Summary of 2003

A Round Table of Palestinian and Israel Women

The round table is a new project, funded by the Swiss Embassy. The School for Peace and the Nablus Youth Federation planned and conducted the project together.


Wafaa Sruor from the SFP and Ilham Hamad of the NYF coordinated the project. Nava Sonnenschein and Wafaa were the facilitators and Maya Rabia did the translation. Eight Palestinian women from Nablus and eight Jewish Israeli women took part. All of the participants were professionals in various fields: social work, human rights organizations, women’s organizations, health care or academic work. The Palestinian group included Muslims and Christians and the Jewish group included Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.



The dialogue workshop that we conducted in Antalia, Turkey from November 27th to 30th, was the first of two parts of this project. The second part is scheduled for January and will consist of a series of lectures and discussions on the connection between gender and national identity, and on the place of women in the conflict. The Palestinian participants made the trip to Antalia together with Palestinian literature teachers who were taking part in another SFP workshop held simultaneously in the same place. The journey makes up an important part of the workshop, and in the report on the literature workshop we drew up the following account of that trip:

Palestinian participants always begin their workshop experience the minute they leave their houses. This time they began their journey to Antalia at dawn on a Wednesday, over 48 hours before the workshop began. After going through the humiliation of the Hawara military checkpoint, they spent three hours at a Palestinian border station in Jericho, followed by four hours at the Israeli border crossing of the Allenby bridge. At the border crossing of the bridge the head of the group was investigated by the Israeli secret service and sent back home. The rest of the group crossed into Jordan where the border crossing and the time it took to get on a bus amounted to another six hours. The following day they boarded a plane at Amman for Istanbul, which would have been a short flight had it not been for the fog which added two hours of hovering over the airport before being allowed to land. Their connecting flight to Antalia brought them in late at night and they reached the hotel in the early hours of Friday morning. The Israeli group had arrived as scheduled early Thursday evening. They flew in on a brief direct flight from Tel-Aviv to Antalia where they waited for the Palestinian group to join them. As in every Israeli – Palestinian encounter, the road that the two groups take to the meeting reflects the very nature of the relations between the two peoples. Numerical symmetry between Jews and Arabs in the workshop, the consistent and equal use of Hebrew and Arabic, sensitivity to equality in organizational matters and decision – making processes, and similarity in the professional identity of the participants are all elementary components of a successful workshop. Yet none of this can compensate for the fundamental asymmetry between the two groups in the present political situation.



The process that the women’s dialogue underwent included three stages that we are familiar with: the stage of acquaintance, of conflict, and of “a different dialogue”. In this case the acquaintance stage blended in with the conflict stage. We attribute this to our understanding that the Palestinians have not been making any distinction between their personal and collective identity. They began by speaking about their lives, at first in a restrained and cautious manner. They soon told stories of being widowed, of losing their loved ones, of humiliation, curfew, of children’s mental disturbances and the routine of military checkpoints. Some of the Jewish women were overwhelmed and reacted defensively saying that they already know the situation and that they are not the ones doing this to the Palestinians. The Palestinians asked the Jewish women to listen to them until they finished, assuring them that they would also listen to the Jewish women. The Jewish participants succeeded in listening to their stories and the Palestinians expressed their thanks sounding genuinely grateful.

The group later entered a stage of competition. They competed over whose culture was more humane and progressive, and this was done through discussion on suicide bombings and occupation. The discussion was very candid and courageous. The Palestinian group was assertive and very clear in their positions. The Israeli group was also very strong and capable of taking responsibility. “Those are our sons and our husbands out there…” and “Our army is also a terrorist organization…” were among the things heard. It was a difficult situation for both groups. The Palestinians pour out their stories and share their most traumatic experiences with people who represent the perpetrators. The Israelis on their part succeeded in listening to stories that identify them as oppressors. And instead of jumping to the defense they listened and managed to acknowledge and take responsibility for the position of power that they have in the conflict.

Two Peoples Writing From Right to Left

A project for Jewish and Palestinian literature teachers conducted jointly by the School for Peace (SFP) and Palestinian Peace Movement (PPM), and funded by the American Embassy.


The “Two Peoples Writing From Right to Left” project involves the creation of a Hebrew – Arabic Literary Anthology and an inservice training course for Palestinian and Israeli literature teachers who will use the anthology in their classrooms. The literature anthology is being developed by a team of Palestinian and Israeli academics and literature teachers as well as staff members of the SFP and PPM. The academics on the anthology team also take a part in conducting the training course.

The project started with dialogue workshops (one in January in Turkey, the other in Israel) when Jewish and Arab literature teachers met for an intensive and painful dialogue. Thirty-three Palestinian teachers from Palestine, thirty-one Jewish Israeli teachers and seven Palestinian Israeli teachers took part in these workshops.

Project participants met for their second meeting in Turkey on the weekend of November 26th – 30th, 2003. This meeting focused on joint study of the literary works chosen for the literature anthology, leading to discussions on how they might be handled in the classroom. Thirty-one Israeli participants (26 Jews and 5 Palestinians) participated along with seventeen Palestinian participants from Nabus and the from the Kalkilya region. The number of participants who showed up for the workshops is in itself an accomplishment. When we opened registration for the project at the end of 2002 we already knew that we could not demand that the participants commit themselves to participation in both parts of the project. Restrictions and opportunities for meetings change radically from one day to the next. The political situation is such that the participants and we as an organization must take these plans one step at a time.

The November meeting was accompanied by facilitators and translators from the PPM and SFP. Dr. Yigal Schwartz and Dr. Nissim Kalderon from the Ben Gurion University, and Dr. Ibrahim El’alim from the Bethlehem University, all three of them from the anthology team, also took part in the workshop.



Palestinian participants always begin their workshop experience the minute they leave their houses. This time they began their journey to Antalia Turkey at dawn on a Wednesday, over 48 hours before the workshop began. After going through the humiliation of the Hawara military checkpoint, they spent three hours at a Palestinian border station in Jericho, followed by four hours at the Israeli border crossing of the Allenby bridge, during which two teachers were investigated by the Israeli secret service. At the last minute the two teachers were allowed to join the group and cross into Jordan where the border crossing and the time it took to get on a bus amounted to another six hours. The following day they boarded a plane at Amman for Istanbul, which would have been a short flight had it not been for the fog which added two hours of hovering over the airport before being allowed to land. Their connecting flight to Antalia brought them in late at night and they reached the hotel in the early hours of Friday morning. The Israeli group had arrived as scheduled early Thursday evening. They flew in on a brief direct flight from Tel-Aviv to Antalia where they waited for the Palestinian group to join them. As in every Israeli – Palestinian encounter, the road that the two groups take to the meeting reflects the very nature of the relations between the two peoples. Numerical symmetry between Jews and Arabs in the workshop, the consistent and equal use of Hebrew and Arabic, sensitivity to equality in organizational matters and decision – making processes, and similarity in the professional identity of the participants are all elementary components of a successful workshop. Yet none of this can compensate for the fundamental asymmetry between the two groups in the present political situation.



