Students learn compromise from Middle East's mistakes
JOSH SAYLES
Staff Writer
Axis of Hope founder and executive director Carl Hobert addresses the entire PCDS eighth grade as the day comes to a close.
Photo by Josh Sayles
The world's most powerful leaders can't solve the dilemma: How do Israeli extremists, Palestinian extremists and every political group in between reach a fair and valid compromise in the Middle East?
Still, Carl Hobert, founder and executive director of Axis of Hope, an international conflict management and prevention nonprofit, asked 62 Phoenix Country Day School (PCDS) eighth-graders to solve that problem on March 13, and about 30 PCDS high school students a day later.
Political simulations
A PCDS eighth-grader representing a Palestinian extremist sect tells approximately 15 of his peers that he believes in a two-state solution where Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and no Jews should be allowed in the city. "You guys know I don't really think this," he adds as a disclaimer.
"We know you don't actually believe that," replies another student. "What do you need from us (to make this work)?"
That conversation occurred as students were battling a deadline to complete an educational case study titled "Whose Jerusalem?" - they were trying to author resolutions on security, education and health care in the Middle East that would ultimately be sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell. Students were assigned to represent specific viewpoints, such as moderate and extremist Israelis and Palestinians. Hobert required students to speak only on behalf of the parties they embodied.
Hobert, who flew into Phoenix specifically to share his project with PCDS, says the obstacles encountered by students during their day-long negotiations are good examples of how deals can go awry over small issues when attempting to placate a large group of people possessing a wide range of beliefs. The other similarity with discussions in the Middle East that he frequently witnesses among students is an effort to apply talks concerning issues in Jerusalem to all of Israel. If the compromise works in Jerusalem, he says, those tactics can then be implemented throughout the rest of the country.
Negotiation education
"A lot of people are willing to agree on a lot of things for peace, but one little thing can change that," says Maddie Stern, a PCDS eighth-grader and Axis of Hope participant. "Not necessarily little, but stupid."
As an example, Elana Liefer, another PCDS eighth-grader, cites a video shown by Axis of Hope where then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, while meeting for peace negotiations, got into an argument over who should enter the room first when one tried to hold the door open for the other.
Hobert admits it is impossible to solve conflict if the situation is overly complex. That is why, in addition to conflict resolution, he preaches conflict management and prevention. An important element, he notes, is diplomatic transparency.
"Normally, when you're dealing with diplomacy you've got a lot going on under the table or outside the door that people don't know about," says Hobert. "Well, if you're more transparent, you're telling the truth, you're throwing the cards on the table, you're showing them you're a little bit vulnerable, as opposed to getting in there, macho, testosterone-driven. ... What I'm trying to teach kids is, 'Be smart, be firm, be consistent, be true.'"
Another mission of Hobert's is to get children to see the bigger picture. He believes that by understanding all sides of an argument, the students will ultimately have a more centrist point of view of any situation, not just the Middle East.
"When I first approached the students and told them what (stance they would represent), one of the kids said to me, 'But I don't believe this,'" recalls James Calleroz White, a former colleague of Hobert at the Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Mass., and PCDS assistant head for student life who ultimately brought Hobert and his Axis of Hope program to Phoenix Country Day. "That morphed into a conversation about understanding. ... I didn't do this program to have them believe something. I did it so they ... could take a step back and understand why people think the way they think, and then how that thinking turns into action.
"The result of a day like today may not manifest itself until three, four, five, 10, 20 years later. But it's a seed that you plant, and it's fertile ground."
The next step
"I don't know if it's evident," says Hobert, "but this is my passion."
Since completing "Whose Jerusalem?" in 2002, Hobert has gone on to author case studies on the conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda and on AIDS in South Africa. Axis of Hope is an organization devoted entirely to developing these case studies and spreading them among today's youth.
Hobert is also an advocate for Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit that removes teenagers from geographic areas of conflict, such as Palestinians and Israelis from the Middle East, and places them together in a camp for several weeks in a different part of the world. He says the teenagers, once removed from the conflict, discover common interests with their supposed enemies, such as sports and music, and become fast friends.
In addition, Hobert has taught his "Whose Jerusalem?" curriculum in volatile countries such as Rwanda.
"It's magical what happens," says Hobert. "These kids can relate because there are certain universal topics, certain universal issues they can completely relate to. Security. That's always going to be high if not highest on every single society's list. You don't want your family blown away. Another thing is education, water rights. All of these things are universal issues."
From pro-Israel to pro-centrist
Officially named in 2002, a version of Axis of Hope has been brewing inside of Hobert for most of his life - since he witnessed desegregation of schools and the accompanying busing issues as a teenager in Minnesota in the 1970s.
"Some of my best friends were African-Americans, Laotians, Cambodians, Native Americans," Hobert remembers. "I was Lutheran. My best friend was ... Jewish. Taught me about matzah ball soup. Gave me a yarmulke. We played hockey together. My parents taught me to be a hypersensitive type of kid, to appreciate differences. ... That's what started this whole thing - appreciation of differences. And when I saw they could create major conflict, major friction, like the busing problems, I was unbelievably sensitive to it. 'Why don't you guys get this? Why can't we get along?' I think that was the initial shot that got me thinking."
A language teacher for most of his career, Hobert created Axis of Hope as a "garage project I was passionate about." He left his teaching job at Belmont Hill School after the 2007-08 academic year when he was hired by Boston University to pursue Axis of Hope full-time.
Hobert says he has a lot of Jewish friends and for most of his life he was exclusively pro-Israel, but realized in 2002 after a visit to a Seeds of Peace camp in Maine that a one-sided stance contradicted the lessons he was trying to teach.
"What I learned is, if I want to really walk what I believe in, I should present all sides to students and let them make up their minds," he says. "But hopefully, I'll get enough who will be completely pro-centrist who are going to be better negotiators in the future to prevent conflicts from coming back.
"It's like the spokes of a wheel, and the whole idea - it's transcendental. Just move (students' thinking) a little bit to the right or to the left."
