"Kissing Cousins" is an anecdotal term which refers to the
diffusion in the post-Oslo period of programs (mostly labeled as
"people-to-people" ventures) whose aim was to break the stereotypes
prevalent between Israelis and Palestinians as a prelude to
reconciliation. The assumption was that the Oslo Accords had
resolved the main political hurdle of occupation and dispossession,
and what remained belonged to the realm of psychology.
Historically, Jewish-Arab amity was a central theme in the work of
the left, and almost exclusively of the left: anti-Zionist groups
on the Jewish side, and socialist groups on the Palestinian side.
Many people paid heavily for these internationalist positions,
sometimes with their lives, and often became isolated and
marginalized within their own communities. "Arab lover,"
"self-hating Jews" on the Israeli side, and "traitors" on the
Palestinian side were common epithets. However, they kept the flame
of coexistence and goodwill alive through the idea of a common
homeland, bi-nationalism and, after 1948, the struggle for
self-determination for Palestine. Within the Israeli political
arena, the struggle for coexistence was, and continues to be, an
important platform for equality for Arab citizens.
A Business Venture-Rapprochement
In the occupied territories, however, this situation was
drastically reversed after the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.
Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement entered the arena of big business
and high politics, now sponsored by the U.S. and the European
powers. Official diplomatic meetings between the two sides were
supplanted by "second track diplomacy" (informal meetings by
strategy shapers) and more amorphous contacts between academics and
politicians seeking the creation of new conditions for territorial
compromise. The radical tradition was gradually forgotten and
relegated to a historical footnote, as realpolitik set in as the
dominant mode of thinking.
Those encounter groups soon evolved into full-fledged joint
ventures. They included many Israelis and Palestinians looking for
ways to break the heavy heritage of war and displacement, but they
also attracted unemployed academics, fortune seekers, guilt-ridden
Israeli liberals, and European donors involved in what became known
as "people-to-people" projects. The few cases involving a genuine
exchange of ideas and attempt at solidarity across the ethnic
divide-such as Palisad [a group of critical social scientists] in
Jerusalem, where scholars sought to critically investigate the
roots of the conflict and its solution in a substantive manner-were
submerged or marginalized by the existence of donor funding for
"feel-good" enterprises.
'Genuine Brotherhood' of Another Kind
Real "joint ventures" between Israelis and Palestinians, of course,
predated these people-to-people projects by a few years, mostly in
the domain of the underworld. They involved drug-trafficking
rackets, prostitution rings, and car thieves. Here genuine
brotherhood (and a certain degree of sisterhood) prevailed.
Religion and nationality were substantially ignored where the
marginal and the ambitious on both sides of the Green Line joined
in a partnership of money-making and merry-making.
The Paris Accords, signed in 1995, allowed this paradigm to be
extended to actual business enterprises. Even though the ostensible
aim was to allow for the freedom of movement of labor, services,
and goods-somehow only the last category was recognized as
pertaining to peace. In addition, it was only a one-way movement of
Israeli goods into the occupied territories. After all, with the
erection of checkpoints and barriers and permits, what goods could
possibly be of interest to the Israeli side? The one commodity of
relevance, cheap Palestinian labor, was soon blocked and replaced
by even cheaper Thai and Filipino workers, and more desirable
Russian professionals (who came as new immigrants), under the guise
of security.
Conditioned Funding
For academics, the post-Oslo period was also a period of
considerable liquidity in research funding. But it was a very
selective form of availability. Not only were the themes of study
designated by the donors (women's status, development,
non-violence, Islamic movements, and studies of a logistical and
technical nature), but the availability was often conditioned by
the need to join forces with partners from the "other side." It got
to a point where researchers had to invent an Israeli partner to do
research on themes that were related to internal Palestinian
development issues.
Some Israelis also received funding, but they, too, had to find
suitable (often silent) Palestinian partners to undertake the joint
project. This atmosphere was a bonanza for an army of
unemployed-and sometimes unemployable-young scholars. Drawn in by
the attractive enticements, serious scholars joined in, producing
thick volumes of unreadable research based on impressive
feasibility studies. The number of these institutions multiplied
several times over, and their output, often cloning earlier
research, grew to alarming proportions. A second generation of
"kissing cousins" mutated into academia, generating a heap of
theses and dissertations. What began as an idea evolved into an
industry.
Trivialization Rather Than Rectification
These projects had two main victims. The first was the
trivialization of the conception of Israeli rule as a colonial
project, and the reduction of the subjugation of a native
population to a matter of perception and recognition-a breaking of
stereotypes-or, at best, to a conflict in need of a better
understanding, and not the need for a rectification of inequity. A
second victim was the integrity of scholarly activity and research,
which now became contingent on political considerations and
contrived partnership, whose aim was to sugar-coat the nature of
the occupying power, and to assume that conflict resolution belongs
to a "balanced perspective" and not to a struggle based on the
critical examination of oppression.
There are salutary lessons to be derived from the fate of
people-to-people projects. For social scientists, academics and
political actors who maintain scholarly autonomy and integrity-and
those who continue to believe in a humanistic solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict- people-to-people is a warning that what
sounds like a progressive project may camouflage what is
essentially a dark and cynical agenda. Attacking stereotypes and
breaking psychological barriers make sense only if addressed within
a framework that also addresses inequity, injustice and
dispossession. Otherwise it will be the equivalent of the Arab
proverb: "Like pouring honey on death [to sweeten it]."