Interview with Abigail Jacobson

Please tell me about yourself, your family and where you grew up.

My name is Abigail Jacobson. I was born in Israel, in Herzliya,1 and I am part of a very small family: mother, father, sister, and dog. Both my parents are academics; my father is a university professor and my mother ran a library for many years. I am about to marry my partner Avner; he's a bio-chemist and has started working on his doctorate. I live in Tel Aviv,2 I'm 33. Last year I finished my doctorate at the University of Chicago, my field is in Middle Eastern History. Currently, I teach at Tel Aviv University3 and at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and facilitate groups at Hands of Peace,4 an organization we will surely talk about. I have been a facilitator for many years; I took a facilitation course in Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam5 in 1999, and I've been facilitating at all kinds of organizations since. That's my short bio.

Please tell me about Hands of Peace and about being a facilitator there.

Hands of Peace is a relatively small organization, and it brings together Israeli and Palestinian youth. The Israeli group includes a strong group of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The organization has existed for four years and was founded as a personal initiative by three women from Chicago: one Jewish, one Muslim and one Christian, who wanted to contribute to ending the conflict. They founded the organization and later there were some personnel changes. The religious or the inter-faith aspect of the organization is also important. Personally, I feel that the religious aspect is very nice, but isn't the central issue that needs to be addressed in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

At Hands of Peace, youth - Jewish Israelis, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians - travel to the [United] States for a two-week encounter in Chicago. American Jews, Muslims and Christians also join the encounter. A very complex encounter takes place between different ethnic, religious and national groups there; of course, the encounter is facilitated. We are two facilitators; I am one – the Israeli - and there is a Palestinian facilitator, and we are joined by American facilitators. Encounter is a significant part of the program, and most of the two weeks is dedicated to dialogue. The rest is spent touring Chicago and meeting local organizations and local religious communities. On weekends we visit a synagogue, a mosque and a church, and watch religious rituals. We work a lot on facilitated dialogue, and then when the two weeks are over, the kids return home to continue in a follow up program. We try to have them meet every month and a half, but it depends on the closure situation.

The follow up program's meetings take place in Jerusalem, and are facilitated. I am one of the facilitators and I coordinated the organization's activities in Israel for two or three years, together with the Palestinian coordinator, Ghazan Makhlouf. We try to get the participants, the "hands" as we call them, to meet based on the understanding and recognition that the two weeks they spend in Chicago are a lot of fun, but not simple. They are a formative experience for many of the kids, and of course when they return to their realities here in Israel and in the Territories6 they encounter a completely different reality. They need to be brought back to the questions they began to ask themselves during the encounter in Chicago.

How did you begin to facilitate?

I was drawn to facilitation mostly due to my friend, who took a facilitation course at Neve Shalom and facilitated there for many years. She pushed me to facilitate. I met her while I was a post graduate student at Tel Aviv University. She works in the field. She and another friend drew me to it, and I had a few personal experiences that made me want to work in this direction-- to think of dialogue in a more structured way where I can retain some control and be active in it.

Please tell me about the experiences that made you want to facilitate dialogue.

There were various and different encounters over the years. There was one small organization which I think no longer exists, called Interns for Peace, which involves Jewish and Arab kids from villages and other places, but that was years back. I think a formative experience was being part of a student delegation of Israelis and Palestinians called Shalom-Salaam, an organization that is currently on hold because of the current situation. The delegation went to Oslo for summer school, and was funded by Rotary International Norway. There were six Israeli students from Israeli universities and six Palestinian students. That was in 1998, before the [second] intifada7 began, when things were better - relatively speaking. This was a six week program in Oslo, with follow up that we were supposed to organize ourselves, because we were old enough. In Oslo we were a sub-group within the summer school, in which hundreds of people had enrolled from all over the world. Every participant signed up for a course they chose, and I chose a course on peace research. We students in Shalom-Salaam had our own activities – dialogue as well as joint living arrangements – Israeli women with Palestinian women and Israeli men with Palestinian men – for the entire semester.

