Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Global understanding key to future peace

The Seeds of Peace program highlighted in last week's WCR is one of the few signs of hope in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Seeds of Peace brings together young people of Jewish and Palestinian backgrounds for a month-long camp in Maine. The result is not fighting, but rather understanding and friendship.

In itself, Seeds of Peace, or programs like it, are not enough to end the Mideast conflict. The injustices are too real, the political interests too vested and the hatred too widespread to be overcome with a few summer camps.

But if international understanding is not built, especially among those of a young age, it is certain that conflict will continue. One consequence of living in a global village is we need to understand not only people in our own country, but also those in other nations.

Building such understanding is one of the great tasks for the 21st century. Parochialism is a vestige of the past and an enemy of the future.

We have Seeds of Peace, Canada World Youth, Intercambio and World Youth Day and other programs to give young people a taste of how others live and think. However, such programs touch only a fraction of today's youth. With the higher costs of travel and perceived dangers since Sept. 11, such programs are in danger of shrinking. Rather, Sept. 11 and the Mideast crisis point out the importance of expanding such opportunities for youth to a greater degree.

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