I'm back from the peace education conference. I'm a bit wiped out right now from all of the workshops so I'll have to do my main report tomorrow, but my gut reactions:
1. I enjoyed meeting all of the Israeli peace educators. This wasn't really an activist oriented conference, so it got a little frustrating at times for me, but it was nice to get a chance to meet people on the other side of the Green Line who are trying to do work in their communities and with Palestinians to lay the groundwork for peace.
2. I was disappointed to see the lack of Palestinian presenters and participants. There were only a handful of Palestinian presenters, and I would say that the participants were about 40-50% Israeli, 30% international, and the remainder Palestinian. I suspect it was probably due to a combination of anti-normalization/collaborator pressure from their communities and the lack of activism in the orientation of the program.
3. Most of the Israelis seemed reluctant to talk about the occupation, but seemed very determined to express how much they desire peace and how much they would like to know that Palestinians also desire peace. Lots of talk about "getting to know and understand the 'other.'" and many, many dialogue or exchange projects. On the flip side, there were very few Palestinians who participated that expressed frustration (publicly or to me) about the lack of dialogue about the occupation. I don't know it that was just due to the silencing effect that talk about occupation and what peace looks like had on people or what.
4. I had the general sense was that most of the people (and the organizers) are of the two-state solution persuasion.
5. I got a sense of the fear that Israelis have about their security, and even though I think it's largely overblown, it does need to be addressed. However, what troubled me most is that the silence about the occupation and its negative impact on Palestinian society was deafening. Security for one group should not come at the expense of the other's rights. I got a lot of silence when I said that to some people. Others agreed, but it's clear that there is much to be done with the Israeli public, if that's how "peace people" are.
6. There is some really great interfaith peacemaking work going on.
7. There is so much work to be done...
8. There are partners on both sides, but they will have to be brave to work with each other.
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2 comments:
As frustrating as it is for you Jessica, it's so good you spoke out about the occupation. They need to hear it. Maybe the Palestinian peace-nik attendees realize it's futile to talk about the occupation since none of the Israelis (who have the power) are willing to talk about/deal with it.
Breaking news: The Philistines didn't attend because they want to throw the Jews into the sea.
The Philistines would have had a state in 1937 with the Peel Plan, but they violently rejected it.
They would have had a state in 1948 with UN 181, but they violently rejected it (and actually claimed that the UN had no such mandate!).
They could have had a state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza from 1948-1967 without any Jews- because the Arabs had ethnically cleansed every last one; but they violently rejected it. In fact, that's exactly when they established Fatah (1959) and thre PLO (1964).
They could have had a state after 1967, but instead, the entire Arab world issued the Khartoum Resolutions:
A. No peace with Israel
B. No recognition of Israel
C. No negotiations with Israel
They would have had a state in 2000 with the Oslo Accords, but they violently rejected it- as always.
The Arabs will just have to learn to "make do" with their own 99.9% of the Middle East- including all of the oil, and stop trying to steal OUR tiny 1/10th of 1% without oil. The Philistines won't have a state here in Israel, and if they don't stop their violence, they won't even exist here anymore. They will have to go to their own land; Jordan.
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