At the beginning of the program something happened, and in retrospect, it had a strong impact on me and the course of my involvement. A week after the program began, there was a group discussion. My roommate, a young woman from Nablus8, attacked me on a very personal level and I felt it was very harsh. She told me she felt threatened by me because I asked her lots of questions about herself, her life and her plans, and she felt that I was following her around, butting into her life and threatening her. This caught me completely off guard because obviously the last thing I wanted to do was threaten her, of course that wasn't my intention. I asked her lots of questions because I really wanted to get to know her.

That's when I understood that my behavior could be interpreted in a way I didn't intend. I also needed to be very sensitive and understand that what I take for granted isn't taken for granted by others. 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 - in this case it's the Palestinians' reality. It surprised me; I was very hurt and shaken up by it.

Of course we talked about it a lot together and we straightened things out. I apologized, but it was at that point that one of the students who had trained as a facilitator at Neve Shalom tried a little to facilitate dialogue, and led us to discuss different topics, drawing on this encounter. I was very interested in this and it was something I wanted to do too in practice and also in thinking and in interacting. This clash really opened my eyes to things I was aware of in theory but had never personally experienced. It really shook me up and I think, in retrospect, that this was one of the reasons I took the course in Neve Shalom a year later. Another reason was that people I knew had completed the course, and were impressed with the experiences they were exposed to in it.

Do you witness similar sensitive situations at Hands of Peace?

Sure. On different levels these things constantly repeat themselves and occur very often in dialogue and encounters. You could say that Israeli youth is much more open than Palestinian youth, but there are differences among Palestinian youths due to their residence, social-economic status, history and experience. A girl from Nablus isn't the same as a boy from East Jerusalem,9 and you could say the same for Israeli kids. I see misunderstanding and friction constantly recurring. So, of course, as a facilitator I try to deal with this.

How do parents feel about sending their kids so far away from home to meet with kids from the other side?

Clearly, from a psychological standpoint it is very challenging for all the parents. The challenge is greater for the Palestinian parents, though, because sending their kid abroad is more intimidating. Many of the children have never been abroad, and neither have many of the parents. [For them] the concept of going abroad for two weeks, leaving their house and traveling so far is crazy. For the Israeli kids, on the other hand, traveling abroad is more accessible, and the majority have been abroad. I think that for the Palestinian parents, sending their kids to Jerusalem is easier…if they sent their kid to Chicago, won't they be willing to send the kid to Jerusalem? On the other hand, for Israeli parents, sending their kids to Chicago is much easier than to Nablus. [For the Israeli parents] the psychological distance between Haifa10 and Nablus is greater than between Haifa and Chicago.

Are the children's families involved in the programs at Hands of Peace?

They are involved as parents, and when the kids are in Chicago they keep in touch. Before the program begins we have an orientation with Israeli and Palestinian families. For many families, this is the first encounter with the other in a context that is not a conflict situation. We thought of holding ongoing meetings for the parents too. The parents here and in the US have their special e-mail lists. In the US there are also parents who are involved and I'll talk about that in a moment. But meetings for parents didn't work out because of [the lack of] funding, organization, and the organizational infrastructure of Hands of Peace.

There are parents who become very involved; I often speak to parents before we travel in order to reassure them, answer their questions, hear about their kid, sort out their concerns, and explain what we do. Other organizations, such as Seeds of Peace,11 have a three-week long summer camp away from home. At Hands of Peace, however, we have a two-week long summer camp, where the kids are hosted by local Jewish, Muslim and Christian families. This adds an additional, interesting dimension to the program. The program itself is very small. There are usually about 25 participants in total, from here [Israelis and Palestinians] and from the US. All participants are hosted by families, even the American kids. This gives the kids from here a chance to see and experience the American way of life in the suburbs. Not only do they encounter the other participants but they also encounter their [host] families. This isn't simple, but in our experience it's amazing. The host families become attached to the kids, and the kids get attached to their host families. Also, some of the host families send their kids to participate in the program. The program is based on community, which is one of the important aspects of it.

Who are the Israeli and Palestinian participants?

