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“It is like the Marshall Plan for the mind,” he said. “We want to take the ’60s civil rights movement in America that we all have learned so much from and apply it to a different reality.”

Project co-director Nurith Zmora, a Hamline history professor, describes the college as a place where Palestinians and Israelis will be educated together. Israeli and Palestinian students will learn particular trades, while also taking classes in multiculturalism, democracy, and peace education.

The project was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. This $528,000 grant created two NGOs (non-governmental organizations), one Israeli and the other Palestinian. The goal of these groups was to create curricula for Israeli and Palestinian middle schools.

The curricula would help foster understanding between the groups through education on attaining and maintaining democracy, communication, political rights, and other values to lead to better understanding between the two groups. The hope is that the Palestinian and Israeli students will not only be educated together, but that they will also, after completing their education, be able to work together within the developments.

One barrier to peace between Palestinians and Israelis is language. At the colleges, students would be taught in English and would also be required to take courses outside of their native language; Israelis would have to take Arabic classes, and Palestinians would have to take Hebrew classes.

“[The use of English] will contribute to the college as a neutral zone, and students will be equals,” explained Nurith Zmora.

Both the Palestinian and Israeli teams developed and circulated curricula for review by Hamline professors using the Blackboard online classroom system. The groups held three conferences at Hamline, where teachers from both sides interacted with Hamline professors. Over 600 Palestinian and Israeli teachers were then trained in teaching the curricula developed at these conferences.

Contributing Hamline professors were Nurith Zmora, Erika Alin, Colleen Bell, Duane Cady, George Chu, Van Dusenbery, Barbara Elvecrog, Walter Enloe, Marie Failinger, Kenneth Fox, Steven Jongewaard and Earl Schwartz.

The Israeli and Palestinian educators saw a need to expand the curriculum to high school-aged students. The program had worked, but it become evident to the teachers involved that they couldn’t perfectly use the curricula. Increased violence from the intifada created additional rifts between the Israeli and Palestinian communities.

Nurith Zmora explained that the idea for a “college of peace” was born when the group decided that what they lacked was a sense of common community. They decided that the best way to create such a community was to educate Palestinian and Israeli teachers together in their own regions.

The initiative to build the College for Reconciliation and Development, the title decided upon by members of the Israeli and Palestinian teams, has wide support from civil leaders in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Nurith and Arie Zmora, with Ken Fox and Hamline Law School dean Jon Garon, visited proposed sites this January and met with area civil leaders.

During their visit, they met Israel’s deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres. On behalf of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, Peres gave the government of Israel’s support for the project.

Israelis from all areas of the political spectrum are backing the idea. Natan Sharansky gave his support to the group during their visit. Sharansky’s recent book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny, has been quoted by both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“We even heard from [Palestinian leader Mahmoud] Abbas’ people; next time we come to the Middle East, they want to give us a formal reception at a government site,” Arie Zmora said.

During the trip, civic leaders of the proposed sites all formally approved the sites for construction. The next obstacle is finding funding for the colleges. Arie Zmora is conducting fundraising for the initiative. One rough cost estimate, in a document provided by the Zmoras, is $3.9 million. Hamline University has currently given in-kind and fundraised contributions totaling $789,000 to the original high school and middle school projects.