To return to the new Peace Now website click here.

Peace Now Dialogue Seminar - Comments from Warren Spielberg, PhD

Dr. Spielberg was a consultant/ observer and provides background and a first-hand account

At a Peace Now Israeli-Palestinian dialogue program
See VIDEO highlights from the Seminar

from Warren Spielberg PhD
Lic Clinical Psychologist
New School University

On August 30- September 2, I was fortunate to serve as a consultant/observer at a Peace Now sponsored dialogue seminar between Israeli and Palestinian young adults held at Givat Haviva in northern Israel. The event has been meticulously planned for months by very able Israeli and Palestinian organizers who were both passionate and thoughtful in their work. It is the third such dialogue program that has occurred since last December.

Since the second Intifada it has been difficult to arrange such events across the borders, and such events must be most applauded and admired. In contrast, during the nineteen nineties, Peace Now youth seminars and dialogues were abundant with dozens of dialogue groups in every major Israelis and Palestinian city. The fact that the program has been rekindled is a wonderful achievement and a testament to the perseverance of Peace Now.

The primary goal of the Youth Dialogue Project is to build a new generation of leaders and citizens who are well versed in the dynamics of the conflict, who understand its history and underpinning, and who are able and willing to learn the other side's perspective of the conflict. During the seminar, participants worked on solving various obstacles and challenges to a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians. For example participants tackled the challenge of water sharing between Israel and Palestine, the creation of a contiguous connection between Gaza and the West Bank, the problem of settlement dismantlement, how the dehumanization of the "other" can be prevented and addressed in both cultures and how religion can be used to promote moderation and peace. Eight other obstacles have addressed during the course of the year including the challenge posed by the refugee problem and the right to return. The innovative solutions that the group has developed will be turned into a Peace Document that will be given to representatives of the quartet when they meet in November in Washington, DC.

In order to accomplish this major task, the seminar utilizes many mini workshops that are geared to both emotional/experiential and political learning. The intelligent and well thought-out format reflects a built in appreciation of the psychological nature of this seemingly-intractable conflict. Such mini-workshop sessions included cultural icebreakers, stereotype sessions, and the sharing of musical and dance traditions (an evening of Palestinian drumming brought the group together).

The group on stereotypes was extremely powerful. For Ahmad the face of the Israeli is "the soldier who beats a three year old at a checkpoint." For the Israeli Anat, a Palestinian is someone "who supports suicide bombers as heroes" Both groups are offended by the characterizations. Their fear of the other paralyzes their thinking just like many of the politicians who have failed to successfully negotiate this conflict. Yet after positive exposure, when they leave one another they are freer to think in a third way, one that includes their fears but also offers new possibilities. Ahmad says "the enemy has a new face; one that can also show compassion for me and my people." Even though he "hates the checkpoints and resents the soldiers who man them" he now imagines a different Israeli with whom he can talk. For many, despite their geographic proximity, this is the first time that many have really spoken with their neighbor.

Both Israeli and Palestinian participants reported a greater understanding of the conflict and demonstrate creativity in solving obstacles. Boris, a Russian immigrant, and Bassam, a Palestinian from Hebron, spent hours together one night, discussing the conflict. Bassam reported that "he understood more what Israelis feel given their history." Boris, a labor union official, felt similarly and began to think of ways that Palestinian and Israeli workers could become "united in joint economic projects".

But other, more informal, goals are met as well. The participants gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the conflict as well as their own biased participation in it. A group to which I consulted got stuck over the challenge of finding a way to use religion as a positive force to moderate the conflict. An Israeli young man charges: "there is nothing moderate in Islam. You advocate jihad." Fadi, a Palestinian, responds: "jihad is a spiritual notion that involves self-development and the fight for freedom." "Death is rewarded in Islam. It is a religion of destruction," another Israeli remarks. A Palestinian responds, "you Jews are so afraid of death. We view it without fear." And so it goes as both groups echo the stereotypes and the defensive reactions of their parents and their grandparents.

The impasse so presented reflects the kinds of "enactments" that occur between people and groups. Enactment is a term borrowed from the language of psychoanalysis. It refers to perpetuating, dysfunctional interactions that have an unconscious dimension. Race and culture as sensitive issues, are readily involved in enactments. Enactments undermine true dialogue. In the case cited above, we a see a primitive competition, one that involves a regression to ancestral identity and a reliance on old narratives and frozen media representations. This demonizing of the other leads to impasse and to growing hostility between the two groups. The hostility catches everyone in its net, even those who see themselves on the "left."

As the consultant I observe that this group is at an impasse which mirrors the current struggle between the world of Islam and the west. "Can you help us?" asks a young Israeli. "No. I'm afraid I can't, but there are religious people around the world researching texts that promote peace. Maybe the group can come up with their own ideas," I replied. And this is what they did after more struggle. The Palestinians offered the concept of the Hudna, an Islamic truce which Hamas has offered in the past. The Israelis come up with an older reference in the Bible. "And God gave the land of Canaan to the children of Moses to live in peace with the inhabitants within," suggests the Israeli Yael, adding "we can begin with that as we talk with the religious."

Perhaps there is no greater measure of the Project than what the participants will do with their experience. The great success of the Dialogue is that it produces peace emissaries who go back to their community and present new solutions to the conflict and a different face of the enemy. For Bassam, a teacher, "this will mean talking to my students about the Israelis, talking to friends and relatives who have witnessed and think only the negative about Israelis." Majdi, a Palestinian pharmacist, will work in Jenin to get more Palestinians involved with the moderate youth movement of the Palestinian Authority. Sami, an Israeli who has more conservative views and who was initially skeptical of coming to the dialogue, leaves with a continuing willingness to engage despite the tensions of the dialogue. "It was a difficult dialogue for me. It is not for nothing that we have a Barrier Wall; it protects us from them. I tell the Palestinians this, but at least I can see their lives better and their hopelessness. I see some here I can talk with."

As I leave the weekend I learn that there are dozens more Palestinians and Israelis who were unable to attend because of the lack of space. The Israelis come despite their fears and guilt. The Palestinians chosen must face weeks of scrutiny by the IDF and the Israeli General Security Service before allowed entrance to Israel. Given this reality -- the trauma and oppression, the fears on both sides, the checkpoints -- one wonders: why do they come at all?

The answer I believe, resides in our own nature. There is in all of us both a fear and a yearning for the other. The fear of the other is rooted in that early terror we call stranger anxiety, which appears when we are infants. However we also develop a reservoir of good feeling which we store away for safekeeping. This becomes the forerunner of the search for allies.

The Peace Now Dialogue Project, provides a space where both forces can meet, and a third way of seeing can develop, where both the destructive aspects of the conflict can be modulated. As Majid remarked to me: "We are living in a fierce war, an ideological one of images. We must really look to the other side for both of us to win this war, to find our humanity, to see that the enemy is not all bad. I came to the weekend to see the compassion of my enemy," he says. "I was not disappointed."


See VIDEO highlights from the Seminar