The Israelis are students at schools that we cooperate with. We currently work with schools in Haifa (both Jewish and Arab schools), Dir Hana,12 Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and in the Jezreel Valley.13 We sort through the applicants and select kids who can express themselves in English. Both Israelis and Palestinians are interviewed in English, though at meetings we allow the use of the other languages because we know that sometimes it can be hard expressing yourself in a language that isn't your mother tongue. If a Hebrew speaker needs assistance, we translate, and the same for Arabic speakers. In general though, we use English, and so we need English speaking kids. Of course, we also want kids who are involved, not necessarily politically, but socially, and who are politically and socially aware. They need to know what is going on, and a little bit about the history of the conflict. They also need to have an opinion – be it Left-, Right- or Center-oriented. 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.

It's more difficult to find Palestinian kids to participate because schools won't allow us to identify and select candidates ourselves. The Palestinian coordinator wasn't permitted to select the kids: the schools themselves wanted to select the participants. By default that meant that the kids are always ones whose parents were from the social elite or the community leadership, people the principal wanted to demonstrate his respect to. We didn't want that, so we developed a network of our own. We reached out to children from diverse backgrounds and for the past few years we have operated by word of mouth. There have been some successful participants and they have had friends who also want to participate, so we take them. Of course this isn't entirely fair, but it's the best we can do given the limitations. Obviously selecting children who are able to express themselves in English is also setting a standard, but we have no choice, we have to work this way.

Has anything changed for you because of facilitating?

Yes, many things have changed for me. First of all, it has made me view matters more critically. I have also learned that there are different shades of colors in different sectors and groups. I have become more critical due to my work. I have learned how to interpret, and how to examine in a more profound way.  I have also learned not to be superficial but to delve and discover [information] that is not only conflict-related but also things connected to people's behavior. I have gotten to meet very interesting people and have had very interesting experiences. Also, I feel that I'm involved and that I'm doing something. I'm contributing slightly to a few people's progress in life, or what I perceive as their progress.

How does your work contribute to promoting an end to the conflict?

Facilitating is very active but it can be pretty frustrating when you think about the scope of it. Every year at Hands of Peace, we bring 17 youth to the program, at most. That's nothing, just a drop in the ocean compared to the communities or the public that should optimally be reached. I have facilitated at Neve Shalom and have worked at Givat Haviva,14 and it's the same issue at every place that brings youth, students or adults together. There's always that sense of being a drop in the bucket, of having a very limited effect on very specific people. The rationale, or the hope, is that it works in spheres. The hope is that kids who return from Hands of Peace or from a three-day workshop at Neve Shalom have had something turned on in them. Hopefully it made them ask questions and go to their parents and friends and talk about these matters. Then their friends might also get interested and want to participate in such an encounter, and their parents might start talking with their kids. Generally, most families aren't involved, nor are kids. These encounters can create a ripple, making the margins of this "puddle" grow. That is my hope.

What is the effect of your work?

I feel very satisfied because, if I do my job well, I see how deeply I'm affecting these kids. After two weeks, or even three days, they return from the encounter and I see that it opened up something in them. It prompted them to ask so many questions and doubt so many things that they didn't use to perceive as problematic. It could be truths they were taught or were exposed to by the media or at home, which they never doubted before or questioned. 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. I have a feeling that it does have an effect on people.

What challenges do you face in your work?

There are technical as well as other challenges. A technical challenge, which is less interesting, is when I was coordinating the activity on the Israeli side of the organization. There were the technical challenges of permits, visas, reaching people, selecting and interviewing participants, all of which I conducted from my house because we don't have an office, only my laptop…that's the operations room. The same goes for Ghazan, the Palestinian coordinator.

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.15 They don't understand this. There are very big cultural differences as well as differences in perspective on the conflict, issues that I mentioned earlier.

But the greatest challenges are in facilitating children as well as facilitating with a partner. Of course, working with a partner isn't a simple matter. I work according to the techniques I learned at the School for Peace at Neve Shalom, which are based on facilitating with a partner. Two people facilitate. I am the Jewish-Israeli facilitator and I work with a partner from the other side. They can be either Palestinian or Arab, and it could be a Palestinian citizen of Israel, or what is called a 1967 Palestinian, from the West Bank.16 Facilitating with a partner is a big challenge, because it involves dealing with power dynamics within the group. There are questions such as who is more dominant, who does the group listen to more, whose interventions are accepted more, whose mirroring counts more, and who does the group relate to more. In the relationship, there are matters of internal dynamics as well as personal nuances. Of course, there are sometimes differences of opinion as to how to work with a certain group. There are professional challenges, like whether to challenge a group in a certain way or which way to choose.

