PORTLAND – As the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine remains blanketed by deep winter snow, its founder is keeping close watch on Yasser Arafat’s lapel. The signs thus far appear promising.

John Wallach said the Palestinian leader continues to wear the small bronze pin bearing the Seeds of Peace logo showing three children and an olive branch. It’s a small but important sign that Arafat’s support for the program is still alive.

“He took it off during the first few weeks of the fighting, but he put it back on about two months ago and he’s worn it every day since,” Wallach said.

Such support will be essential as Seeds of Peace prepares for its ninth summer season. In light of continuing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, it will undoubtedly be the most challenging season yet.

Seeds of Peace has won widespread acclaim for bringing Arab and Israeli youngsters to a lakefront camp in Otisfield, where they live together, play sports and get to know each other as human beings.

Wallach calls it “the last, best hope” for a troubled region in which each side has dehumanized the other.

“It’s the only bridge that remains,” he said. “There’s no other bridge. And if you can’t get the next generation, the 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds, to communicate with each other and become friends, what hope is left?”

About 1,500 youngsters have been through the program since Wallach started Seeds of Peace in 1993. Many of the Arab-Israeli friendships that took root in Maine have endured, even amid the violence.

At this point, signs are hopeful that the program will continue this summer. If violence persists, however, the Palestinians in particular may decide not to participate, Wallach said.

“We can’t say with 100 percent assurance that we will have a program next summer,” said Wallach, who is based in New York. “Nobody knows the answer. It depends on the situation on the ground.”

Selection of youngsters to attend the camp begins in March, and Wallach acknowledges that the hatreds and bitterness they carry with them to Maine will likely be greater than in the past.

Nonetheless, he believes the teens can overcome those feelings and connect on a one-to-one basis. “These are extraordinary kids,” he said.

More than 360 people, most of them Palestinians, have died since violence erupted following a Sept. 28 visit by hard-line Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a Jerusalem site that is holy to Muslims and Jews alike.

The violence struck close to home for the program when an Israeli Arab who graduated from Seeds of Peace was shot to death by Israeli forces last October during a rock-throwing incident.

Supporters of the program were shocked and saddened by the death of 17-year-old Asel Asleh, who was described by Wallach as a teen who “epitomized all the qualities of a Seed.”

Against that backdrop, Wallach wants this summer’s program, if it takes place at all, to go beyond those of the past by challenging youngsters to wrestle with the toughest issues.

He is considering the idea of a “comeback camp” to reunite some of the Arab and Israeli youngsters who already have been through the program. Participants would attempt to draft a peace treaty by breaking up into committees that tackle the major issues: Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, refugees, security and borders.

“It’s a chance to show their own leaders and the world how they can solve a problem that their own leaders have not,” said Wallach, a former foreign correspondent for the Hearst newspapers and the son of Holocaust survivors.

Wallach said he was pleased that Asleh’s family didn’t turn away from Seeds of Peace after his death. Instead, the family committed itself to the program and expressed its hope that it will continue.

“When you lose one of your own, you have can two reactions – you can give up or you can recommit yourself to the cause. And I think most of the kids have recommitted themselves,” he said.

In most cases, the bloody confrontations of the past few months have failed to sever the bonds between Palestinian and Israeli Seeds that date to their shared summer in Maine.

Despite travel restrictions, most of the kids remain in contact with each other and communicate regularly via e-mail messages that are often heated and seething with emotion.

In poignant exchanges with two Palestinian friends, Israeli teen-ager Yoav Shaham, of Jerusalem, reached out to express sorrow at the bloodshed that claimed the life of their Seeds of Peace friend.

One Palestinian responded by saying “I’m not in a mental status that allows me to speak to any Israeli.” But another provided hope, saying, “I think if every Israeli is like you we will have peace.”

E-mail messages have become even more essential now that the fighting has kept Seeds of Peace from bringing Israelis and Palestinians together at its center in Jerusalem. Starting next month, the center plans to offer “advanced coexistence workshops” that would focus on issues separating Jewish and Arab youngsters who live in Israel.

Plenty of other projects are in the works.

The Olive Branch, the Seeds of Peace monthly newspaper that stopped publishing after the fighting began last October, is about to come out with a 32-page edition next month with 100 articles by Palestinian and Israeli youngsters.

Also planned is “Seeds of Hope,” a collection of e-mail messages between Seeds of Peace participants on both sides.

In the spring, adult leaders of Seeds of Peace delegations from eight Middle East countries that participated in last year’s camp will meet in Prague to consider ways to heal the wounds and prepare for this summer’s program.

Also, there will be a pilot program for youngsters from India and Pakistan, which have been at odds for decades over border issues. Additional sessions will bring together Greek and Turkish kids from Cyprus and youngsters from the Balkans.

The aim is the same: to get born enemies to talk to one another.

Tamer Nagy Mahmoud, an Egyptian who had been through the first Seeds of Peace session, became angry when the latest fighting broke out but decided to call a longtime Israeli friend who also had been in the program.

They did not reach total agreement, but it helped to listen to one another and try to find common ground.

“Although I was still angry and upset, I became more optimistic,” Mahmoud said. “If my Israeli friend and I could still talk our problems through, then there is still hope.”