Following is the workshop program as presented to the participants:



Workshop Aims: In this meeting the participants will learn Palestinian and Israeli literary works together. Joint study of this kind will be an opportunity for each side to gain a better understanding of the other’s world, contributing to each participant’s ability to address this material in his or her own classroom.

The following literary works were chosen as a focus for the workshop (The literal translations in parentheses are for the sake of this report. They are not necessarily published English titles): “Ard el Burtukal el Hazin” (The Land of Sad Oranges) by Rasan Kanfani, “Nizel ‘al el-Bahar” (An Inn on the Sea) by Mahmoud Darwish, and “Jean Christoff” by Ida Fink.

Coordinators: Muhammad Joudeh, Ahmad Hijazi, Michal Zak.
Literature Anthology Team: Nisim Kalderon, Yigal Schwartz, Ibrahim el-Alam.
Facilitators
Palestinian Peace Movement: Mahyub Abu Rawis, Muhammad Shbeta.
School for Peace: Sigalit Givon, Eitan Bronstein
Translators: Hind Abu al-Hija, Maisoun Bedoui
Group Leader of the Nablus Youth Federation: Majid Tabila



Friday

• Opening

• Getting reacquainted, and dialogue reviewing the situation.

• Study Circle: Each mixed group discusses one literary work.

• Uninational forum: Jews and Palestinians work separately, each national group divides into three work groups, and each work group prepares a lesson plan on one of the literary works.

• The Arab groups conduct lessons, as the Jewish participants observe. This is followed by feedback of the simulated lesson, and discussion.


Saturday


• The Jewish groups conduct lessons for each other as the Arab participants observe, followed by feedback and discussion.

• Summary discussion in uni-national forum.

• Summary discussion in encounter forum.

• Afternoon free (most participants took a joint bus trip)

• Evening panel of literature lecturers discussing what can be learned from joint study.


The combination of a dialogue workshop with an aim of studying literature made this a pioneering project. We ran into a number of organizational difficulties. The groups were to receive the literary works well before the workshop in order to prepare them beforehand. The Palestinian group received their stories at the workshop and they came to the workshop less prepared than the Jewish group. This made it impossible for us to address all of the material that we had originally planned, and it became an additional and unnecessary issue in which the Palestinians were at a disadvantage. Despite this problem the dialogue conducted was very intense and constructive.





We discovered that the use of literature brings the discussion to places that we never reached with open dialogue. The material creates a certain distance and serves as a mediator between the groups. There were those who saw this as something disruptive, disturbing the intimacy of the open dialogue. Others found it helpful to have a topic that can be addressed more “coldly” and civilly, creating a more protected atmosphere.

Participants were driven by different incentives. In general it seemed that the Israeli participants had a greater professional interest in using the workshop to contribute to their work as literature teachers. The Palestinians had a greater drive to use the opportunity to meet Israelis, make their stories heard, change the image of Palestinians in Israeli eyes and find partners on the other side.

We received a number of letters from participants who shared their impressions from the workshop. The first is from a Palestinian who participated in a very active way, in both meetings of the project (in April and in November). When he wrote us after the November meeting he chose to focus on the first meeting.


“…I went there loaded with hate as a result of the pain that the Jews caused us. When we arrived at Wahat al-Salam I looked at the faces of the other side. I expected to see faces full of cruelty, anger and brutality, but I found cheerful, friendly, peaceful faces. Later after the first meeting, this image I came with began to collapse since I thought that no one in Israel believes in peace or wants peace. But I found real people, in different scales of life that really believe and want peace and what astonished me was that not all of the cruel and savage behavior and acts are mentioned in their media..
I started to find out that they were seriously and greatly moved by what we told them and some started to cry. Later after those many mental meetings I realized that our real image didn’t reach them, and their media took them away from reality. But the hardest thing in the entire meeting was our justification of the “suicide operations” inside Israel. I hope that they understood our point of view although we condemn these acts. …These meetings are just the beginning. We don’t expect that we will have immediate results, but as they say, the thousand-mile walk begins with a single step. I call for further meetings. I want to spread the message that these meetings call for land for the two peoples and no more struggle.”

another Palestinian participant, wrote about the joint study:

“…I was very interested in meeting the Israeli group again. It was an opportunity to exchange thoughts through a good civilized way of contact. I managed to understand more of the way that they think, but there were many things left mysterious. The other side was deeply concentrating on the imaginative [literary] parts of the text, leaving behind too much of the reality in the literature…”

We will add excerpts from letters of two of the Israeli participants who put into writing their praise, their criticism and their conclusions:


“I learned a number of things about the difference between academic concepts of literature and the way it is taught in schools. …I gained an appreciation of the degree to which the understanding of a story’s content is tied to an understanding of culture. I left the encounter determined to make a greater effort to bring my pupils to a different level of cultural understanding. …I learned a lot from the Arab lesson that I observed – about the mentality behind the lesson and the political – social – personal interpretation of the text. I was impressed by the seriousness with which the Palestinians regard the encounter with us and the way in which they present their side. I also learned a lot from the lesson that we presented to the Palestinians. There was more individualism and less commitment to the group on our part. In working with “Jean Christoff” [the Hebrew short story], I gained an appreciation of the difficulty of conveying cultural codes to people who are not a part of that culture. It is one thing to understand that such a problem exists. It is another thing to actually try to overcome it.”



“…It was a meeting rich in significance and insight. The climax for me of course were the simulation lessons. In my group the lesson that Rafa [a Palestinian teacher] conducted was on Ida Fink’s “Jean Christoff”. Rafa eliminated any identifying features of the story as a holocaust story and turned it into a universal story of oppression. The train in the story was no longer a death train but the images in it were of pupils and of IDF tanks invading their towns. The concentration of people about to be sent to their death were envisioned as a gathering of prisoners in the Palestinian context. It was incredible. I hadn’t imagined that such a unique and exclusive holocaust story could be used to reflect the Palestinians’ distress today. The following day I conducted a lesson on Rasan Kanfani’s “Erets Hatapuzim Ha’atsuvim”.[Ard el Burtukal el Hazin, a Palestinian short story by Kanafani] When we planned the lesson we were sure of the integrity of our work in its historical and literary aspects. We were then surprised when the Palestinians raised objection to our using the story of Palestinian refugees to address a universal problem! They were angry that we concentrated on the artistic aspects of the story rather than using it to focus on its historical context. One of the participants said that we did the story injustice by not discussing the biography of the author. The pistol mentioned at the end of the story, he claimed, was the pistol used by Israeli soldiers to kill him in 1972, twelve years after the story was written.

