Michelle Yang, an incoming senior at Memorial High School, traveled to Jordan for 10 days last month to debate Middle East peace with 23 other U.S. students and 24 Jordanian students.
Each American student was paired with a Jordanian debate partner at King’s Academy in Madaba, Jordan, and each team debated both sides of one question: Should the United States support a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians?
“We debated whether or not the two-state solution will work,” said Yang, 16. “Within that topic we talked about economic liberalization, minority right protections and cessation of violence.”
Personally, Yang favors a two-state solution, or separate lands for the Jews and the Palestinians. “It’s just better if we have two sovereign states and economic liberalization,” she said.