FRANCES SALLES
I Saw it through Her Eyes
The 1993 Oslo Accord heralded a period of optimism in Israel and Palestine and around the world: an end to one of the most entrenched conflicts on the planet at last, seemed in sight. The possibility of co-existence for Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, was no longer an ever retreating, elusive mirage but an achievable, tangible reality; a return in fact, to a time when Arab and Jews did live side by side in this ancient and historic land. In the ten to fifteen years following the accord, people-to-people organizations began to spring up both within the region and abroad, many in the United States. The style of these groups and their range of interests were wide: dialogue circles, bereavement support, sports clubs, environmental agencies, health and human service providers, arts programs, research institutes, human rights advocates, and governmental reformers: practical, therapeutic, political. Many organizations targeted youth, young people being naturally more open-minded and idealistic were seen as the best hope for the future. And among the widely diverse programs, there was one thing in common: the belief that if you bring people together from different sides of a conflict, in situations where they can meet and get to know ‘the other side’, to know their ‘enemy’, then fear, mistrust and prejudice would be replaced by understanding, compassion and a willingness to find common interests for a shared future. This in turn, will lead to peace.
Twenty three years on, the picture looks very different. Although these groups continue to bring people together and many of them have expanded programs, as Joel Braunold the Executive Director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) says:
When one mentions people-to-people work, the response is a sigh. For many serious policy makers, people-to-people stands for kids, kittens and camps. The community is the poster child of the failed Oslo process and something that is, at best, nice but never necessary.1
Increasingly, within Israel, the government has a rhetoric that actively discourages Arab and Jews from coming together. Arab citizens of Israel are characterized as a kind of fifth column; neighbors who cannot be trusted, the enemy within. Israeli NGOs that advocate for rights of Palestinians, challenge the occupation, or simply promote the notion of peace, are portrayed by the government and unpatriotic and a security threat. Separation and segregation is becoming more prevalent and mistrust and racism between communities is on the increase. Within the West Bank and Gaza the anti-normalization movement seeks to prevent any activity that is defined as normalizing occupation.2 Organizations seeking to bring Jews and Arabs together are required explicitly to articulate the principals and political goals of the anti-normalizers. What claims to be a non-violent movement is increasingly militant. For example, people-to-people meetings have been disrupted by anti-normalizers, who shout and spit at participants, including children, shout threats, and steal confidential material such as personal contact details, which they then publish on social media as a form of intimidation. Within this context, in both societies, people-to-people work is seen as, at best well intentioned but naïve, and at worst, treacherous or complicit with occupation. But according to Braunold the critique of people-to-people work mischaracterizes “this community and the old stereotype of eating hummus together and going home pays no attention to the evolution of the field and the real work and impact that this community has had, and continues to accomplish”.3
Founded within the decade after the Oslo Accord, Creativity for Peace is one US-based people-to-people organization that brings young women from Israel and Palestine together in a dynamic and expanding program. The three-week summer intensive held each year in Northern New Mexico, home of the founder, is the gateway to a two-year leadership training that runs in Israel and Palestine for the young women, building on foundational skills and equipping them with the practical skills and emotional resilience to become peacemakers for life. The Creativity for Peace programs are rooted in a foundation of compassionate dialogue and art, which is used both therapeutically and as a tool for social change. This organization distinguishes itself by working exclusively with women in its core programs and by continuing its commitment to cross-border activities, despite the very real logistical challenges of a hostile environment and concomitant rising costs.
The transition from ‘peace camp’ to a leadership program mirrors that of many people-to-people youth organizations. For example, since the early camps, Creativity for Peace has documented the impact of its work on individual participants, their families and even immediate circles. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluation surveys with participants, and having been the subject of several research projects that have both surveyed and interviewed participants, the changes among Creativity for Peace participants are often dramatic and lasting. Examples include a reduction in prejudice toward the other, greater understanding of the other, increases in positive attitude towards the other side, and the belief that peace is achievable. Expressions such as “once in a life time”, “life changing”, “I know I can make a difference”, and “be the change I want to see” are commonly heard at the end of the summer intensive. Subsequent surveys by the organization and research students, of long-term participants and alumni, have shown that for most, these changes last over time. But personal change, while inspiring in many ways, did not seem enough. As the promise of the Oslo Accord faded, communities within Israel/Palestine, and internationally, began to ask “what next?” And Creativity for Peace's participants themselves began to ask, “what can we do?”
