This week marked the start of the second session of a remarkable summer camp at Pleasant Lake in Otisfield.

Seeds of Peace Camp brings children from Middle Eastern and Asian countries, often countries at war, together with American children for three weeks of talking and outdoor activities.

And despite all of its successes with individual campers during the 14 years the camp has operated, camp staffers – many of them former campers and citizens of the nations at war – are more on edge this week than they have been for some time.

The current bloody turmoil in the Middle East has left many at camp disillusioned and discouraged. But these children of war know the solution to a standing peace in their homeland isn’t easily obtained. Yet, as they often do, children of war have ideas about how to bring the seemingly unending violence to a end.

“If you can think of the other side as individual people, you can break the hatred which can blind you completely,” said Noa, a 23-year-old Israeli woman, camp staff member and former camper.

Staff people such as Noa understand the best hope for a standing peace in the Middle East rests in humanizing the other sides. Seeing people as people, not as governments, religions or tribes, is what’s needed most to end war.

But the staff at Seeds of Peace are also realistic in their understanding of the deepness of the conflicts between their peoples.

“I’d rather not answer a question about hope right now because it will be a really hopeless answer,” said Suha, a 24-year-old Palestinian doctor, camp staff member and former camper.

The answer may be hopeless to the point that even those working for peace from the warring sides are wary about revealing the full identities of these remarkable camp counselors who are working for peace.

The fear they may be viewed as traitors, collaborators or sympathizers back home is real. That’s why, even though they did not ask us to do so, the Sun Journal took the unusual step of not disclosing their last names to help protect them.

Our dream is only that all the top leaders of the fighting sides in the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world where childhoods are lost to war, could participate in three weeks of talks and outside activities together at a summer camp in Maine.

We agree with Mira, a former Palestinian camper and now counselor.

“If you look around and see what’s going on in the region, you start to lose hope that such programs (like Seeds of Peace Camp) will change things,” Mira said. “If all people had this kind of experience, there might be hope.”

We welcome all the campers and counselors to Maine as they raise their nations’ respective flags in peaceful ceremony. Our hope is that they not lose hope despite the ongoing bloodshed back home.