It was fascinating to see how our criticism of the other side mirrored each other. But there are still differences. In my view the Israeli side is much more capable of dealing with the text as literature – as art. The Palestinians do not seem to be as free to deal with “luxuries” of literature since they are much more involved in the historical context and political struggle that the text leads to...”


The groups studied Israeli and Palestinian literature together. It is a complicated task, but this pilot project demonstrated how great this work can be. The project’s objective was to provide literature teachers with tools to teach literary works of “the other” in their classrooms. We still have a lot of work to do to refine this project and make it more effective, but considering the conditions under which we work this is not a great surprise. In most other areas of conflict in the world enemies restrict their encounters to the battlefield. This was an encounter in the sites of each other’s stories.

A Palestinian – Palestinian Encounter

For the past five years the SFP has been conducting encounters between Palestinians from both sides of the border. The different political realities and economic conditions under which each group has been living since 1948 have created differences in the nature of their group identities. Our experience led us to the conclusion that there is a need to facilitate dialogue between the two Palestinian groups in order to bridge the gap that has developed over the years and renew the connection between them.



Twenty Palestinian students from Nablus met with ten Palestinian students from different Israeli universities in a weekend workshop held in NS/WAS from November 13th to the 15th, 2003. The participants boldly addressed all of the issues they identified that stand between them. At the end of the workshop everyone expressed a desire to continue their dialogue. In the words of Muhammad Shbeta, a facilitator from the Nablus group:

“The encounter took place at the right time for both groups. Each group lacks knowledge about the other. This is particularly true of the “’67 group” (Palestinians from territories occupied by Israel in 1967). The “’48 group” knows more about us than we do about them because all of the television stations cover our story. But the ’48 group is outside of the fence – in more ways than one.

The Oslo Accords ignored them.Obviously the ’67 Palestinians are in the eye of the storm, they pull the strings and therefore all of the agreements address them and sell out the ’48 group. There is a missing link that must be found between the two sides, if they can be called two sides. The two sides do not altogether understand each other. There is a degree of estrangement, and an argument between them over national and cultural issues. A problem of communication exists. One of the outstanding difficulties is the ’67 group’s lack of knowledge regarding the ’48 group. Encounters of this kind can make a small contribution to solving the problem."

High School Students Discuss Identity

On October 12th –13th the youth division of the SFP conducted a uni-national Arab workshop for tenth grade students from the Ort Ahva – Neora school. Youths from seven villages in the Jezreal Valley study in this regional school. The aim of the workshop was to give the participants an opportunity to explore issues related to their social identity. Twenty-seven boys and 18 girls took part.



Gender relations, women’s status and the attitude towards religion and religiosity were central themes in the workshop. One year ago the high school staff came to the conclusion that these sensitive subjects must be addressed as a part of the school program and that they require professional facilitation in a structured workshop. The school turned to the SFP. In addition to the above identity issues, relations are made even more complicated by competition between students from different villages. The facilitators found that they had to address dynamics of power relations between “strong” and “weak” villages.

The SFP staff decided to invest more energy in Arab uni-national workshops this year. Our decision comes in response to the large demand from Arab schools for such work. This workshop was a model for more to come. We hope to develop the field and contribute to raising awareness of social identity issues in Palestinian society in Israel.


SFP facilitators: Amjad Musa and Hind Abu al-Hija

A New Year of School for Peace Activities Officially Opens

School for Peace facilitators, members of the board, NS/WAS residents and guests gathered for a meeting held to mark the official opening of the 2003 – 2004 school year. Forty people attended the event. Senior staff members opened the meeting with reports on the progress of the different departments. This was followed with a lecture by Idith Zertal on her new book Ha’umma Vehamavet (Death and the Nation: History, Memory and Politics).

The following is an excerpt from the presentation by SFP director Nava Sonnenschein:

“I sat down and tried to write something that would celebrate the opening of a new year, but I found it difficult to find anything in our reality to celebrate. We live in a racist nation that denies three and a half million Palestinians the right to live, work, and breathe. It is a country that denies a Palestinian father the right to accompany his five-year old daughter to the Schneider Hospital in Israel where she is to undergo heart surgery. A faint light of optimism might have come from an Education Officer of the Israeli Army who expressed his concern for the moral implications of helicopter pilots killing families of Palestinian leaders along with the leaders themselves. Any hope that might come with such criticism fades away when he ends the interview by explaining that the Palestinians have always been the barbarians and we have always been morally superior.

As long as we remain imprisoned by power politics and victimization, we will never escape the circle of violence. As long as we hold on to and use images of the Arabs’ cruelty and barbaric behavior in order to justify our control of them, the peace that we long for will never arrive.

Signs of light can still be found. A group of air force pilots, coming from the heart of the Israeli consensus, declare that a red line exists and that they refuse to cross it. Another sign of light is the determination of those who sit here today to continue the work between Jews and Palestinians. People who have worked with us in the past have been approaching us with requests to return. It is not only the country’s economic situation that motivates them, but the drive to advance critical political education that may, in some way, contribute to change. Bassem has returned to us with a project proposal to advance community work. I’m happy to welcome Yael, Avigail and Hinad who are coming back to work with us. I especially want to welcome Omar who is joining the senior staff and Nada and Ruhele who will be coordinating the youth projects this year. I wish us all success.”


After Nava’s opening words the department directors presented their plans for the new year of activities.

Training and general adult programs:


In addition to what have become the standard SFP programs, we will begin two new projects this year.

Advanced Training Course – This course will be offered to graduates of past courses. It will address issues of group facilitation that arise in the participants’ field experience. The course will include discussion of theory and literature in the field of inter-group encounters. Work will also be done on developing skills involved in building projects based on equality.

Community Intervention – This year we plan on taking the initiative in using our experience to contribute to existing places of work in industry, educational projects and community work aimed at advancing social change. Until today we have done this kind of work primarily in response to approaches made to us by various organizations

Youth Projects

We are planning fifteen youth-encounter workshops based on our standard three-day model. There are also a few new developments in this department.

Uni-national work – The SFP has always conducted a number of uni-national youth workshops for Jewish and for Arab schools. Recently we have seen a growing demand from Arab schools for uni-national work so we will be giving preference to Arab schools in this year’s uni-national programs.

On-going Youth Project – We will conduct an on-going youth project with one Jewish and one Arab school. The project will involve a series of uni-national meetings with each group, leading to an encounter workshop between the two groups.

A Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam Youth Group – The NS/WAS secretariat turned to the SFP with a request to develop an on-going project for the Jewish and Arab youths of the community.



Women’s Programs

The women’s department will continue its programs in cooperation with the Tel-Aviv University. Additionally discussions are in progress with both the Ben-Gurion and Haifa Universities and we may be opening similar programs with these universities already this year.

Women and Men – We are developing a project for women and men on nation and gender. The project will begin with a workshop for an Arab group, followed by a workshop for a Jewish group. We will set a time for an encounter between the two groups at a later stage.

