On 30 November, 2018 we opened our fourth course for Arab and Jewish planners and architects which is held by school of peace in collaboration with the Arab center for alternative planning. The group has 23 members 13 out of them are Arabs 10 are Jews, 14 women and 9 men.

It was a pleasure seeing a fourth cohort of change agents planners who will join in the future a community  of our previous courses graduates on elevating equality in the area of planning. After introducing themselves and sharing their expectations of the course, participants opened with an open dialogue. Arab participants brought some of the barbed issues concerning housing distress among Arab community and the lack of lands for villages expanding.

On further units, group members responded to the directors’ suggestion of talking about other central Arab-Jewish issues in the country and refrain from focusing just on planning. The group approached the issue of Nakba as it was told from one of the group members from Eilabun village. On the evening they watched Rachel Jones’ film “500 Acres on the moon”, this film handles the story of establishing the artists’ village Ein hod on the ruins of Palestinian Ein hod which was demolished on 1948 and its residents were forced out, it also shows the struggle of some Ein hods’ refugees on reestablishing a village. After watching the film, participants preferred to continue discussing the film.

There is a great desire in this group for talking, listening and knowing the problems in depth. The day later, the group dealt with the subject of future Arab-Jewish relationships corresponding to contemporary country character and its immigration laws. At the end participants concluded saying things like “everybody said his opinions, we talked respectfully and I’m glad that i came here” or “this is a dialogue that we don’t do on our daily lives I’m looking forward for what’s coming”.