Heated Discussions in the Pack Ice

Far from home, four Israelis and four Palestinians are journeying through the Antarctic in order to develop their ability to work as a team. The name of their project: "Breaking the Ice". Ariana Mirza reports on a peace mission under extreme conditions.

The forces of nature can be grimly implacable. In the Drake Passage, which links the most southerly tip of South America with the vast expanse of the Antarctic, fierce storms rage. The five-day crossing in a sailing boat demands the utmost from the crew – and it claims the first injured crew-member: Olifat Haider, a P.E. teacher from Haifa, is tossed around the deck and suffers bruises and contusions. This is a severe handicap to the team, who have a difficult expedition ahead of them: a gruelling march, lasting many days, through a forbidding desert of ice.

The 33-year-old Palestinian is one of two women in a group of eight peace activists. Since the beginning of the year, four Israelis and four Palestinians have been trekking through the Antarctic under the motto "Breaking the Ice". Together, they will climb a mountain and give it a name; with this spectacular feat, they hope to alert their compatriots and the people of the world to their call for peace.

"There must be an end to the bloodshed"

Among those supporting the project are the President of the German Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse; the General Secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan; the Dalai Lama; and the Nobel Peace Laureates, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Mikhail Gorbachev. It's a mission with a message, says the journalist and team-member Ziad Darwish; and though it may sound naïve, the team's united voice emerged from their recognition of one fundamental truth: "There must be an end to the bloodshed."

An absolute renunciation of violence: this was the lowest common denominator that all those participating in the expedition could agree on. Their newly-discovered solidarity is now being put to the test under the most extreme conditions imaginable. "Here, we are entirely dependent on each other for our survival", explains Heskel Nathaniel. An Israeli businessman who's been living in Berlin for years, Nathaniel is the initiator of the private non-profit-organisation "Extreme Peace Missions": "Breaking the Ice" is the group's first project. Heskel Nathaniel is convinced that the shared knowledge of extreme experiences can help to overcome antagonism and mistrust.

When interviewed via satellite telephone, Nathaniel sounds as if he's under some stress. He and his companions in the Antarctic have more to cope with than mere physical exhaustion: heated political debates are exacerbating the difficulties of the 35-day journey to No Man's Land. "We're arguing a lot – not in the daytime, we're busy every minute of the day – but in the evenings, when we eat together and start discussing things."

The make-up of the group: a miracle

To an outside observer, however, it seems close to miraculous that people from such diverse backgrounds could start a conversation at all. Heskel Nathaniel himself spent years looking after the security of threatened Israelis abroad. Ziad Darwish's brother was killed in the course of an Israeli military operation. Yarden Fanta, an Ethiopian Jew, lost almost her entire family during a months-long odyssey on foot to their new home in Israel. The Palestinian Nasser Quass spent years in Israeli prisons, as did the Fatah activist Suleiman al-Khatib, who was sentenced to ten years in prison at the age of 14.

How much of an effort must it cost Quass and Al-Khatib, for example, to form a team with a man like Avihu Shoshani, who spent four years serving in the elite Israeli Defense Forces?

For the sake of peace, one must overcome oneself

Indeed, every member of the group has had to "bite the bullet" in the same way. The 41-year old Israeli Nathaniel explains their ability to do so in very similar terms to the 53-year-old Palestinian Derwish: he says that everyone involved was motivated to take part by the desire to achieve peace for their own people – and by the recognition that this task can only be accomplished by achieving peace with the other side.

The opportunity to get to know each other is new for both sides; and it's probably only possible to do so (under such intimate circumstances) thousands of miles from home: "In this extreme situation, we are so close to each other as human beings that something very close to friendship can arise."

Mutual dependency compels trust

The permanent closeness and the fact that everyone is dependent on everyone else forces all those involved to trust each other without reservation. A five-hour trek after their initial landing on the Antarctic was only possible hand-in-hand, for an ice storm had ambushed them on an island called "Deception". When I ask Ziad Darwish if he sees this name as an omen, he laughs. In his view, the name of the mountain they plan to conquer and "baptise" is much more important.

Darwish's personal choice would be "Jerusalem", for the city is of huge symbolic importance to the three religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) and the common quest for peace. There are other suggestions, however, and the team haven't yet agreed on a name. Alternative ideas can still be submitted to the project's website.

State-of-the-art technology makes it possible to transmit these proposals to the lonely travellers in the Antarctic wastes. And for the time being, they would prefer not to hear other news – bad news – from the outside world. Ziad Darwish: "While I'm here, I don't want to hear that the refugee camp I call home was bombed last week, or that another suicide bomber has killed a lot of people. The others feel the same way. On this point, we're in agreement."

To get to the website of the project, click here.