Think Tank – We will be creating a forum of Arab women who work in projects geared towards women’s empowerment. The objective is to give participants an opportunity to raise professional and theoretical issues that come up in their work.

Palestinian – Israeli Student Seminar

Since November 2002 we conducted seven encounter workshops for students from Palestine and Israel. We organized the workshops in cooperation with the “Ittihad Shabab Nablus”, or Nablus Youth Federation. Therefore most of the Palestinian participants were from Nablus. The Israeli students came from a number of universities. Some came to us through friends who had previously taken part in SFP workshops and some students learned about the workshops through our website. The seven workshops together reached approximately one hundred Palestinian and one hundred Israeli students.



We decided to hold a three-day seminar for all of these participants at the end of the summer of 2003. The goal of the seminar was to develop student leadership that would advance social and political change. Forty Palestinians and thirteen Israelis registered for the conference. With such an imbalance we decided to limit registration to twenty-three Palestinians despite our original intention of opening the meeting to everyone interested. The seminar took place in a hotel in East Jerusalem. Still, as in the workshops in NS/WAS, the Palestinians had to evade military checkpoints traveling illegally in order to attend. There was a period of tension as we waited to see if the Palestinian facilitators, without whom there would be no seminar, would succeed in getting through.

The program was made up of three components:

1. Examining expectations: Each group defined what they believed they could do and what they hoped to achieve through cooperation with the other group. Together they raised a number of suggestions and then divided into three groups. One group discussed the possibility of conducting “demonstrative dialogue encounters” at the Hawara military checkpoint near Nablus. Another group spoke of establishing a joint website through which they could continue their dialogue. The third group discussed steps that could be taken to raise awareness and protect the rights of Palestinian children.



2. Study: The students received a lecture from Dr. Mundar Dajani, from the department of political science at el-Kuds University, who presented his analysis of Palestinian – Israeli relations since the Oslo accords. They also received a lecture from Mika Minio from England and Kelly Burnflagel from the USA, two activists from the International Solidarity Movement who have spent recent months in Nablus.

3. Empowerment: The third component involved passing responsibility for the program to the participants themselves. The students chose a committee that would be responsible for preparing activity for the third day of the seminar. They chose to initiate a simulation game in which the Palestinians took the role of Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint, and the Israelis took the role of Palestinians. This turned out to be a significant experience for both sides. In discussions that they held afterwards one of the Israelis said, “I never felt so humiliated. The reality was so unclear and there was nothing we could do to influence it.”


Some of the Palestinians were startled by how quickly they got into the role of the occupier, and a few were embarrassed by it. A couple of Palestinians admitted that they enjoyed the power even if it was imaginary and part of a game. The importance of the activity for them was that they felt it was effective in getting their message to the Israelis.


In the past we conducted similar seminars in Nablus, Ramallah and Gaza, where the participants discussed ways that they could continue their work in both binational and uninational forums. Since the outbreak of the second Intifada this was the first seminar of its kind that we held for graduates of Palestinian – Israeli workshops. Feedback from participants indicates that it was an empowering experience. A number of Israeli participants said that they had left the first workshop feeling frustrated by the political situation and that this seminar gave them ideas, tools and motivation to act. A couple of the Israelis said that as far as they are concerned the full responsibility lies on their own shoulders and that the Palestinians cannot be expected to take action under the present circumstances.

The Palestinians also said that the dialogue with the Israelis was good and that they could feel that the Israelis came with a sincere desire to bring about change. However they also expressed concern that the practical steps, or projects, that were suggested might lead the Israelis to think that they, the Palestinians, are prepared to ignore the larger issues such as the release of prisoners, the return of refugees and a solution for Jerusalem.

At the end of the seminar the Israeli participants accompanied the Palestinians as far as they could in the direction of Nablus. They parted at the Hawara military checkpoint where the Palestinians, after perhaps a little less than the standard hassling, were allowed to go home. The Palestinian project coordinator traveled separately and was detained for two hours with 150 other Palestinians at a surprise checkpoint.

Vacation from War

The German Committee for Democracy and Basic Rights repeated its invitation to the SFP to send a Jewish – Palestinian group to Germany to participate in its “Vacation from War” program. The Committee conducts this program every summer for youths from areas of war, particularly from the Balkan region. The goal of the organizers is to provide an opportunity for enemies to spend two weeks under the same roof. The SFP sent a group in the summer of 2002 and we were happy to have the opportunity to send another group this summer together with the Nablus Youth Federation (NYF). This year’s group was made up of thirty seven youths. There were nineteen Palestinians from Nablus, six Israeli Palestinians and twelve Israeli Jews. They stayed together in Hurth (near Cologne), from August 17th to 31st.



The German program offers participants an enjoyable vacation. The SFP and NYF decided to combine the hosts’ program with dialogue work. The violence at home during this time was at its height and the dialogue was as complicated as it can be. The escalation of violence included attacks on Palestinian leaders, an attack on a bus in Jerusalem, and the return of the Israeli army into Nablus. Dialogue under these conditions is difficult even with adults. However we were impressed by the participants’ ability to listen to each other. The Palestinians spoke about their daily routine of life and death under the eyes of soldiers and tanks. The Jews managed to listen and to receive their first uncensored picture of life under occupation.

In their first meeting the facilitators invited the participants to describe their trip to Germany. The Palestinians spoke of the tension and bureaucracy involved in getting travel permits, what it means to pass through a military checkpoint, the Israeli armored car that accompanied them on their way out of town, their group leader who had to stay behind at the border crossing into Jordan and their trip alone to the airport in Amman. It was the first trip abroad for all of the Palestinian participants. Many of them had not been out of Nablus for three years. The Israelis listened with tremendous interest to the details of their story. It seemed that the most mundane details of their story were the most interesting to them.



The Palestinians then went on to speak of their traumatic experiences over the past two years. Several of them had volunteered in local first aid teams, exposing themselves to particular dangers, but feeling that they were active and taking initiative. It was difficult and sad to hear the degree of hatred among the Palestinian youths and their readiness to sacrifice their lives for liberation. The attitude towards suicide attacks was an essential point that differentiated them from the Palestinian Israelis in the group. Socially the two Palestinian groups bonded often leaving the Jewish Israeli group as a minority and making it difficult for them to hear the Palestinians and confront their accusations.

All of the discussions took place in Arabic and Hebrew and the structure of the workshop made it possible to conduct dialogue in different forums: Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians from Israel and Palestinians from Nablus, and each group separately. The different forums helped the participants to express themselves and to refine their understanding of the processes that they undergo as they acquire new knowledge and insight. In addition to dialogue work, the entire group took part in a simulation game in which they negotiated solutions to issues such as political prisoners, the refugee problem, Jerusalem, and Israel as a Jewish state.

