The seven children featured in PROMISES are between the ages of 9-13, an age group that rarely has the opportunity to speak for itself. They are neither as self-conscious as teen-agers nor as polite as adults. They speak directly, without self-censorship. The film captures each child's unique, idiosyncratic style of communication. They are far more amusing than an audience might expect of "children of war". These children are also mirrors of their cultures and spokespeople for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians. They possess an acute awareness of the political reality that surrounds them and have a freshness of expression that is inspiring, in contrast to the entrenched and often embittered opinions of adults. These 7 Palestinian and Israeli children live in and around Jerusalem. Though only 20 minutes apart, they exist in completely separate worlds.

MOISHE, a compulsive lotto player lives in the right-wing settlement of Beit El, intends to be Israel's first religious Prime Minister. Gesticulating like a 50 year old rabbi, Moishe shows us the place in the Torah where God gave the land to the Jews. Though he has never met an Arab, he assures us that when he runs the country, he'll "clear them all out of Jerusalem!" During production, Moishe's friend, Ephraim is killed by Palestinian terrorists. At Ephraim's grave, Moishe swears revenge.

20 minutes away we meet blond, blue eyed MAHMOUD, a supporter of Hamas. "The more Jews we kill," he says, "the stronger the Arabs will be." We visit Mahmoud's school, where the Koran is taught as a manifesto for Palestinian emancipation. Mahmoud takes us to Jerusalem's Old City where he visits the awesomely beautiful Al Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest shrines. At the mosque Mahmoud prays for the liberation of his homeland.

Just below the Mosque, SHLOMO, an ultra-orthodox Jewish boy is praying at the Western Wall. A rabbi-in-training, Shlomo spends 12 hours a day studying the Torah. Shlomo says that he has no conflict with the Arabs, he puts his faith in God, and believes peace will come with the arrival of the Messiah. But, on his way home from praying, Shlomo has a run-in with a Palestinian boy. What could be a fist fight turns into a metaphorical sequence as the kids reveal their hostility and curiosity about one another in an unexpected burping contest.

In West Jerusalem we meet YARKO and DANIEL, secular Israeli twins deeply concerned with questions of the army, religion and soccer. They visit a friend in the hospital, a soldier who was wounded in a bomb blast, and express how scared they are to travel on buses. On Memorial day they spend time with their grandfather, and grill him for details of his experiences in the German death camps. They also try to nail him down on a question they themselves are wrestling with: does he believe in God?

15 minutes away we are in a completely different world. FARAJ lives in the Deheishe refugee camp. At the age of 5 Faraj saw his best friend killed by an Israeli soldier's bullet and the word, "Israeli" means nothing to him short of "murderer." After participating in a massive anti-Israeli rally, Faraj and his grandmother sneak out of the camp and over the border to visit the village in Israel where she grew up and from which she fled in the in the 1948 war. Sitting on the stones that once were his family home, Faraj vows that he will return some day to rebuild.

SANABEL is also a 3rd generation refugee. She comes from a family of "modern" secular Arabs and expresses her feelings in a manner uncharacteristic for a girl in a conservative Islamic society. Sanabel is training to be a folk dancer and wants to use traditional Palestinian dance to tell the story of the story of her people. Her father, an outspoken journalist, has been held in an Israeli prison for two years without trial. We rise with Sanabel's family at dawn to travel to the prison for their bi-monthly 30 minute visit.

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