Last update - 00:00 02/12/2007
Israeli Arab, Jewish children learn coexistence through basketball
By Lisa Zilberpriver, Haaretz Correspondent
Some 150 Israeli Arab and Jewish teenagers participated in a basketball tournament in the Arab Galilee village of Ta'amra on Sunday, as part of a project to promote coexistence and tolerance.
The tournament, dubbed Streetball Hafla, was organized by the Anti-Defamation League and the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sports, headed by Ghaleb Majadele, Israel's first ever Muslim Arab minister.
Participating teenagers came from 13 villages and communities to compete in mixed Jewish-Arab teams of three players each.
"They live side by side in their villages and settlements and never meet," ADL spokesman Arieh O'Sullivan told Haaretz. "This project takes down the walls between them."
O'Sullivan also said the organizers hoped one day to organize a similar encounter between Israeli and Palestinian children, but had decided to begin with Israeli Arabs due to the difficulty of doing so.
He added that the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sports' contacts with Israeli Arab groups had made the tournament possible, and the ADL hoped to host 1000 children at the next event.
"Government bureaucracy could easily stifle any event, but in this case we worked with the government," he said.
The match was the first time Streetball Hafla was held in an Arab village, having been inaugurated during summer.
"At first parents found it hard to talk to each other, but at the end of the three-day tournament, they all ate together. Many came and told me this was a beautiful project. It was very moving," said O'Sullivan. "This time, they sent their kids happily to the match."
Streetball Hafla was funded by a sizeable donation from the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the University of Nevada.
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