Before the Oslo agreement in 1993, some Israeli and Palestinian
human-rights organizations were in almost daily contact in the
fight against Israeli human-rights violations. They have always
been able to cooperate on specific issues, as in the Coalition
against the Demolition of Houses and the Coalition against ID-Cards
Confiscation from Palestinians and, recently, in an initiative of
some groups (the Al-Quds Center for Social and Economic Rights; the
Palestinian human-rights organization, Law; Rabbis for Human
Rights; DCI-Israel and others) to hold an alternative Jerusalem Day
("Jerusalem: A City of Two Peoples. Human Rights and Justice for
all Jerusalemites"). An Israeli and a Palestinian section of DCI
even maintained (from 1992-1996) a joint office to give Palestinian
minors appropriate legal representation.
Post-Oslo
In many ways the Oslo agreements were a catalyst: some now viewed
cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians negatively as helping
"normalization" and slowly froze those contacts; others, happy that
the end of the conflict was in sight, came together to start
cooperative projects in an attempt to speed up the process through
people-to-people contacts. Joint organizations were even set up,
like Friends of the Earth, PIES (Palestinian-Israeli Environmental
Secretariat) and PRIME in order to institutionalize
cooperation.
In addition, the Canadian, German, Norwegian and United States
governments, as well as the European Union, initiated special
programs with accompanying budgets to stimulate such cooperation.
All these programs and projects are based on the "contact
hypothesis" (1) in social psychology. Gordon Allport (1954) (who
formulated this hypothesis) noted in his famous book on prejudice
that interracial contact led to decreased prejudice. The
Norwegian-sponsored people-to-people program has, for instance, as
one of its criteria "that a proposed project should aim at
enhancing dialogue and relations between Palestinians and
Israelis." And Hazem Qutteneh noted that "the basic objectives and
purpose of these kinds of joint projects are to encourage contacts
between Palestinians and Israelis, simultaneously breaking down
long-standing barriers for peace and development at the grass-roots
level, whilst creating a mutual understanding of the situation and
the will to find common ground. This development of mutuality and
respect of the situation is the key to a peaceful future."(2)
Call for Different Programming
The dust has settled around the first groups of enthusiastic people
(including ourselves), hurrying along the road of what has often
been called "civil society joint projects" and it has become clear
that, with some exceptions, without meeting certain requirements,
the reality may be the opposite of what the contact hypothesis
tries to foster. In the wake of disappointments, we have to look at
the Israeli-Palestinian joint projects in a fresh light. We believe
that many such projects were too ad hoc, and more long-term
thinking needs to be introduced in their planning and
funding.
In light of the obstacles that the authorities have placed in the
way of "natural" collegial contacts, many projects seem artificial.
One of the authors (P.V.), who has a Dutch passport but an Israeli
ID card, was unable to meet his colleagues of the Palestinian Bar
Association in Gaza, because of the demand by the authorities that
on his visit to Gaza he be accompanied by a Palestinian policeman.
Indeed, any Israeli wishing to visit a colleague in Gaza needs to
be accompanied by a Palestinian policeman, otherwise the permit is
denied. On another occasion, he could not visit a Gaza center for
deaf children, although by phone a permit was promised him. He did
not succeed to cross the Erez checkpoint because the Israeli
authorities found the visit too much of a risk. For Palestinians it
is much worse; their daily life depends on permits to enter Israel,
and these are associated with humiliating experiences at the hands
of Israeli military and civil authorities. One has to be very
motivated for people-to-people projects to put up with all that. No
wonder that some of these projects organize encounters in Cyprus,
France, Norway or Sweden, rather than in Israel/Palestine, but the
costs of such projects are astronomical.