The participants toured Germany, went together to an amusement park and conducted activities on cultural aspects of the encounter. They danced and prepared performances. Their decision to have an evening of Palestinian food and an evening of Jewish food showed how limiting it can be to draw borders between Jewish and Palestinian cultures in the Middle East-they all chose similar dishes. Their ability to jump from often hostile discussion to warm and lively social activity never ceases to surprise us.


The power of the encounter and dialogue remains with us. The Palestinians from Nablus had never before met Israelis who were not looking at them through the sites of rifles and tanks. They certainly never had the opportunity to speak about their experiences with Jews. The meeting required a great deal of maturity on the part of the Jewish participants. In the midst of discussion and stories about bodies, tanks and fighter planes, one of the saddest moments came when a Palestinian Israeli who asked the Palestinians from Nablus what hobbies they had. This innocent question was met with the longest silence in the workshop.


Project Staff

Coordinator: Omar Aghbaria (sfp) Majid Tabila (NYF)
SFP Facilitators: Eliana Almog, Nasrin Halaila and Tamar Sagi.

Arab – Jewish Youth Delegation to Germany

This year the SFP conducted an on-going project for graduates of the standard SFP high school youth encounter projects. Twelve Jews and twelve Arabs met each other regularly during this six-month project. A group of German educators took the initiative to raise funds and invite the group to Germany for a two - week visit in July. This report focuses specifically on their trip abroad.

During their trip the group met German youth with whom they toured the country together while conducting dialogue and various social activities. The SFP group was hosted by families in Barfstadt and Bandrandt. The aims of the activities and dialogue were to learn about the social and political reality of Germany and about the implications of the historical connections between the national groups. The German, Arab and Jewish participants learned a great deal about cultural differences regarding gender issues and the meeting between East and West. The political - historical discussion was as complicated as always, leaving us with questions that we have often addressed about how to conduct the history dialogue in the German – Jewish – Arab forum
.
The competition over public opinion was a central theme in the dynamics of the encounter. The German participants were often put in a position of serving as judges in one form or another, as they listened to the Jewish and Palestinian “cases”. This situation leads the Jewish and Palestinian participants to present more extreme positions in their discussions. The Germans learned something about the conflict and offered advice. It was not easy to put the Germans in any other role in the dialogue, despite the historical issues that exist between them and the Jewish group. Though the German – Jewish issues did not express themselves so much in their dialogue, they certainly existed in the structural sides of the program. The German hosts were more familiar with Jewish groups from Israel and they were accustomed to receiving them in their homes. The Germans often take an interest in Israel and Judaism and several of them spoke of their connection to the Jews. The hosts prepared a program that included a visit to a concentration camp. From past experience we know how emotionally charged these visits can be in the framework of an encounter program, and the presence of the Germans did not make it easier. A number of the Arab participants did not take part in the visit. It was one of several instances in which one of the three parties remained “outside”. This time the German group shared thoughts and feelings about their heritage. Some were angry at the expectation that they should feel any guilt about their grandparents’ behavior, while others expressed feelings of guilt and even anxiety at the thought that their families may have been involved in crime
.

Despite the weight of the issues, the facilitators reported that in the informal segments of the program it was clear that the participants bonded, enjoyed their time together and that the experience was a very significant one. The SFP staff will be devoting more discussion to the significance of the three-party encounter, its problems and advantages.

We would like to thank the German staff – Gabi Kanol , Magdalia Krompfholz and Gerdt Braun - who initiated and organized the program, as well as all the families who so generously hosted the SFP group during their stay in Germany.

Nada Mata and Yuval Tamari coordinated the project on the part of the SFP. The facilitators were Sa’ida Zo’obi, Hatem Darawshe, Liron Tal Aloni, Maya Rabia and Anat Brandt. Eitan Bronstein and Wafa Srur accompanied the project as directors of the SFP Youth Division.

The Negev Women’s Coalition

The SFP was invited to accompany the “Ma’an” project, a project aimed at examining ways to build a coalition of Bedouin women’s organizations in the Negev. The idea of a coalition came about in order to address a number of issues common to all Bedouin women’s organizations. These issues include the struggle against polygamy, the struggle against violence towards women, and specifically against the legitimacy of murdering women on the grounds of “protecting family honor”.



The program with the SFP was made up of seven meetings, including two weekend meetings in NS/WAS and one weekend meeting in Jordan. Fifteen Bedouin women from the Negev took part in the project. All of the participants were active in a variety of women’s projects in the Negev. The women in the group came from different socio – economic and academic backgrounds. Some of the participants had an academic background and some came without any higher education. The participants’ variety of experiences enriched the dialogue. A major theme in the discussions was how to apply feminist thought in the conditions in which Bedouin women in the Negev must live.

The meeting in Jordan took place on July 17th – 19th. It was the final meeting of the program and its aim was to summarize the project and draw up a joint charter. The participants had a particularly interesting meeting with Amana Zo’abi, chairwoman of the Jordanian Women’s Union, and with Hanan Banat, the union’s legal consultant. The Jordanian Women’s Union is a well-established and independent organization of Jordanian women numbering ten thousand members. The SFP group learned about ways in which they conduct their struggle to improve the status and welfare of women in Jordan. The speakers also presented strategies of building an organization of such a size. There was discussion of questions common to women’s organizations in Jordan and Israel, such as whether to remain an independent pressure group or organize a political party.

It was clear to the Bedouin Palestinians from Israel that organizing a political party was, for them, out of the question. It would mean cooperating with Jewish women and to some extent downplaying the national conflict. However it was not clear to them what the problem was on the Jordanian side where there was a more homogeneous society. They learned about the difficulties that the Jordanian women face in their struggle despite their apparent advantage.

In combining lectures from the academic field with a dialogue workshop geared towards personal and organizational development, the program proved to be effective in providing the participants with a framework to examine their work and goals.

Arab Women’s Leadership Development ‘Nisan‘

Many organizations in recent years have turned to the SFP with requests to work on Jewish – Arab issues that arise in their work. These are often organizations that have a social or educational agenda and that find themselves running into issues of national identity that they do not know how to deal with. The SFP Department for Women’s Projects responded to a request from the “Nisan Association” to conduct a workshop for participants of its leadership course for women high school students. On July 8th, 03, fifteen Arab students from Kfar Qassem came to NS/WAS to take part in the workshop. The aim of the workshop was to encourage the participants to examine their national identity. They addressed their status as young Arab women in society, their attitudes toward the State and the roles they might play in bringing about change. In summarizing the workshop participants reported that they had never before had the opportunity to address questions of their national identity in such a setting. The Israeli educational system certainly does not encourage Arab pupils to broach these questions in school. In general the programs offered to develop women’s awareness and empowerment tend to focus on the personal level and to push aside questions of social and national identity. The Nisan association is unique insofar as it addresses the social and political context when discussing women’s empowerment. This approach makes it natural for such an organization to cooperate with the School for Peace.