For Creativity for Peace, one response has been the ACT! program. Action for Conflict Transformation, (ACT!) is a two-year program, which starts with the summer intensive in New Mexico and continues with meetings and training in Israel/Palestine. The program is built around the three corner stones of the Creativity for Peace Leadership model: emotional foundation, practical skills and partnership.
The emotional foundation starts with compassionate dialogue at the summer intensive: a combination of deep listening and authentic speaking skills that enable the young women to share difficult and personal stories, and to listen to the stories and opinions of others without rushing in to judge and contradict. Sharing their personal narratives allows participants to connect and develop compassion and understanding, and with practice, the young women, or Young Leaders, are able to use the speaking and listening skills they have acquired to discuss their opinions and beliefs surrounding the conflict. Far from avoiding and glossing over the very different experiences and perspectives of Palestinians and Israelis, a criticism sometimes leveled at dialogue, the process enables the most difficult subjects to be discussed: occupation, the military, terrorism, checkpoints, fear, hatred, loss, grief, love, hope – everything is allowed.
Farah from Nablus, shared her story, typical for many Palestinians. When she was nine, her father stepped out of the family home to investigate a noise going on outside, and was shot to death by Israeli soldiers. Israeli Jews, with the exception of orthodox Jews, will go into the military. It is seen as a national duty and necessary for the security of Israel. Those serving in the West Bank are their brothers, cousins and friends. Hearing stories like this one causes mixed emotions for Jewish girls, for example, disbelief and anger, often alongside compassion and sadness. On the other side, Shirit, from Sderot, an Israeli town in the Western Negev that sits on the border with Gaza, shared her story, common to those growing up in the South. While still only a child herself, she was out with her younger sister when the air raid sirens went off. With only 15 seconds to seek shelter, and nothing in reach of the bus stop they were waiting at, she had no choice but to shelter her sister’s body with her own, and hope that the rockets would not fall close. For Shirit, and those living on the border, the threat of rocket attacks are a daily reality and threat to life; for the residents of Gaza they are a form of resistance to occupation and siege. Here the mixed emotions are for the Palestinians, wanting to resist occupation, but having to face the reality that victims of rocket attacks are people, just like themselves.
Within the first year after returning home Young Leaders meet four to five times to continue to dialogue, learn about gender analysis, critical thinking, and conflict resolution. They explore the different historical narratives, learn about women peacemakers in other conflicts, take field trips (which have included visits to checkpoints and villages along the border) and work with organizations such as The Parents Circle Family Forum to better understand the realities of the conflict. Ongoing opportunities are being added for the Young Leaders to build their emotional foundation and to create the resiliency needed to be leaders and peacemakers in the region. For example, in 2015, Creativity for Peace partnered with Acupuncturists Without Borders to offer a self-care workshop; in 2016 two further workshops are being offered by Israeli and Palestinian camp staff qualified in Capacitar and Way of Council techniques.
Practical skills are introduced in the second year. To accommodate the logistical challenges of cross-border work --including Israelis not being allowed into the West Bank and Palestinians requiring permits to travel into Israel, which must be applied and paid for in advance, leading to rising program costs -- much of this learning is now taking place online. Public speaking, project management, group facilitation and fundraising are essential components and still in the early stages, this online training has been created and delivered by US staff. However, even with this modern technological approach, there remain logistical challenges created by a nine hour time difference, occasionally unreliable electricity connections for some of the Palestinian participants, and lack of access to technology for some participants.
