Japan student group hosts 20th Israeli, Palestinian youth exchange amid Gaza war

FUKUOKA — For about 20 years, a program organized by the Japanese student group Japan Israel Palestine Student Conference (JIPSC) has brought Israeli, Palestinian and Japanese youth under the same roofs in Japan to think together about peace.

The JIPSC held its Japan Israel Palestine Joint Student Conference this summer, despite the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, thanks to the presence of young people who wished to participate. Since its founding in 2003, almost every year the group has invited youth from both Palestine and Israel to Japan to engage in dialogue and exchanges.

However, in October 2023, Hamas, the organization that governs Gaza, attacked Israel, sparking a war that continues to this day. The JIPSC was uncertain whether it could host its 20th conference this year, but after some debate, decided that it should go ahead if there were people wishing to participate.

Four Israelis and three Palestinian youths came this year, joining nine Japanese participants in southwest Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture from Aug. 17 to 27. They lodged and dined together while conversing about topics ranging from everyday life to war and political problems. The itinerary included a trip to Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, along with speaking at a symposium in the city of Fukuoka on Aug. 26.

Daniel Guy-Tsabary, a 30-year-old from Israel, said that he wanted the participants to look each other in the eye, recognize each other as human beings and engage in a dialogue to find solutions to the rift between them. Looking back on the exchanges, he told the Mainichi Shimbun that participants were able to share what their life has been like, their traumas and their goals, and said they are now not just friends, but family. Fellow Israeli Adi Lifshitz, 22, commented it was very difficult for participants to talk openly while holding on to their own unimaginable pains, and recalled thinking it was important to treat people with love, even if there was disagreement.

The wounds of war run deep in both regions. According to the health authorities in Gaza, over 40,000 in the territory have been killed since October 2023, including many women and children.

Palestinian Tareq Nidal Seder, 24, said mournfully that all he can do is talk about it as the situation is only getting worse. Dana Muhammed Ikelan, a 26-year-old from Jordan, which borders Israel and the West Bank, pleaded that she and others are all human beings and citizens with dreams and families, not soldiers or numbers on a chart.

Shinji Yoshinaga, 21, a third-year student at Seinan Gakuin University in the city of Fukuoka, expressed a sense of powerlessness, saying, “I couldn’t say anything in the face of the reality that conflict can so easily take away freedom, livelihoods and most importantly, lives.” He added, “I want to continue to make every effort to know about all sorts of issues.”

(Japanese original by Maika Hyuga, Kyushu News Department)