The participants were surprised and encouraged by the power they found in their group work. They expressed this feeling in several of their concluding remarks:

• “I leave here with the feeling that the oppression we experience as an Arab minority overlaps the oppression we experience as Arab women from men.”
• “I feel that I do not belong here - that this is not my country and that makes me feel bad.”
• “Today I made a great effort to think about things that I usually evade – like my role as a woman in my family and how that compares with the place that my brother has.”
• “I think that full equality is still a long way off, but I’m not giving up the fight. I feel that I have gained a lot of strength from many different sources, especially from the Nisan group.”

Completion of the “Jaffa” Facilitator – Training Course

The SFP cooperated with the Tel – Aviv University’s School for Social Work to conduct a facilitator-training course for participants with a variety of relevant professions in Jaffa. Five Arabs and nine Jews took part in this course that ran from October 2001 to June 2003. The participants included teachers, psychologists, probation officers and social workers. These are people who either work on Arab – Jewish staffs or they conduct work that serves a mixed Jewish – Arab population.

The SFP conducted the first part of the course as it conducts most of it courses. This part includes dialogue work, guided observation of Jewish – Arab student dialogue groups, peer facilitating and lectures on various issues of facilitating groups in conflict. In this particular course we added a lecture on Jewish – Arab relations in mixed cities.



The second part of the course was geared towards creating and facilitating a community project. In the original program of the course the participants were to work in pairs and initiate Jewish – Arab programs. However the political atmosphere in the wake of the intifada made it particularly difficult to initiate new dialogue groups in Jaffa. The overriding tendency was to handle Jewish – Arab tension in the city by ignoring it and by just trying to get back to business. The course directors and participants worked together to come up with ideas for projects within a variety of existing organizational frameworks in Jaffa.

These projects included:

• Dialogue work with Jews and Arabs who have a criminal record.
• Work with Jewish and Arab women in the field of child care.
• A Jewish – Arab women’s empowerment program.
• Work with Jewish youth on multi-culturalism.
• Intervention in a classroom of a Jewish primary school in which 20% of the pupils are Arab.
• Work on empowering the social identity of Arab youth.

Palestinian – Israeli Student Encounter

On the weekend of June 26 – 28 the SFP and the Ittihad Shabab Nablus conducted a student encounter between fourteen Israeli and twelve Palestinian university students. This is the sixth encounter that we have conducted this year between Palestinian students from the en-Najah and Bir Zeit Universities and Israeli students from a number of different institutions. The Palestinian participants came on back roads without entry permits into Israel. This involves both physical effort and great personal risk, once again demonstrating their determination to make their situation known and to arrive at a solution.

The workshop consisted of dialogue sessions and a simulation game. The Palestinian participants were the first to discuss the routine of suffering that they must endure under occupation. The Israelis responded saying that they too are suffering. On the third day of the workshop we conducted a simulation game in which the participants conducted negotiations on: sovereignty over Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements, Palestinian prisoners, and Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders. The negotiations were difficult and did not always lead to agreement

.

• On the issue of Jerusalem disagreement remained between Israelis who wanted to share government of the city and Palestinians who wanted to divide it.

• It was agreed that no Jewish settlers would remain in the Palestinian state. There may be an exchange of territories in order to enable a fair division of land between the states without necessarily dismantling the larger neighborhoods.

• Regarding refugees it was agreed that Israel would acknowledge the Palestinian right of return, but that this right would be realized in a number of ways. The solution could include compensation and the allotment of land from Israel, to be given to the Palestinian State, upon which a city for returning refugees would be built.

• It was agreed to release the Palestinian prisoners, while sending Israelis and Palestinians suspected of war crimes to an international court where they would be tried and sentenced. Palestinians would serve their sentences in Israeli prisons and Israelis would serve their sentences in Palestinian prisons.

• It was also agreed to put an end to Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders.

The facilitators for this encounter were: Yael Eidan and Youval Tamari from the SFP Majed Tbelee and Mahayoub Abu Rwis from the Ittihad Shabab Nablus.

Maya Rabie of the SFP served as translator.

The end of the school year

On Wednesday, June 18th, we gathered to celebrate the end of the school year. Nava gave a talk summarizing the broad scope of activities conducted in the framework of the youth and adult programs. She spoke about developments in the research center and about the opening of our website. It was announced that Wafaa will be leaving her position as director of the youth programs and will begin to focus all of her time on developing the women’s programs.

Nava’s presentation was followed by a fascinating report by Ariella Friedman, a member of the SFP board of directors. Ariella recently returned from South Africa where she was part of a delegation of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who met senior members of the ANC. The ANC members described the process that they underwent in establishing a democratic regime. Ariella raised a number of points that particularly impressed her. She learned that the Blacks displayed a great deal of generosity toward the Whites. It was encouraging to learn that two years before the change of regime in South Africa, no one seriously considered that a solution or any change at all was on the horizon. Yet the ANC, even during the darkest periods of despair, maintained an ongoing dialogue about the model that they plan on using in establishing a new state. Various committees were responsible for different questions such as: what will happen to the Whites and to their capital, and how will they handle general elections. Gender relations in government were also addressed. This kind of dialogue does not exist in Israeli society at large, however it is precisely the kind of dialogue that we hold in simulation games during SFP workshops. It appears that beyond raising the participants’ awareness, this activity can be of real value in building a just society for the future.



After Ariella, Wafaa presented the ideological foundation of her work in the women’s program. She spoke against the kind of feminism that ignores the national and class context of the struggle. Wafaa stressed the need to develop a feminist approach that takes the Palestinian cause into account. She stated that she has neither the desire nor the ability to cooperate with Jewish women who do not take a clear stand against oppression of the Palestinian people. Wafaa spoke about the different women’s groups that she worked with, including women with an academic background and women from the weaker social strata. In all of these groups the demand from the Palestinian women was the same. It was a demand for nothing less than all-encompassing solidarity against oppression whether it is on the basis of gender or nation.

Nava shared some of her findings from research that she is conducting on processes that the Jewish group undergoes in the Jewish – Palestinian encounter. In her talk she addressed patterns of condescending behavior that characterize the Jewish group in their relations with Arabs during the initial stages of the encounter. This is expressed in a number of ways. As a whole, the Jewish group begins the encounter with the assumption that their group members come from a higher cultural level, that they are advocates of peace while the Arabs educate their children towards violence, and that they, the Jews, are more mature in their behavior. Nava described the change that the Jewish participants undergo as they begin to reach the conclusion that they are not as different as they at first assumed. They become aware that condescension is a tool that they use particularly when they are pressured or feel cornered by the Arabs.