An additional aspect of practical skills training is to create opportunities to put theory into practice. One of the most popular and useful training opportunities that Creativity for Peace offers is the chance for its Young Leaders to participate in a speaking tour within the United States. These tours target high school audiences and include the Young Leaders' facilitation of a Transforming Conflict workshop for US high school aged girls. Over the last three years such workshops have been held in New Mexico and Texas, usually over an evening and a day. The workshops include a series of exercises where the girls are introduced to the basics of compassionate dialogue: compassionate listening, authentic speaking and the use of art to explore themes of identity and belonging. For example, one exercise involves working in pairs: each girl takes a turn to lie down on a large piece of paper while her partner draws her outline. When both outlines are drawn, the girls work through collage to illustrate things that they like and dislike, things they have in common and things that are unique to them and their cultures. In addition to creating self-awareness, such exercises are geared towards inspiring a desire among the girls to become agents of change: be it at home, school, in the local community, or even internationally. While facilitating the workshop, the Young Leaders from Israel and Palestine share their experiences of becoming peacemakers and activists and since they are usually only a few years older than their US counterparts, the peer-to-peer model of teaching and mentoring becomes an effective tool.
In addition to the opportunity to lead the Transforming Conflict workshops, another opportunity that has been given to two of the more senior Young Leaders is the chance to train as dialogue facilitators during the summer camp, in the Creativity for Peace methodology: one year a Jewish Young Leader was invited; the following year a Palestinian Young Leader was invited. This was an immersion experience in which the Young Leaders were invited to learn through camp dialogues and by being trained and mentored by the camp dialogue facilitators. The two Young Leaders who trained as dialogue facilitators have subsequently begun leading weekend retreats for other Young Leaders in Israel and Palestine. These retreats continue the dialogue process and seek to address the ongoing challenges of peacemaking.
The training from the online workshops and US speaking tours are then channeled towards action: creating and implementing activities that advance the cause of peace and social justice, either within their own societies or across borders. As the program has evolved, these activities have included youth work with Arabs and Jews within Israel, dialogue between Arab and Jewish high school students, collecting clothes and rebuilding homes for Arab villagers whose homes have been destroyed along the border, talking in schools and community centers in Israel, and attending international conferences including the UN International Council on the Status of Women.
Partnership, the final cornerstone of the program, is the practice of Israeli and Palestinian women working together by experiencing and modeling coexistence. The organization and program staffing structures of Creativity for Peace are carefully balanced between Israelis and Palestinians, modeling equality and cooperation. In turn, Israeli and Palestinian Young Leaders work together on the projects that are implemented back home. For young women growing up and living within such an asymmetrical power structure, this experience empowers them to believe in and work towards a different future based on equality and mutual respect.
On August 28, 2015, as part of the partnership experience, a group of Creativity for Peace Young Leaders came together in East Jerusalem for a workshop facilitated by the Human Sound Project, an Australian based non-profit that answers the “global call for connectivity by empowering groups of all sizes, cultures and musical skill levels to come together and co-create songs about their stories”. They chose to take their first experiences of dialogue at the Creativity for Peace summer intensives as their starting point. Working throughout the day the young women co-created words, music and dance movements. The powerful group process worked with their innate creative abilities, and their yearning for a peaceful future And the result? An incredibly moving and uplifting song, created in a single day, that encapsulates the experience of coming to dialogue for the first time:
To date, Creativity for Peace has held 17 summer programs with a total of 239 teenage girls. The decision to work with a relatively small number of participants at great emotional depth has created a strong commitment to peacebuilding and approximately 60 of the young women are now Young Leaders, some of whom have been involved for up to 10 or 11 years. Their peacebuilding takes many different forms and many of the young women are choosing careers in order to affect change: studying and working in law, journalism and media, and conflict resolution. Creativity for Peace Young Leaders now regularly attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held annually in New York; they have spoken at international summits, such as the World Economic Forum in Davos; they have met with senior politicians, including Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority. Wherever they speak, their authenticity and their capacity to hold the human complexities of the situation in Israel and Palestine with great compassion and understanding is evident, and rarely fails to move the listener. Furthermore, in 2015, the Young Leaders were awarded a USAID grant for Women Building a Politics of Peace: a two-year program that brings together young women politicians and activists from diverse backgrounds to explore issues such as gender, women’s leadership, and conflict resolution in order to create a more inclusive political discourse within both Israel and Palestine as a foundation for lasting peace. The strength and success of the Young Leaders' grassroots programs has led Creativity for Peace to envision a situation where this kind of people-to-people work might be brought directly into the political sphere. At a time when people’s lives are getting more separated, and fear and tension is increasing, Creativity for Peace continues to think big and to hold out the hope that a lasting peace is achievable.
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