A facilitator really has a lot of influence on what happens in the group if the facilitation is done well. You could spend hours talking about facilitation strategies, analyzing the group and the dynamics and thinking up strategies and ways to lead the group. Sometimes facilitators agree, and sometimes you have to compromise. The worst case scenario is when there is hardly any communication between the facilitators. This is a real crisis and should be avoided. I've rarely encountered this though – and obviously not at Hands of Peace. These are all the challenges in facilitating with a partner.

Besides that, there are endless challenges working with the participants. I could go on and on all day long…there is designing my role as facilitator, [the difficulty of] challenging the participants in a positive and healthy way, and trying to stimulate them to think rather than shutting them up. It is a challenge knowing where to draw the line in discussions and important to build trust in me. It is also a challenge to make them feel that the dialogue is a safe space, in which they can speak freely as long as nobody gets hurt to the furthest extent possible, and also that the room or the space is a safe space. Dialogue needs to be productive and not destructive. It shouldn't lead the participants to bad places, it should encourage them to think critically. Of course there are challenges working on a team, as in every organization, and obviously team relations can be very sensitive. Things become very personal, and that isn't always simple. It's full of interesting challenges!

How does the group of Palestinian citizens of Israel fit in at Hands of Peace?

That's a very interesting question. 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. Sometimes these kids don't know a thing about Palestinians, or have never met a Palestinian from the West Bank, yet they perceive themselves as Palestinian. It's very interesting.

About a year ago we almost had a Druze17 girl join, and that would have led us to other issues. The technical aspects didn't work out, it was not because she wasn't a good candidate. We did have a Druze participant once and the conversation and the dialogue and dynamics navigated in a different direction in terms of identity. Our Palestinian–Israeli group [at Hands of Peace] is very strong, it's one of the strongest groups, and there are amazing kids in this group. You can really see the variety of identities in this group. For Jewish Israelis it's interesting to understand the complexity, as well as for Palestinians. There is an interesting dynamic between the triangle's three sides.

There are also things that are completely different. One issue that has been coming up a lot lately in the group is the [Israeli] army draft,18 because some kids are about to be drafted. Kids [Palestinian citizens of Israel] ask about this, and you see how they deal with it, how they view people who can't or don't wish to go to the army, how they deal with the fact that their Jewish friends do go, and how the Palestinians [from the West Bank] deal with it.

How do you address the issue of the army draft?

We work on it intensively, but we don't encourage people to refuse army service. That isn't our approach. We don't even raise the issue, participants do. The matter came up two summers ago in a group I was facilitating. An Israeli kid who was beginning military service at the end of that summer and a Palestinian kid the same age who was going abroad to study started up a dialogue. There was an in-depth discussion about the army and its significance. The Palestinian kid said, "When you enter the army you turn into someone else completely. When you wear the uniform you are no longer the person I'm talking to now, you become a soldier, and I might meet you at a checkpoint."19 They talked about whether the army's actions are just or unjust, about what the army is actually doing in the Territories, about what it stems from, and about the period the army has been occupying the Territories. Here I confronted the kids' lack of knowledge of history, especially the Israeli kid's - the winners can always afford the privilege of not knowing history, or not know all of history.

This year we're dealing with this matter quite a bit during the follow up meetings because there are kids [from Hands of Peace] who have begun military service or are about to. Before one of the girls began her military service she shared her deliberation very candidly and honestly, bravely, and her decision to do military service, how she views military service, what she will be doing there and how she intends to bring what she learned at Hands of Peace to the service. This was discussed over e-mail with the group, and there was a lot of back and forth between kids from our different groups, who replied to each other. It created a very stormy and difficult discussion. The conversation continued, and we invited two representatives from Combatants for Peace to our last meeting to talk about their experiences, and that made the Jewish Israelis react too.

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.

