which has over 4000 middle and high school students - Muslim, Israeli, Christian and Druze.

Father Chacour is a renowned Christian/Palestinian peacemaker, deeply troubled by the whole agonizing situation he is seeing around him and where he seeing it heading. I experienced him as having a tremendous love and a great capacity to stand for all people together as one, in love. Others on our delegation felt this way also, however they felt disturbed by some of the things he said.

So, we had quite a long discussion in evening, after one of the members of our delegation was expressing some sadness and frustration at the dinner table. She felt that Father Chacour was mostly blaming the Israelis for the whole historic situation. As she sees it, both sides are immobilized by the overarching pain fear and suffering, which makes them unable to see the others' perspective, which is necessary if there is going to be any resolution. She went on to say, both peoples seem to selectively focus on the parts of history and current affairs that feed their victimhood, but do not take responsibility for their own aggressive acts, that contribute to the problem.

The narrow window of opportunity that Father Chacour, as well as most every other person we’ve heard from on both sides, says exists right now disturbed all of us. We've this same thing the other day, when we met with a guy named Gresham Baskin, the Israeli co-director of the IPCRI, which does Palestinian and Israel conflict resolution. He's fearful that this window could be as short as 3 weeks. This is pretty scary.

Another guy on our delegation, who has spent a lot time in Iraq, brought up the fact that there would be no Palestinians problem if this had happened in other Arab countries, because they would have wiped them out in 1948, or 2000, when this Intifada started up again. All these conversations have been very disturbing for me and so what happened on our stop over today in Iblin for a couple hours just to hang out made me feel a lot better. Let me tell you what happened.

First, I went shopping in different stores on the main street. Every time I paid for something, I took the time to ask the sales people, if they spoke in English, if they thought peace was between the Israelis and Palestinians. I heard so many times, no. I asked why and I’d hear, "Because you just can't trust any of them." It was pretty disheartening. Especially, after having spent the past 5 days among Palestinians, all who said that they felt certain the Palestinians and Israelies could live together in peace.

Finally, I was so hot, I thought I'd go into a beauty salon and have my hair washed. At least, it would be a way to get into an air-conditioned space and relax for a few minutes. But also, just like when I was in Selma, Alabama, I know the best place to go in any city if you really want to get the gist of what people think is a beauty salon; they're small communities where women hang out. And if there's one thing I know, there's often a big difference between what women and men think, especially in their own environments, where they can talk honestly.

The girl who washed my hair was 17 years old. She, like so many of the younger people I've talked to in Israel, didn't think it was possible to live in peace. She didn't speak enough English for me to communicate with her very much and besides, I just wanted to relax and let go and close my eyes for a minute. When she was finished, she sat me down in one of the chairs and combed my hair for a few minutes, just enough time for the other women, who were getting used to my presence, to ask me what I was doing in Iblin.