Israel Spring 2009

Dialogue workshops in Israel

Chassia Chomsky-Porat and Kher Albaz

Peki'in Group Showing Confident Progress through Action Oriented Dialogue

by Chassia Chomsky-Porat and Jabir Asaqla , ICfC Trainers in Israel

Last spring ICfC launched a dialogue project in Peki'in, replicating the methodology of our long-term dialogue in the Jewish-Arab community of Yaad and Miaar in Galilee. As in all ICfC trainings, the goal for the Pekiin group was not only dialogue for its own sake, but action oriented dialogue that transforms both the sense of community as well as the actual environment in which it can flourish and improve the lives of all of its citizens.

Meetings are now well underway. The participants are very committed. The group, made up of an equal number of Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab leaders, is surfacing from the eruption of violence that had threatened its successful integration in past years. Its members meet once a month, to review their past and envision their future. They continuously feel more empowered and confident in their abilities and skills in developing, running, and managing projects on their own.

One of the primary goals of the participants has been to raise positive awareness of Pekiin and restore its previous reputation as a peacefully pluralistic community and a major tourist attraction of Western Galilee. This status was lost when riots broke out in late 2007. Residents of Pekiin, led by ICfC dialogue participants, are now planning cultural events that will focus on Pekiin and its surroundings. Early this month participants invited an expert in initiating regional theme festivals. He is helping the community conceptualize and plan, fundraise, and manage future events.

Obstacles to renewing and strengthening the bonds and spirit of cooperation in this diverse community remain. For Pekiin to inspire reconciliation of the conflicts between Jews and Arabs in the larger society rather than to actually replicate that conflict in its own community, its leaders must choose activities that will enlist and engage the fullest participation of its Jewish and Arab citizens from day one. The group, therefore, has decided to dedicate the next meeting (May 2, 2009) to review the pros and cons of a variety of activities. The meeting will also provide an opportunity for residents to discuss and process their fears relating to the project – fears of being manipulated, on the one hand, and fears of not succeeding in their task, on the other.

Dialogue leaders Chassia Chomsky-Porat and Jabir Asaqla

Arab-Jewish Partnership Building Workshops at NISPED:

March, 2009

Well-respected trainer and Senior Fellow of the International Center for Conciliation (ICfC), Kher Albaz is a Bedouin activist and social welfare policy planner. Albaz is representing the Center in helping an Israeli peace and community development organization repair relations among Arab and Jewish staff members after the recent war in Gaza brought out serious tensions within the workspace. ICfC has special interest in this project as a microcosm model of greater Israeli Arab-Jewish conflicts, and was able to take on the intervention thanks to funding from the Daniel and Joanna Rose Foundation.

NISPED (the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development) is a diverse group of Israelis seeking to promote peace and development with an impressive record of years of success. However, even these dedicated peacemakers are susceptible to the pressures of identity based conflicts. With the 2009 war in Gaza and the bombings in Shederot, the diverse staff of NISPED found their ability to work as a group was threatened. Serious tensions surfaced among the NISPED staff, specifically between Arabs and Jews, but also within each group separately. In light of these tensions, the Arab and Jewish co-executive directors initially decided to convene a meeting, without an outside facilitator, of all the staff members while the war was still going on.

The meeting was extremely difficult; some of the things said shocked the participants and actually increased tensions, making it difficult for the staff to resume working together as before. The first meeting led to a series of uni-national meetings: two additional separate meetings for the Arab staff, and one additional meeting for the Jewish staff.

Following a consultation with Kher Albaz, representing ICfC, the co-directors decided it was essential to continue the process, but this time with Arab and Jewish professional facilitators who had expertise in the field of Jewish-Arab relations. Dr. Ariela Bairey-Ben Ishay, another friend of ICfC, and Dr. Elias Zeidan were contracted to conduct the workshops.

The co-directors outlined the following goals for the facilitators:

1. Healing the rifts among the staff;

2. Building channels of communication between the staff;

3. Discussing the organization's vision of shared citizenship and Jewish-Arab partnerships based on the organization's founding documents;

4. Examining areas of consensus/agreement: where is agreement essential, where is it possible, and where is it not possible.

The first workshop sessions were held for two days, on February 11 and 12, just three weeks after the war in Gaza ended. The second workshop took place on March 19. Subsequent workshops are presently being planned.

At the start, many participants voiced apprehension about the subjects that would be raised during the workshop. Some of the participants expressed doubts as to whether they themselves or their colleagues were still capable of realizing the organization's goals in the face of such outside pressures. Many felt there was a broad disparity between the Jewish and Arab staff members. An additional challenge was the wide differences in age and experience within the entire staff. Despite these fears, all of the staff members expressed great willingness to participate in the meetings. The hope was to improve the general feeling and come away with constructive tools that would enable staff to work together in spite of inevitable differences.

After the workshops, Albaz observed that the staff “no longer felt alone in dealing with their feelings regarding the war, in a highly complex working environment as a mixed Jewish/Arab staff. The major change is moving from being individuals feeling uncomfortable around each other to "us" trying to deal with this very difficult situation. ”Both groups expressed a deep interest in continuing these dialogues. They experienced its value in sustaining their professional skills and motives in the difficult work of strengthening interactions, on both an organizational basis and personal basis, between Jews and Arabs.