Are there [Israeli] kids who were participants and began military service?

Yes.

Do they continue to communicate with the Palestinian participants?

Some do and some don't. One graduate who was drafted came to our last meeting, the meeting with Combatants for Peace. There are kids who were drafted and who stay in touch. There is a limited pool of participants, because we've only been operating for 4 or 5 years.

You mentioned the kids aren't very familiar with history. As a historian, how do you deal with this?

I'm shocked. When I facilitate during a long session, I try to dedicate at least one meeting to comparing historical narratives. It's an activity called a lifeline, and we mark historical events on a timeline, talk about what caused other things to happen, what led to what, what the significant events are in the context of the conflict, and points where they had a personal effect on people. Sound familiar? It's a very interesting activity because it combines historical events with the personal ones and the relationship between the two. Of course you can vary the activity.

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 196720 or about when the Occupation21 began. They thought the State of Israel was founded in 1946 and not in 1948.22 Their answers are very interesting when I ask them when the conflict began - I ask them to mark it on the timeline. It's interesting to see the starting point, and it's also interesting to see which points are perceived as significant on both sides.

For the Jews, it all dates back to the Second Temple, exile to Babylon…followed by 2000 years of exile and then suddenly we're back! They skip to the first, second, third, fourth and finally fifth aliyah23. The State of Israel [is established], and then usually they elegantly skip the war of 1967, they go from the Sinai Campaign [1956]24 to the Yom Kippur War,25 the Gulf War26…For the Palestinians it's different, obviously. They stress other points, and it's very interesting. At this point, I enter as a historian and give them a short speech about the importance of understanding narratives, how people view matters differently and what that means, how you can view matters, about the importance of history, how you can think about the other narrative and how the other side sees things. This is where I share my knowledge. Hearing how little these kids see can be pretty shocking.

Did anything about the timelines surprise you, aside from errors or lack of historical knowledge?

Yes, last summer, all of a sudden 1921 was a pivotal event for the Jewish Israeli group! They made up a White Book published in 1921 (which wasn't true) and then they made it a very important date. While it may have been an important year, it was one among many during the [British] mandate27…They are always referring to such events using the Hebrew calendar years and I have to stop and calculate – 5689 [1929], 5696 [1936]…it's funny because I have to stop and figure it out.

In terms of what compensates for the hard work, I was moved by something that a participant in a workshop told me. It was after we had worked on timelines and narratives, and a girl who just finished 11th grade said to me, “I just finished my final exam in History, and only now do I understand just how little I know, so now I'll go and read not only for exams and it'll be much more interesting and fun”. I thought to myself, yay! That was the biggest compliment I could have been given, and the best thing I could ask for in return in this context.

Do you ever discover facts you prefer not to know, in your research?

That's a good question. I discover things that I would prefer not to know, but I find that I need to be careful not to romanticize my subjects. It happened to me during my doctoral studies, when I was researching the Sephardic-Jewish community in Jerusalem. I felt I had to be careful not to romanticize the community because I thought their view of the future relations here was very smart, and I had to be careful at times not to lose a critical viewpoint, to view them in proportion to reality. That is problematic and critical in historical research. You get so deep down into your research and the subjects – people, groups, events that you research, it's a common phenomenon to sympathize with your subjects and you need to be careful of that, not to lose your critical approach.

Do you encounter prejudice?

Of course! There is prejudice on both sides. For example, Jewish kids suddenly discover that Muslim kids, that Arab girls can wear sexy clothes, or can look good – that's on a very superficial level… Of course it runs deeper, there is the matter of fear - looking at the other person and thinking he might be about to kill you. That's because of the way Jews views Arabs, how Arabs view Palestinians, how Palestinians view Israelis. It is a result of the reality of life and of experiences.

In retrospect, is there anything you think you were prejudiced against?

Me? It's difficult for me to say. I can't think about it now. You should have asked me ten years ago when I got started, because that was the real blow. I would want to consider myself free of prejudice, or unaware of being prejudiced. Perhaps I am prejudiced in a way I'm unaware of.

How is your work received in your community?