Michal shared some thoughts about changes that she sees in her own identity. She presented the stage identified by Helms in which members from the dominant group cooperate with members of the subordinate group in order to fight against racism and injustice. One thing she mentioned was the fact that at this stage there are fewer moral dilemmas and feelings of guilt, as we know exist many times in members of the dominant group who encounter the unjust reality. The cooperative work, she said, gives immense satisfaction and strengh.



Finally Ahmad and Michal distributed certificates to the graduates of the 2002 Facilitator – Training Course.



After dinner we met again to hear a lecture by Rafiq Halabi from the Israeli television. Rafiq Halabi was the head of the news division for over five years. Rafiq spoke about the Israeli media and the way they handle the Jewish – Arab conflict. During the course of the lecture Rafiq presented a very discouraging picture of the media’s insensitivity and lack of professional standards. He described the partially successful struggle over terminology used in the news broadcasts.

But he went on to stress that the question of whether to speak of “Occupied Territories” or “Judea and Samaria” is just the surface of a much deeper problem of racism. The media exercises a large degree of self-censorship out of loyalty to the state. The absence of serious self-criticism creates media that serve the state even without interference from above.

Inservice Training for the Staff of the Nir School Project

On June 15th the SFP conducted inservice training for the staff of the Nir School Project. The Nir School Project brings together youths from the Middle East for medical study of the heart. The project staff confronts serious challenges in its attempt to advance scientific study together with members of national groups that are in a conflict situation.



The SFP training aimed at examining relations between Jews and Arabs on the project staff. The staff consists of Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Israelis, Palestinians from Palestine, a German and a Jordanian. Three of the ten staff members are graduates of the SFP Facilitator – Training Course. The group addressed educational issues that they confront in their work.
The SFP facilitators were: Omar Igbhariya and Eitan Bronstien

A Jewish – Arab project in the Achva College

The School for Peace developed a project aimed at improving Jewish – Arab relations on a college campus by bringing together Jewish and Arab students to draw up a joint charter regarding their issues and interests. Eitan Bronstein and Nada Meta coordinated the project.

Achva was the first college to invite the SFP to conduct the project. The dean of the college, adopted the idea and helped to find the students who would participate. In the first part of our program the students were to reach an understanding about the problems in the college, and their second task was to draw a charter that will be publicized and delivered as an official document to the college directors.


1. The First Workshop. May 21-22, 2003

The first workshop took place in Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam. Eight Arab and three Jewish students took part. After making their initial acquaintance with each other the participants entered into a stormy political argument about events in the occupied territories, the actions of the IDF, the War of 1948, and the right of return.

Activities of the second day made this workshop unique. For years the SFP has been conducting simulation games in order to negotiate a variety of issues in its encounter projects. These negotiations have great educational value, but the agreement or disagreement of the groups do not generally have direct consequences on the lives of the participants after they leave the workshop. In this project the negotiations were about practical steps that the students were to take on campus, and the discussions were particularly sensitive and pressured. The Arab group had an interest in improving the conditions under which they had to function on campus, and they had many demands about what needed to be changed. The Jewish group seemed to understand the problems and they agreed in principle about the need to change certain regulations on campus that were harmful to the Arabs. The arguments between the Jews and Arabs in the group were primarily over the way in which they would advance their demands in the college. When the participants began to summarize their issues in writing, the Jews wrote in general terms about things that should be changed on campus and they hardly referred to the problems as issues that Arabs in particular suffer from. As the work proceeded, the Arab group began to demand that their issues be defined more clearly. The Jews in the group wanted to avoid any kind of paper that could be interpreted as an accusation, claiming that it would not only be ineffective, but would also turn Jewish students against them. Other Jews on campus may claim that the Arabs should be grateful that they even attend the college.

The Jews in the group found themselves in a position in which they would have to confront the other Jews on campus and tell them that there are discriminatory policies that must be changed. That was not a position that they were quick to accept.

The facilitators suggested that the participants postpone their writing for the next meeting, but the group insisted on drawing up a paper that they could use to invite additional students to a meeting to be held on the campus.




A Meeting on Campus. June 1st, 2003

In the second meeting it was decided to produce a paper in which clear detailed demands were to be laid out regarding what was needed to improve conditions on campus for Arab students. The paper was to be sent to the school directors with a request to hold a meeting with them about their demands. It was also decided to establish a Jewish – Arab student forum that would advance dialogue between the two groups.

The paper that was distributed was written in Arabic on one side and Hebrew on the other. The text was as follows:


To the Student Body of the Achva College!!!

On May 20 –21, 2003 a group of Jewish and Arab students of the Achva College took part in a seminar of the School for Peace in Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam. General subjects were raised in the seminar and afterwards we focused on the situation in the college. The discussions were conducted in a good atmosphere with genuine cooperation and mutual respect. The goals of the seminar were to enable us to become acquainted with each other and to reach understanding between the groups. By the end of the seminar the groups felt that the goals were reached. The Arab group in particular raised a number of specific subjects that gained the Jewish group’s understanding and acknowledgement.

The participants made a decision to establish a Jewish – Arab forum in the Achva College with the goal of advancing understanding between Jews and Arabs and serving as a body that will seek solutions to problems that have arisen and that are likely to arise between the two groups. Some of the issues that came up for discussion are as follows:

•1 A lack of learning aids in the Arabic language (computer keyboards, textbooks etc.)
•2 A lack of representation in the college administration making communication difficult regarding matters of consultation, tuition fees, library facilities etc..

•3 The need to add Arabic to the signs on campus.
•4 The need to work towards the Jews’ understanding of Arabs in the college as equal citizens of the State entitled to equal rights.
•5 Understanding and consideration of customs in the Arab tradition.

In the coming school year the Arab – Jewish Forum will be open for a broad membership of interested students.

The Second Meeting on Campus. June 24th, 2003

Dean Yonatan Fein and representatives of the college administration met with the newly established Jewish – Arab forum. The response to the paper came primarily through Dean Fein voicing the opinion of the rest of the administration. While Fein himself initially responded positively to the paper, his colleagues felt threatened by what appeared to be a political organization on campus distributing Arabic pamphlets and inciting the students. There had been student unrest before and this initiative looked like something that would aggravate the situation. We suggested that steps taken to respond to these demands were likely to defuse some of the tension. We were told that even though the dean supports the ideas, it is difficult to introduce change and that they do not have the budget to enlarge the staff in order to employ people who speak Arabic. The administration even saw the addition of Arabic on the public signs as something threatening. One of the Jewish students stood up to their claims and agreed that some students will feel threatened at first. But then they’ll get used to it. The students’ arguments reaffirmed the dean‘s initial reaction to the paper and he asked the forum to draw up a more detailed proposal prior to the next meeting. He asked the students to come with information on the number of Arabic computer keyboards needed and with some concrete suggestions about how to improve services for Arab students. The students scheduled a meeting of the forum for that purpose.



