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March 15, 2013
Peace requires talking
Vancouver hosts Israeli and Palestinian activists.
ARNO ROSENFELD
The Arab-Israeli conflict can get so heated and divisive that the handful of groups bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to work toward peace are often lauded for their work. Increasingly, however, that work is generating controversy, especially as the boycott, divest and sanctions movement, or BDS, has picked up steam in recent years. For some critics of joint programs, bringing Israelis together with Palestinians is a sign of “normalization,” or acceptance of unacceptable status quo.
That was the subject of a panel discussion held for a packed audience at the Chan Centre’s Royal Bank Cinema at the University of British Columbia on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The panel, featuring four speakers – from Israel and the Palestinian territories – was organized by Peace it Together, a local organization that brings together Israeli, Palestinian and Canadian youth.
Sulaiman Khatib of Ramallah and Mahmoud Jabari, originally from Hebron, joined Israeli counterparts Yael Tsabari and Rutie Atsmon of Tel Aviv on the panel entitled A Critical Junction: New Directions in Peace Building in Israel and Palestine.
The speakers spoke at length about the importance of ensuring that dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians was turned into something constructive and avoided embracing the status quo.
“I really think that the peace-building field should go through a serious soul searching, whether the activities and projects they are undertaking now are serving the occupation or working to end it,” Atsmon said.
The panelists all agreed to varying degrees that joint dialogue was important and that it was more valuable when done in a manner that took into account the delicacies of the conflict and what panelists described as a dramatic power imbalance between the Israelis and Palestinians.
In terms of variance in opinion, the two Palestinian activists were perhaps the furthest apart ideologically.
Khatib, co-founder of Combatants for Peace and the People’s Peace Fund, believed that there were certain cases in which dialogue for dialogue’s sake was acceptable. He pointed out that while some Palestinians oppose normalizing relations with Israelis, it’s important to remember that many
Israelis oppose normalizing relations with Palestinians. For Khatib, working only with groups that oppose the occupation fails to achieve his goals.
“I don’t want to spend my energy to convince the convinced one,” Khatib said, explaining that setting preconditions for joint dialogue would limit the number of people in Israeli and Palestinian society who would participate. In contrast to Khatib’s openness, Jabari, who served as youth mayor of Hebron for four years and uses journalism to advocate for peace, was more doctrinaire. He described certain “red lines” he has, including not giving up the struggle against the founding of Israel and the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, causes that cannot be compromised without betraying the Palestinian cause, in his opinion.
“If I, or any other Palestinian, accepts these things in terms of the Israeli narrative, at that point I am normalizing,” Jabari said. He added that this was essentially a moot point, because Palestinian members of joint programs rarely accept the Israeli narrative, in any case.
“This has never happened; I haven’t seen it happen,” he said.
The Israelis on the panel both emphasized that they have not accepted the status quo in their programs and have practised joint dialogue with an intentionality that ensured it would return to opposition to the occupation.
Tsabari, who along with an Israeli Arab runs the Gemini Project, which brings together Israeli Jews and Arabs, said she is always conscious and respectful of the power dynamic.
“I say to my co[lleague], ‘Am I talking too much? Am I imposing my beliefs too much?’ [My partner] says, ‘No, stop, I am not a victim!’”
Atsmon, editor of a Hebrew-Arabic magazine, said that while Israeli students may start the program with more power than their Palestinian counterparts, the dialogue sometimes changes that dynamic.
“The Palestinians will come with the conviction that, ‘We are under occupation and this is wrong,’” Atsmon said. “It’s interesting to see how the Israelis that are used to being the strong side feel in a situation like this.”
Atsmon told of a time during the Gaza war last fall when Israelis talked about their experience having to stay in bomb shelters and were shocked that the Palestinians in the group reacted with glee.
“The Palestinians, I don’t think they were able to explain it, but they got a chance to feel stronger for a second,” Atsmon explained.
The discussion on Feb. 27 was part of a two-day symposium put on by Peace it Together, entitled Struggling with Peace: Grounding Peace Work in Action and Change. On Thursday, Feb. 28, two other events, a workshop on turning dialogue into action and an art event took place at Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus.
Peace it Together brings Israeli, Palestinian and Canadian youth to British Columbia to engage in dialogue work to create short films meant to challenge their communities back home, according to the organization. The videos can be viewed online at peaceittogether.com. The symposium was the result of work by the group of Canadians from the 2011 Peace it Together program.
Arno Rosenfeld is the Western Canada and Pacific Northwest correspondence for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and an editor at the Ubyssey, University of British Columbia’s student newspaper. You can follow him on Twitter at @arnorosenfeld.
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