Staff Writer

Mutassim Abu El Hawa thought he knew the history of the Middle East. Then the Palestinian spent a year living with a Jewish roommate at Israel's Arava Institute of Environmental Studies, and he started asking himself some questions.

"Is my history the right history, is his history the right one?" Abu Al Hawa wondered. "I started asking myself questions like whether the things I've been taught ... are the right ones."

Israeli Alma Rosen-Yaffe had a similar revelation. Before Arava, "I didn't know there were two narratives" ‹ she had only learned the Israeli story. She had "never met someone who was a [Palestinian] refugee before."

"It really shook me, made a very big earthquake. ... It made me ask questions," she said.

Now graduates of Arava, the pair was in the Washington area last week, helping to raise money and publicize their experience of being part of a group of Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, North Americans and others "eating together, working together, studying together ... [doing] everything."

The institute, located on Kibbutz Ketura in Israel's Southern Arava Valley near the Gulf of Aqaba and Eilat, brings young people from various nationalities together to study environmental issues from a regional, interdisciplinary perspective while also learning about leadership and peace building.

"We deal with our differences, the barriers we have between us [and] sometimes it is very unpleasant," said Rosen-Jaffe. "But ... eventually we have to live together, and that ... forces us to deal with [these] issues."

"We have to recognize that there is differences between each other," said Abu El Hawa. But "if we concentrate on differences and we forget about common things we share, [that] is where the conflict starts."

In an interview last week, Abu El Hawa, 25, and Rosen-Jaffe, 26, spoke about what they have learned from their fellow students during the past year.

Rosen-Jaffe noted that before Arava, she had never heard events considered seminal to Palestinians, such as the controversial Jewish attack in 1948 on Deir Yassin, an Arab village. She thinks that the early Zionists in Israel "made some mistakes" in not worrying about the effect creating Israel would have on the Palestinians.

"If our neighbors have a better life, then we will have a better life as well," she said.

Abu El Hawa noted the divergent attitudes regarding Israeli Independence Day ‹ "I view it as occupation, [Israelis] look at it as victory."

But Abu El Hawa said he understands the Israeli point of view now, and believes that Arabs must accept history and move forward.

"Nineteen-forty-eight is done," he said. "I should recognize Israel exists and deal with it. Denying the truth that Israel exists would be like saying the sun does not exist."

While they may know a lot more about the other's background and stories, a year at Arava has not wiped out all differences between the two. More than once during the interview, Abu El Hawa and Rosen-Jaffe disagreed on a subject, and didn't hesitate to verbally spar with each other about it.

For instance, when the talk turned to this summer's conflict in Lebanon, Abu El Hawa said he thought that the conflict boiled down to Israel's wanting to live in peace and Hezbollah's hoping to "bring back [its] prisoners" from Israel. "Both parties should come together," he said.

Rosen-Jaffe, though, responded that "if all the prisoners go back home, will they stop the missiles? I doubt it. It seems they don't want us in Israel ... no matter what we do and how we behave."

Abu El Hawa said that Rosen-Jaffe was trying to place blame instead of looking for solutions. She retorted that "you can't ignore the facts."

But such disputes don't threaten their relationship.

"We can disagree and then be friends," Rosen-Jaffe said.

"Some of things she says I don't agree [with]," Abu El Hawa said. "Because if I agree with her all the time, maybe I should be a Jew. If she agrees with me, maybe she should be an Arab."

Like their divergent nationalities and perspectives, the two were drawn to Arava for different reasons.

Abu El Hawa grew up in East Jerusalem, where he lived among a diverse population and yet saw "no interaction and coexistence" among them.

"We don't have a separation wall like in the West Bank that prevents people to come and interact with each other," he said. Yet there are "psychological barriers" that he "just wanted to break."

His mother suggested checking out Arava. "When I went there and saw people from different places" exchanging information without being judged, he knew "this is the place for me, where I will start my future, where I use tools in order to change the situation that bothers me the most."

From there, Abu El Hawa said, he became interested in the environment. He noted it is the perfect subject to study in a multinational setting because countries must work together to keep the environment clean.

"If you pollute air from your backyard, it will come to my backyard and I will be influenced by it," he said.

By contrast, Rosen-Jaffe grew up on a kibbutz near Afula and wanted to study the environment, but she was "a bit scared of the whole academic system" and wanted an "alternative study."

So she found Arava. Told that she would be studying with Jordanians and Palestinians, she thought, "There's nothing better than to study about the environment with neighbors who share with you the same environment."

Having spent the past month in Chicago on a Arava internship learning about U.S. environmental initiatives and practices, they're not sure what will be facing them when they head back to the Middle East. But they believe the Lebanon war this summer will likely have some lasting environmental effects.

Rosen-Jaffe cited the "fires in the north" from the many Katyusha rockets that landed in the Jewish state, as well as other problems such as "many of the birds lost their nests."

"There is sure to be a lot of research now," she said, and "by the end of the year we'll know more."

The environmental problems on the Lebanese side, Abu El Hawa said, are "way greater than the other side," citing Israel's bombing of an oil refinery and the resulting spill along the Lebanese coastline, and the "solid waste" from all the destroyed buildings.

"It will take so many years to bring it back to the way it was before the war," he said.

Eliminating such conflicts is Arava's goal, and Rosen-Jaffe and Abu El Hawa said they hope that the institute can reach as many students as possible.

Abu Hawa cites an old Arab proverb to illustrate his goal, one that sounds remarkably similar to a familiar Jewish saying.

"If you save a life, it's like you save all humanity," he said. So "if I try to change one [person's] thought about the peace process, if I accomplish it, I consider it like changing the whole population," he said.