Building professional long-term projects might be more meaningful
than short-term ones, which look good for a few headlines, but lack
follow-up, because for that there is already no money left after
all the budget has been used. Sometimes such projects even have a
negative effect. They are usually limited to a small group of
"believers" from both sides, a sort of "preaching to the
converted." Mahmoud Mi'ari (3) confirms that the readiness of
Palestinians in the West Bank to meet Israelis is not significantly
correlated to self-identity, but to other variables such as party
support (those supporters of parties in favor of the peace process
were more open to meetings). Sara Hellman (4) found that intergroup
encounters do not create consensus or common interests, but rather
emphasize each group's collective identity and different goals and
interests.
With all the money poured into joint projects, it is amazing that
hardly any evaluation studies or outcomes and attitudes have been
commissioned and undertaken, except for a workshop in November 1999
in Finland, which brought together Israeli and Palestinian NGOs and
representatives from donor countries. Here we finally saw a first
serious attempt by Lee Perlman and Raviv Schwartz from the Israeli
side (5) and Naseef Mu'allem (6) from the Palestinian side.
Conferences generally have no formal or informal evaluations and
tend to end merely with reports about how many people participated,
how many sessions there were, and how the money was spent.
There are often some unrealistic expectations entertained by the
partners in these projects as regards helping to create a more
positive public opinion in support of peace and reconciliation
(Declaration of Recommendations to Donors Supporting
Israeli-Palestinian Civil Society Cooperative Activities, Finland,
November 28, 1999). If the politicians cannot agree and the Israeli
government continues to act paternalistically (ready to give a
little land, but not endorsing a real Palestinian state), you
cannot expect enthusiasm from the public at large, especially not
from the Palestinians. It is a burden to operate under unrealistic
expectations. The partners in the people-to-people projects are not
magicians. Munther S. Dajani of the Palestinian Center for Regional
Studies (in a paper for the Finland meeting) states that "it is
true that the Palestinians are currently in a weak position, but
the Israeli leadership should have a long-term vision and policies
based on long-term interests."(7)
We, nevertheless, believe that these projects, under the right
conditions and harboring lower expectations and with appropriate
help, can succeed.
Strict Equality Needed
Allport (quoted above) noted in his book on prejudice that
interracial contacts decrease prejudice only when participants are
of equal status. When a Palestinian state comes into being, the
contacts can become more equal and effective.
Meanwhile, unhelpfully, some funding agencies sometimes actually
create such unequal relations. After having submitted a joint
proposal to a big American funding agency, the Palestinian
Counseling Center (PCC) and Defense for Children
International-Israel (DCI-Israel) received a letter from the donor
agency suggesting that "DCI-Israel would serve as the grantee"
(signing the grant agreement), thus making one of the two entirely
accountable for the financial reporting, and putting the Israeli
NGO in an unpleasant role vis-à-vis the Palestinian partner.
Such a proposal exacerbates the asymmetry that already exists. On
the other hand, some foreign agencies in places like Sweden and the
Netherlands identify more with the Palestinian partner and were
considered by the Israelis as "more Palestinian than the
Palestinians." The Israeli NGO felt that when the chips are down,
these donor agencies would choose the Palestinian side. If the
funding agency does not uphold neutrality very strictly, it
complicates the joint project.
At a conference of PRIME, (8) the asymmetry was described as one
with great difficulties in cooperation between partners: "The
Palestinians described the severe limitations they face on
movement, not only to Israel but between locations in the West Bank
and Gaza. These limitations imposed by the Israeli authorities, on
grounds of security requirements, hinder their attempts to
implement activities of mutual importance. Even when they are
trying to be supportive, and despite their being critical of the
security demands, the Israelis seem helpless to change the context.
In addition, the arduous existential conditions of life, especially
in Gaza, often make joint NGO activities appear to be useless. When
such activities are planned, Palestinians tend to see themselves as
representatives of their people's misery, and the Israelis become
defensive and feel guilty. The joint venture eventually becomes
loaded with deep feelings of frustration, defensiveness and
anger."
