A Real Roadmap for Peace: Laila & Adi’s Friendship

By WAYNE PARRY

Associated Press Writer

April 9, 2004, 8:58 AM EDT

NEWARK, N.J. — Strangers who meet Laila Najjar and Adi Frish often scratch their heads and look confused. How, they ask, can a 20-year-old Arab be friends with someone whose government oppresses and kills Palestinians?

And why, they wonder, would a 21-year-old Jew be friends with someone whose people turn themselves into human bombs, itching to kill Israelis?
But peace and friendship are all the young women have ever known; they grew up together in an Israeli village founded three decades ago to prove that Arabs and Jews can live together in peace.

The pair will be on a speaking tour in the United States later this month which will include a stop at the Denville home of a Palestinian activist.

Their roadmap for peace is simple: Just start by talking _ and listening _ to one another.

"People ask me, `Adi, don’t you know, she is the enemy?’ " said Frish, a Jew studying dance in Jerusalem. "I tell them: Get to know her. Meet her parents, meet her family. Talk to her, see what she is thinking. Know her as I know her."

Najjar, an Arab studying art, agrees.

"To truly have peace, the first step is for both sides to talk to each other," said Najjar, who loves to design jewelry and hopes for a contract to someday supply one of Israel’s biggest department stores. "Under all the government and politics and labels, we are all human beings. We are not so different."

The women were interviewed by telephone from Jerusalem, about a half-hour drive from the village where they grew up. Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salam was named after the Hebrew and Arabic phrases for "Oasis Of Peace." Founded by a Dominican monk who invited Jewish and Arab families to live together, the village has a bilingual elementary school, and up-close coexistence is the norm.

"I never knew any other way," Najjar said. "This is how I was brought up. It was totally normal for Jews and Arabs to live together."

That view does not predominate outside the village. When the pair go shopping, one of their favorite weekend pastimes, Israeli Jews look suspiciously at Najjar _ especially when she gets on a bus, fearing she might be a suicide bomber.

The recent killing of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin has ratcheted tensions even higher in Israel, the women say.

"People on both sides are afraid, because no one knows what will happen next," Frish said. "Waiting in fear for the next explosion is no way to live."

The two are scheduled to speak April 24 at the Denville home of Aref Assaf, one of New Jersey’s most vocal Palestinian activists.

"I have always argued that if the warring parties in the Middle East cannot talk peace, then it is incumbent upon Arabs and Jews in the U.S., while passionately concerned about events there but still physically removed from its daily bloodshed, to nurture a just and peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said. "These two ladies and the families they represent, provide a real human example that Jews and Arab can and should live side by side."

Not everyone shares his optimism.

"I am getting a lot of heat over this," he said. "People tell me as a Palestinian, it is not right to have an Israeli in my home and have her tell us what to do. The only choices are peaceful coexistence of two equal peoples, or the total annihilation of one. Which sounds better to you?"

Copyright (c) 2004, The Associated Press