My community is very supportive. I grew up in a Leftist-oriented home. I recall going to demonstrations from a very young age. I went to a youth group, I was a counselor. I was very involved politically since I was very young, I was in Ratz's youth group. My family is very supportive and encouraging, that is, my close family and social circles. People are very curious, and there are people who really appreciate the work I'm doing because I'm doing something, I'm involved. I'm not just complaining, but doing something.

Do people around you think of Hands of Peace as third-party involvement?

I think the American part is perceived as less significant. Let me put it differently: there is a very clear distinction between the follow up and the encounter in Chicago. In Chicago, the American presence is underlined and clear, but here in the follow up program it's a Palestinian-Israeli program. The follow up is only Israeli and Palestinian, and the American involvement is less important, less significant so there isn't really a third party here.

Of course, when I coordinated the Israeli side, I was doing it as Abigail the Israeli coordinator, and Ghazan was Ghazan the Palestinian coordinator. One of the reasons I stopped coordinating, aside from not having time, was that I understood that being both the coordinator and facilitator is a problem. Facilitating is one thing, and coordinating is another, and it creates a tension between the two functions. One person can't do both together. When I was the coordinator, I was also the Israeli facilitator, actually the only one. I felt that it was problematic, and that was one of the reasons why I left that position. The American issue is less influential in daily life here.

If you could start over in you work, what would you change?

I would want to work with adults more. I've worked extensively with youth and I would like to work with students and adults. I would want to do it through a different organization, not Hands of Peace, perhaps somewhere like Neve Shalom.

Is there a specific model you would want to use?

Students could work according to a model similar to Hands of Peace, an ongoing encounter in a neutral place, and then follow up here. That's what other programs do. Of course, the content is different, the depths you reach. I'm not sure what's more challenging, working with youth or with adults. I think it's a different kind of challenge.

How is your work affected by the political situation?

It's constantly affected, everything that happens affects us, from requesting and receiving permits for Palestinians to enter Israel to people's willingness to participate in such an encounter, which is not a triviality. Of course events such as the War in Lebanon28 when we're in Chicago, Beit Hanoun,29 a suicide attack, an IDF30 invasion, these things have their effect.

You talked a little bit about this earlier, what is this conflict about?

As I said, 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!

What solution do you envision?

I am not one of the people who advocate a bi-national state solution, I think the first stage to a solution here is separation. I think the Palestinians need to practice their nationalism and therefore we need to separate and enforce a two-state solution.31 There needs to be a solution to the [Palestinian] refugee problem, part of which will entail some of the refugees' return, but not a complete return. I think the right of return32 [for Palestinian refugees] can't be accepted in the Israeli reality.

In an ideal world we would all live here, but I'm trying to be more réal politique. Jerusalem is divided anyhow, and should be. Very few Israelis come to East Jerusalem. I think the borders are very clear, there isn't much room for playing games. All settlements33 should be removed immediately, once and for all. I don't believe in settlement clusters, one kind or another of definitions for these territories. I think they should all be evacuated.

What is the ideal situation you would like to see realized here?

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.

Do you speak Arabic?

I speak Arabic. I am better at classical Arabic, also called Fus'ha, than my spoken Arabic, what is called Ami'a. It's hard for me to learn a language passively and then use it, but I understand and speak Arabic. It's harder for me when it's an intellectual discussion, if I have to do it in Arabic it's more difficult for me, but I can function in Arabic.

What do you think about previous peace processes here?

In a nutshell: they miss the point. They miss the point and are full of mistakes. They also surrendered too quickly. Peace processes here are not brave or consistent enough, and the peace process isn't aggressive enough, if you can talk about a peace process being aggressive. People always reminisce about Rabin34 but Rabin also missed some opportunities, occasionally. Rabin should have evacuated [the settlers] from Hebron35 after the Goldstein massacre,36 that would have saved us a lot of trouble. Leaders are afraid of their constituencies and that's frustrating because they are led by these external considerations and these determine our fate. Peace processes miss the point and are unrealized.

What do you consider a brave action at this point?

I think it would be brave to come and talk to Hamas37 openly as the Palestinians' representative despite the fact that they don't acknowledge the existence of the State of Israel. Say, “okay, they don't acknowledge the State's existence.”

