Here in the US, we know much about the fear and suffering that Israeli citizens have experienced from decades of terrorist actions against them. We know relatively little about their opponents, the Palestinians. I recently journeyed to Beirut hoping to find some answers. What I found does not augur well for coming to a peaceful way out of this lethal impasse.

Posters of earnest young men are stuck on nearly every building in Bourj El-Barajneh, a cramped Palestinian refugee camp in south Beirut. Hamas, an organization with a heavy presence here, calls these young men “martyrs.“ Many outside the Muslim world call them something else, these men who have blown themselves up in crowded Israeli buses and malls. Posters of Sheik Yassin also cover the rough plastered walls in the camp. The leader and spiritual force behind Hamas, Sheik Yassin had just been assassinated by an Israeli missile in Gaza, another reprisal in a struggle that has now gone on for sixty years.

We reached the camp by driving through the center of Beirut, a city literally torn to pieces in a vicious, 15-year civil war that ended in 1990. Much of the downtown commercial core of the city has been rebuilt, but here in this camp there are still bullet holes and walls crushed by mortar shells and artillery rounds.

And there are memories. A half mile from here an Israeli force stood by while Christian militias shot their way through two adjoining Palestinian camps in 1982, killing 2,000 people, most of them women and children. 22 years later, the memories of Sabra and Shatilla are as fresh in Palestinians minds and hearts as the names of their children.

I am here with a group of twelve people from eight countries, all members of Initiatives of Change, a peacemaking group with a long history of helping heal conflicts around the globe. We’re in Beirut to learn more about how we might help bridge the gap between the Muslim world and the West. The visit to Bourj El- Barajneh is part of our education.

We’re met at the camp’s entrance by Osama Ayoub, a young Palestinian who was born in the camp, set up after his parents and 300,000 other Palestinians were forced out of their homes by the war which followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Like many other Palestinians his age, he’s only known life in the camps, supported by minimal grants from the United Nations and the charity of others. In Lebanon, Osama is a second-class citizen. He cannot vote or hold a passport, and he has only limited rights to study and work.

Osama leads us through winding alleys so narrow that two people can barely pass. Low buildings crowd in from both sides, simple cinderblock and brick structures with corrugated iron roofs. The camp is unbearably crowded but it is reasonably clean. The alleys serve as storm drains, drinking water is piped on the surface, and electric lines are laced above our heads. We pass a bakery, an ice cream shop and, yes, an Internet café. The people we pass wear mostly Western clothes, the women in headscarves. They look at us with curiosity but are too polite to stare. Not so with the children, of course, who stare at us and shout and grin. A woman sits on the ground, slicing tomatoes on a wooden board. Chickens run underfoot.

I may be safer here than in most American cities. Still, following an unknown guide deep into the heart of a crowded camp of Palestinians, many belonging to an organization that launches suicide bombers, a week after their leader has been killed by an American-made missile—I can feel the hair rise on the back of my neck.

We meet with camp leaders at a youth center. I assume they’ve chosen this place to make the point that Hamas—apart from the violence it supports—is also a primary social service agency for Palestinians. It operates hospitals and clinics and social services in camps like this one. Hamas’ social service function is a major reason why so many Palestinians follow the group, as opposed to what many of them see as the corrupt bureaucracy of Yassir Arafat and the PLO. Inside the youth center are mats and heavy bags and other bare-bones equipment. Fifteen people from the camp receive us. “My name is John Graham—from the United States,” I say to Osama's father, a tough, grizzled old man wearing the traditional Arab gown and skullcap. The old man hears the translation of “ United States” and his fierce eyes flicker for a second before he extends his hand. “You are welcome," he says. Teachers and social workers describe for us how this camp of 14,000 is set up and how it operates, one of 12 such camps in Lebanon. But what our hosts most want to talk about is politics. “We like Americans; we don't like Bush,” one man says. Another old man in a robe tells the story of his life in Haifa in the mid-thirties, when members of his family were killed by hidden bombs placed in the market place by Jews struggling to end the British mandate over Palestine. “We learned to be terrorists from them,” he says. An old woman holds up a framed picture of four young men—her sons, They were in the Shatilla camp the night it was attacked and they were led away and never seen gain. She asks our help in finding them. The stories are moving—but not more so than stories I have already heard from Israelis who have lost family and friends to Hamas bombs, and who live in fear that they will be next. A girl, young enough so her head is still uncovered, uses impassioned school English to say she has no rights, no future. When she finishes, all the Palestinians clap. A baby in the room howls. The father gently gathers it up and rocks it, looking slightly embarrassed. I ask the Palestinians how it is, after more than half a century as refugees, they can continue to hope. They reply almost as one that their hope comes from their faith in God—and from their certainty that one day they will return to their homes in Galilee. They bring out sweet treats and bottled sodas. After an hour and a half, we wind our way back out to the edge of the camp. A few boys are kicking a soccer ball on a patch of dirt, next to an open-air car repair shop. The tension from the oppressive crowdedness of the camp lifts like a morning fog. We take pictures with Osama and several other Palestinians who have come with us to our bus. I promise to send some books to the youth center that will help the kids learn English. At the moment, I can think of nothing else to do.

On the bus, in thirty seconds we are passing a McDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the glitz of a resurgent Beirut. There is no resurgence in Bourj El-Barajneh camp. Inside it are 14,000 angry, determined and resourceful people. A solution that creates a separate Palestinian state will not satisfy them. Their former land and homes are what is now part of Israel itself, and they can get them back only if Israel is pushed into the sea. Somewhere they must know that is not going to happen, that the world community will not let it happen. Meanwhile, they pass every day the posters of the sons who have killed themselves, and hundreds of others, for their cause.