Second Meeting in Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam. Dec. 19 – 20, 2003

The SFP conducted a final encounter in order to help the group reexamine their goals and objectives. Organizing the encounter was not simple because it fell one day after elections for the student council. The group included members of the competing student parties as well as the new council president himself. The participation of the student leaders ensured that the legitimacy to bring about change was no longer dependent solely upon the college administration.


On the second day of the workshop the participants discussed the kind of action that might be taken on campus. Arabic keyboards had in the meantime been provided for the school computers after one of the Jewish students submitted a request for them, so there were some signs of progress as a result of the initiative. The larger demands still laid ahead of the group. The SFP has conducted many workshops aimed at advancing various kinds of initiatives between the participants, and our experience has shown that the groups often get carried away with ideas that they do not really have the energy, skills or motivation to implement. In the case of this student group we saw it as essential that they establish and maintain channels of communication and plan their activities with reasonable expectations. There is always a possibility that the Arab students will leave such a process disappointed and be left alone to confront the college administration, while the Jewish participants will not be committed enough to struggle for major changes. The Arabs expressed concern about the price they might pay in their student and future professional careers. The group focused their discussion on the goals and activities of the Jewish – Arab Forum. The following goals were established:

2. To break down prejudice and stereotypes that Jews and Arabs have about each other.
3. To strengthen social contact between Jews and Arabs on campus.
3. To raise the Jews‘ awareness of the problems that Arabs face on campus.
4. To make the existence of the Jewish – Arab forum known on campus.

This was a new and experimental project for us. We do not usually conduct work with such immediate practical applications. Still the project was limited in scope. The work required in bringing Jews and Arabs to cooperate on a basis of true equality involves a process much longer than the one that we were able to facilitate in this case. Yet as short as it was, the process that they underwent had its influence on the participants‘ awareness. It is already a significant step when we see that in running their campaigns for the student council, the competing parties for the first time took the trouble to translate into Arabic their papers, slogans and whatever they wrote on their T-shirts.

Openening a new facilitator training course

On Thursday, June 6th, we opened a new Facilitator – Training Course. This will be the thirteenth course that we conduct in this format. Seven Arabs (three men and four women) and eight Jews (four women and four men) take part in the course. The course begins with eight weekly over-night meetings, totaling eight hours per meeting. The meetings are based on discussion of Jewish – Arab relations. This part of the course is facilitated by Wafaa Zriek Srour and Michal Zak.



A film crew is accompanying this year’s course in order to produce a documentary film that describes the SFP work approach. The crew will film four meetings. Ilham Shibli is directing the film.

On-Going Youth Encounter

The SFP conducted an on-going youth encounter program between February and May, 2003. Thirty-two Jewish and Palestinian Israelis took part in the program which was made up of four weekend workshops. The participants were all graduates of standard SFP youth encounter workshops. Staff members interviewed interested students and formed the two groups in cooperation with their teachers. We chose students who appeared to be highly motivated and responsible. Though it was easier to find Arabs for the project we succeeded in registering sixteen Jews and sixteen Arabs.


As in all of our youth encounter workshops, the objectives of the project were to deepen understanding of the complexities of Jewish – Arab relations, to encourage the development of personal relations between the participants and to gain familiarity with cultural and political issues concerning the two groups. This project had the additional objective of encouraging the participants to become socially and politically involved in their communities. The standard three – day youth encounter workshop does not provide an adequate framework for discussion of practical steps that participants might take in their home environment. The on-going youth encounter enabled us to explore new channels of work.

The first weekend focused on the inter-personal meeting, giving the group an opportunity to bond. The second meeting focused on the Palestinian narrative of the 1948 War. The participants received a lecture by Dan Yahav on the Israeli military ethos. They toured the remains of three Palestinian villages destroyed in the 1967 War: Yalu, Emmaus and Beit Nuba. They also saw the film “Hatiul Hapnimi” (An Internal Trip). We found that we had overloaded the program, giving rise to a number of problems. The lecture may have been counter productive, silencing the young Arab participants as they listened to a Jewish authority figure who could formulate the Arabs’ claims better than they could. The program awakened antagonism on the part of the Jewish participants who saw the program as hostile and one-sided.

The third meeting was to focus on the Israeli narrative, but it did little to diminish the Jews’ resistance to the program. The participants watched an episode from the Israeli television documentary “Tkuma”, a program which in itself is critical of the conventional Israeli narrative. This meeting included work in small uni-national groups in which the participants began to plan community projects.

In the fourth meeting the participants reported on their projects. One Arab group had initiated a tour of the remains of Safuriyya, a village destroyed in 1948. Other groups presented plans of programs that they had not yet carried out.



Some of our expectations may not have been appropriate for a youth project, and we will be using this experience to reevaluate further programs of this kind. Towards the end of the program the participants began to prepare for a joint trip to Germany which, with all its complexities, was a successful experience (see the report on the Arab-Jewish Delegation to Germany).

Over the years there were a number of times in which we conducted long-term youth encounters. The standard three – day workshop often leaves us with the feeling that there is so much more that we could do if only we had the time. The participants also express interest in spending more time together and in continuing their discussions. It turns out that the task of maintaining an on-going dialogue group with youth on issues of conflict is not easy, it is also different from our experience with adults.
One can create a program based on social activities and fun, but to combine that with discussion-groups on something as hard and painful as our conflict, is an educational task, which needs to be explored further. One thing was clear, the young people in this program were highly motivated; they didn’t miss the meetings, even when the tension was high-they were definitely very responsible and determined to try and make things work .

Project staff


Coordinators: Yuval Tamari and Nada Mata.
Facilitators: Amjad Musa and Anat Brandt.

Workshop for the primary school in NSWAS

We are happy to announce that on May 15 this year, we began a workshop with the primary school in NSWAS. The first aim of the project is to identify the existing patterns of Jewish – Arab relations in the school and to gain an understanding of the ideological implications of these relations. The staff will learn about various aspects of social identities and work towards developing a pedagogical discourse that will serve as a basis for work in the school’s curriculum development.



Ahmad and Michal coordinate the project which began with a three-day weekend workshop in Nazareth. Ten Jewish and nine Arab teachers from the NS/WAS Kindergarten and Primary School took part in the workshop. Nava and Omar joined Ahmad and Michal to facilitate the dialogue in two groups. Most of the dialogue was conducted in the small mixed group forum. Work was also conducted in the uni-national and large group forums. In addition to the dialogue work the group received a lecture by Rabah Halabi on the stage model of ethnic identity construction.

Over the past years there has been surprisingly little cooperation between the Primary School and School for Peace. The school’s decision – makers in the past had had reservations about using the SFP approach to gain an understanding of Jewish – Arab relations in the school. However when the idea of the project was introduced this year it was received with overwhelming support by the school staff. In the summary session of the workshop every teacher, without exception, spoke of the significance of the experience and of the importance of continuing. Further work is in the planning.