Coach Moses Rifkin races a Tulkarem boy to the disc in the small community of Far'un [MARC ALTMAN 2009 marcaltman.com]

Following a coaching clinic held in Tel Aviv, we join two coaches Moses Rifkin and Miranda Roth, as they experience the rare opportunity to travel into the West Bank to visit the villages where the children live.

Rifkin and Roth are travelling to a small farming community called Far'un which is situated in the northeastern West Bank, about 5km south of the town of Tulkarm near the border with Israel. 

The aim of the day is to spend time with some of the Palestinian children they coached in Tel Aviv, in the hope of being able to pass on the fundamentals of the sport to the community teachers who will drive this initiative in the coming months.

More than this however, it is an opportunity to visit the Palestinian children who participate regularly in the integrated teams co-ordinated by the Peres Centre for Peace, and to experience firsthand what life is like in Palestine.

Far'un is high on a hill, with views looking out over a valley towards the Mediterranean, to the checkpoint at Tulkarm, and over a nearby Israeli town called Netanya.

Rifkin and Roth are both American, and so as non-Israeli's they are allowed to pass into the West Bank.

Israeli citizens are not allowed to enter the Palestinian population centres of the West Bank, while they are able to enter settlements, roads and other areas controlled by Israel.

The coaches were inundated with enthusiastic kids at the basketball court  [MARC ALTMAN 2009 marcaltman.com]

Ultimate is a seven-a-side sport that is usually played on a grass area roughly the size of a football field.

The children in Far'un do not have access to a field and so the coaching session takes place on a concrete basketball court.

Working with Rifkin and Roth is Mohammed, a coach affiliated with the Peres Centre who regularly coaches the children in basketball, and Salim, a parent of one of the participants, who is also a community elder and teacher.

The UP coaches, who are both elite players back home, are working with approximately 45 boys, and so with limited space, the coaching is adapted to fit the confines of the court.

Over the course of the day more and more local children came to join in and soon the basketball court is full of discs flying everywhere.

The coaches teach running and catching drills. As the day goes on they include more competitive games - if you drop the disc you have to sit out – and as they whittle down the group the concrete bleachers fill with kids watching and cheering the remaining players.

Older children join in the coaching clinic, which improves the language barrier, and soon the children are quizzing the coaching team about life in the United States.

As Rifkin noted this was an important opportunity for him; "For all this talk of 'bringing communities together', part of what Ultimate Peace did was bring Americans into contact with kids and adults who might not have this experience.

"Many of the kids had so many questions about America and I'm aware of the bad name that my country has in many places right now, particularly, I imagine, in Palestinian communities," he continued.

"I appreciated the opportunity to maybe present a slightly different face of America there."

Breaking down barriers

He believed it was a way of extending the relationship of Ultimate Peace – recognising that just as the Palestinian students came to Israel for the clinic, it was crucial to extend the same courtesy and visit the children in their own homes.

"The experience of visiting Tulkarm was a bit overwhelming," he told Al Jazeera.

"There was so much to see, and it came so quickly.

"I'd caught a few glimpses of what it is like to live in Palestine for those students and their families... about how the checkpoints take away the freedom of movement for the Palestinians and how hard and constrictive that makes life."

Increased confidence

Rifkin noticed a difference in the children who competed in Tel Aviv coaching clinic to how they behaved in their own familiar surroundings.

"At the clinic, the Palestinian youth were quiet and participated reluctantly, which I attributed to feeling far out of their element," he said.

"The students on Sunday seemed anything but - everyone was laughing, throwing themselves into this new experience."

"For me, it spoke to the power of meeting people where they feel at home instead of asking them to take the dual risk of learning something new in a place where they feel uncomfortable." 

At the end of the day, as the sun sets over the valley, the coaches are challenged to a game of half-court basketball by the children, watched by a crowd of over 50 children and adults cheering them on.

In the distance is the coast that most of the kids have never visited, because they are not allowed to cross the border.

Roth reflected on the ease at which the coaching team were able to enter past the checkpoint: "I hope that some day it is as easy and comfortable and safe for these kids to go to the beach," she said.

"Or for Jewish Israelis to come visit their basketball teammates in Tulkarm as it was for us Americans to travel between Israel and the West Bank."

The coaches enjoy the hospitality at Salim's house [MARC ALTMAN 2009 marcaltman.com]

As the evening approaches, the coaches are invited to dinner at Salim's nearby house.

While the food is being prepared, Salim takes the coaches for a walk down to his nearby lemon and loquat grove and shows them his home olive oil presses.

A large amount of land in this community is arable land used for growing olive groves.

As the food is served, the coaches hear from one of the adults that his family once owned a farm that was now within Israeli territory and that he had to constantly renew a permit to visit his land - and could then only be there for certain hours.

This turns the discussion to the issue of peace initiatives and Ultimate Peace co-founder David Barkan recalls how Salim believed the key to building peace and understanding should involve the families, and not just the children.

Barkan realised the privilege he had been afforded by visiting the West Bank.

"The whole time I was there I wished my Israeli counterparts could see and experience their community and what an eye-opening experience this would be for them," he said.

Ultimate Peace hopes that the sport will grow in popularity in the communities, at least within the Palestinian community of Tulkarm.

The Peres Centre has expressed an interest in keeping Ultimate as a permanent part of their sports program so Barkan is hopeful that the UP team have laid the foundations for an ongoing sports programme.

There is certainly a huge amount of enthusiasm from the children and the youth leaders over the sport, which is low-cost and easy to teach.

Rifkin hopes that the Peres Centre could also one day hold similar sporting events in Palestine, "though I know that in Area A territories that's legally not possible," (Area A is an administrative division in the West Bank created by the Oslo Accords, which is under full control of the Palestinian Authority).

Coach Miranda Roth supervises as Palestinian boys practice throwing [MARC ALTMAN 2009 marcaltman.com]

Its simple philosophy is to give disadvantaged children the chance to be children, to have fun, and to access the same opportunities afforded to other children.

The project does not make big claims about making peace, but in its simplest form allows children to learn and experience life though their own judgement.

It is often children that are most overlooked in times of conflict.

It takes an enormous amount of bravery to participate in this project, a fact that is not lost on the coaches.

"I am awed by the courage of the Palestinian youth to participate," said Rifkin.

"I know that, in many Palestinian communities, that any involvement with Israeli and Palestinian projects without explicit discussion of increased rights for Palestinians is viewed as a step back.

"That these kids (and their families) would participate, and that participation asks them to travel into a country where they're often viewed as lesser people, is inspiring to me," he continued.

"The children couldn't really understand that Palestinians were real kids," explains an Israeli coach from the Peres Centre.

"But, after the first time, the second time, the third time they meet, you can see the progress of the communication between them, and the fear's going down."

Barkan measures the success of Ultimate Peace through the reaction of the children.

"We said upfront our main measures of success were if the kids had fun and if they want to continue to play, and we succeeded on both fronts," he said.

Perhaps the project can best be summed by the reaction of one of the children.

A Jewish Israeli participant from East Jerusalem, said: "I like to be friends with other girls from other countries and have a new friendship with them."

When another was asked what she had learned from her Arab neighbours that she hadn't before, she replied: "That they are just like us."

Ultimate Peace needs funding for more discs, training manuals and future projects.

You can find out more about the work of Ultimate Peace at http://ultimatepeace.org

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