Students Try Hands at Solving Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Tal Barak

Andover, Mass.

The assignment seemed nearly impossible: finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And doing so in three days.

Yet during a conference this month at Phillips Academy here, students from across the United States and many countries around the world attempted to do just that.

They met in the trustees’ room, on the top floor of George Washington Hall, at the prestigious boarding school that graduated both the current President Bush and his father. Teenagers sat at a conference table, surrounded by antique furniture and bookshelves holding volumes about the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, and wrestled with...