Advice and Counseling
If "the play is more important than the end-result" (like the idea
of the Olympic Games), and if encouraging cooperation is more
important than implementing the activity in all its planned details
(as was agreed with the funder), then more emphasis should be
placed on the process of cooperation. However, funding agencies
often operate the people-to-people projects as if they were
developmental aid: planning every detail and leaving no
flexibility. When DCI-Israel's youth group "Colors" and the
Palestinian Youth Union wanted to bring together their young people
and leave to them the issues that were going to be discussed, it
was not acceptable to the funding agencies. If this process of
"transforming the relationship between former enemies"9 gets stuck,
this means, in most cases, not only anger and sadness in the
partners but also upsetting the funders, for whom the output of a
certain amount of activities or meetings would be nil. Something
should be done to help take away the "psychological
poisons."(10)
Much can be learned from the interdisciplinary approach developed
by Vamik Volkan (11) and his Center for the Study of Mind and Human
Interaction in Virginia, USA. This approach seeks to understand and
articulate the identity of each large group involved and how the
group relates to its neighbor/enemy group. By increasing
understanding of the conscious and unconscious dynamics at work on
both sides, new ways of interaction become possible. It is proposed
to create an intervention team to assist in the process and help
projects that get stuck on the road to move again. This will
involve neutral third-party specialists in conflict,
psycho-dynamics, social psychology, and with an open eye for
"psychological issues which contaminate real-world issues and
create resistance to peaceful and adaptive solutions." (12) Such
possibilities to receive help in formal and informal meetings may
be even more important for inexperienced people. Also Naseef
Mu'allem of PCPD reported that some people he interviewed were of
the opinion that, at the beginning, a good start is possible when
projects and meetings are conducted by neutral facilitators. (13)
We intend to raise this idea with Israeli and Palestinian
colleagues.
Endnotes
(1) G.W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley Publishing House, 1954. The authors wish to thank
Prof. Ruth Butler, dean of the faculty of education of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, for pointing this out to us.
(2) Hazem Qutteneh, "Donors' Interests and Priorities within the
'People-to-People' Program," research paper for the Helsinki
Workshop, November 27-28, 1999, p. 1.
(3) Mahmoud Mi'ari, "Self-Identity and Readiness for Inter-Ethnic
Contact among Young Palestinians in the West Bank," Canadian
Journal of Sociology, 23:1, Winter 1998.
(4) Sara Hellman, Jewish Inter-Group Dialogue and the Strengthening
of National Discourse, Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev, 1998.
(5) Lee Perlman and Raviv Schwartz, "A Preliminary Stocktaking of
Israeli Organizations Engaged in Palestinian-Israeli
People-to-People Activity," research paper for the Helsinki
Workshop on Evaluating Israeli-Palestinian Civil Society
Cooperative Activities, November 27-28, 1999.
(6) Naseef Mu'allem, "Palestinian Israeli Civil Society Cooperative
Activities," paper for the Helsinki Workshop, November 27-28, 1999,
PCPD, 1999.
(7) Munther S. Dajani, "The Palestinians on the Eve of the
Final-Status Issues: Immediate Hopes and Aspirations," a discussion
paper for the Helsinki Workshop on Civil Society Cooperative
Activities, November 27-28, 1999, The Palestinian Center for
Regional Cooperation.
(8) Dan Bar-On and Sami Adwan, "PRIME's Role in Supporting the
Collaboration of Palestinian and Israeli NGOs," in: Sami Adwan and
Dan Bar-On (Eds.) The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in
Peace-Building between Palestinians and Israelis, Beit Jala,
2000.
(9) H. Kelman, "Social-Psychological Contributions to Peacemaking
and Peace Building in the Middle East," Applied Psychology (1998),
47, pp. 5-29.
(10) Vamik Volkan, "The Tree Model: A Comprehensive Psychological
Approach to Unofficial Diplomacy and the Reduction of Ethnic
Tension," Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999, pp.
142-210.
(11) ---, The Need to Have Enemies and Allies: From Clinical
Practice to International Relationships, Northvale, N.J.: Jason
Aronson, 1988.
(12) ---, op. cit., Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 10, No. 3,
1999, p. 142.
(13) Naseef Mu'allem, op. cit., p. 9.
<