Abigail JacobsonHands of Peace |
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“ I'm an open person and always ask lots of questions; I want to get to know people I meet, but that isn't the same for someone else from a different reality, a different culture, whose experiences differ from mine, and they could understand me to be threatening. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ Of course we don't accept to the program kids who say, "Death to the Arabs", but then again kids like that won't come to us. We think it's important to take kids with an opinion, and not necessarily just left-wing kids. Last year, we had a politically diverse group on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. This made the encounter very interesting, but very challenging. That's reality. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ For me, the questioning stage is the critical point in an encounter. I don't expect kids to have all the answers after just two weeks, and I don't expect kids to change their views completely. However, I do expect their perceptions to change. I expect doubt to begin to set in regarding truths or beliefs they once had. I think their own doubt will result in them pursuing, thinking, researching and asking questions. When this happens, when I see this happening in youths, for me that is incredibly satisfying. It makes it worth the work, the effort, the frustrations, the hardships, and the emotions, and it happens, it happens very often. Some people talk about how it changed their lives and say it was the most amazing experience they had, and these are 18 year-olds. When that happens it's incredible. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ There were many challenges because of intercultural differences, not so much between me and Ghazan because we pretty much were on the same page, but between us and the Americans who direct the organization in the US. Some of them don't really understand exactly how complex it is here. They don't see how much we need to do to prepare for a meeting here in Jerusalem, and just how unstable it is in terms of the chances a meeting will be canceled because of closures. They don't understand this. There are very big cultural differences as well as differences in perspective on the conflict. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ The Palestinian citizens of Israel are a sub-group; in certain ways - in theory - they are wedged in between. They are part of the Israeli collective, at least in terms of their citizenship, and of course for part of the participants they belong to the Palestinian collective. We usually try, to the best of our ability, to select kids who express the range that exists but sometimes we are taken by surprise by the different shades in this group. We really try to bring people who are capable of expressing this unique voice. This means we try not to bring kids whose identity is Palestinian without a single question mark, or kids who perceive themselves as only Palestinians and erase their Israeli identity completely. This happens sometimes, but ideally these aren't the kids we want to reach out to. We want to reach out to kids who can express the complexity of their identity as clearly as possible, and also the profound difficulties they encounter as Palestinian citizens of Israel, their different experience of history, their sensitivity to being a refugee and suffering, being compared to Palestinians, and stereotyping. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ In terms of the way I address the army, I don't necessarily encourage the kids to refuse. I try to encourage them to think critically about questions such as: what is the army doing in the Territories? Why is it there? Who is the army serving? What [end] is it serving? How can they, as future soldiers, create change if they decide to serve in the army? I have friends who say this approach is naïve, and that as a facilitator or someone in this field one of my goals should clearly be to encourage people to refuse military service, and that should be my aspiration. I'm skeptical about this approach. I don't feel it would be right because it isn't a decision I should encourage. I feel my job is to encourage critical thinking, and thinking critically they should make up their minds. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I am astounded every time at how unfamiliar these kids are with history to the point that I think I need to stop teaching at the university right now and teach elementary or high school. I'm not talking about the complexity of history, of how people view history; I don't expect kids to have that kind of insight. I am talking about basic knowledge; kids knew nothing about 1967 or about when the Occupation began. They thought the State of Israel was founded in 1946 and not in 1948. Their answers are very interesting when I ask them when the conflict began. It's interesting to see the starting point, and it's also interesting to see which points are perceived as significant on both sides. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I see this as a national conflict, rather than a religious conflict. There are religious elements to it, but the conflict itself isn't about religion, it isn't an inter-religious conflict, it's between two national groups: the Israeli group, which has realized and is realizing its national identity, and the Palestinian group, whose national identity has not yet been realized. It's a territorial conflict, a national and territorial conflict, and its solution is very clear to me. So clear, yet so far away, unfortunately! ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ The ideal situation would be that all the people who live in the State of Israel – and you could talk about the complex situation the Arab citizens of Israel are in – but for all the people here, I want them to be bilingual and understand both languages completely, communicate using both languages [Arabic and Hebrew]. I want there to be free passage between Israel and Palestine, for people to communicate, trade with each other, visit, maintain contacts, like in the European Community. That to me is ideal. Of course, you would cross from country to country, but you wouldn't need a visa, and you could cross freely. There would be trust, no fear or worries. That is the ideal situation. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I don't support academic sanctions, but not only because I'm an academic. I don't think they can be a solution. I don't think that academic sanctions promote anything because much of the critical discourse comes from academia and I want to be involved in promoting this type of discourse at the academic programs I am part of. So an academic ban on Israeli institutions is counter-productive. I wouldn't be able to attend conferences and discuss academic matters that interest me, and I don't think that promotes anything. I do think that it's important to ban produce from settlements worldwide. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
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