Talk to Syria. What other signal does Damascus need to send in order for the [Israeli] Prime Minister to understand Assad38 is interested in talking to him? When you enter negotiations you don't know what their outcome will be, but dialogue is important in itself to prevent alternatives that are much more detrimental. I support dialogue rather than those bleak alternatives. I think you can't be afraid of concessions, you must understand that the whole story entails making concessions.

People have to understand that there is a strong side and a weak side, an occupier and occupied side. People must understand that it is very clear which is which. There aren't multiple options as to who is the occupier and who is the occupied side.

Obviously both sides err, and the Palestinians have committed tragic mistakes, historic mistakes, but thank God, so did we. All those meandering leaders should get together and understand things can't continue this way for much longer. The hourglass is working against us.

What does peace mean to you?

I think it means trust and lack of fear, which are more or a less the same things. It means security, not in the physical sense, but a sense of security psychologically, trusting and believing in the other side not to screw you, knowing you can trust them. It means a better future.

Do you think there will be peace here?

I think so, matters can't continue this way for many more years. It's hard for me to think about there being a conflict here in a hundred years. I hope there will be peace in my lifetime, I hope to be present then.

Is that a historical perspective?

No, this isn't a historical perspective, it's based on current events. The conflict isn't only… when you talk about the conflict, it's more complex than the part between us and the Palestinians. The consequences of this conflict on the State of Israel itself are weighty - and I'm not even talking about the Arabs who live here but about the Jews who live in Israel and about the way this conflict affects all areas of life in this country; the economy, society, culture, values, and what this State is.

Sometimes, talking to American Jews who want to support institutions in Israel, I say, wait. Think about who these institutions support. I ask them, “why do you want to contribute money?” They say, “we want to contribute money in order to support the State of Israel”. Then I analyze with them the course the money they want to contribute will run. Really it will go towards constructing houses in settlements, paving bypass roads in the Territories, and to the army. I agree that the army is very important and I don't think it should be dismantled. I think it's naïve thinking it should be, but the funds people contribute aren't going to the important causes, to social and economical goals in Israel. I love Israel very much. I feel very attached and invested in it, its future is important to me and I believe its future is linked to the Palestinians'. If things are good for the Palestinians, it'll be good for us too, but if things are crappy there, it'll be crappy for us as well, even though we're allegedly strong because we're the occupiers.

It's very clear to me that the occupation has weakened us over the years. In retrospect, 1967 was a mistake, a tragic mistake that this country made. It's a shame, a shame not to end this, entering the fortieth year, it's crazy when you think about it! How people live in this country, the Israeli kids I worked with at Hands of Peace didn't know when the occupation began! They didn't know, they didn't know the date. I'm appalled. It's been generations, people growing up in this reality, not knowing another reality, they never questioned it.

I am optimistic because I think things can't keep going this way! I think the exit point is so easy and clear that I don't believe it's intractable. This conflict is so tractable that it's a joke how fast you could resolve it.

Do you think there are important external actors involved in resolving the conflict here?

I think external actors and mediation are important. Sometimes I hope that there will be European mediators here rather than American, especially when the mediators here are Bush's. I think that not only are they not useful, I think they bring their fears and traumas with them and drag us places we have no interest in going. For example, take Bush's war on the axis of evil.39 My analysis is that Bush isn't interested in Israel negotiating with Syria because Syria is in the "axis of evil." Bush doesn't understand the way to break the "axis" – and I dislike this term – is exactly by negotiating peace with Syria. In short, American mediation doesn't get us anywhere and only causes harm.

I think Europeans bear in mind the bloody conflicts in their history that have been resolved. Perhaps their resolution wasn't ideal, but still they were resolved. Of course, it's also full of contradictions, tension and problems. There are things that happen in Europe that make it clear that it isn't the ideal reality but it definitely is more ideal than the reality in the US. I think that as a third party, the Europeans have more to offer this conflict than the US because there is a lack of vision in the United States' foreign and national policies.

What would you like them to do?

I want them to make the sides more assertive and brave, as I mentioned earlier. I want them not to give up so easily, to push us, push both sides. In terms of the US or European aid, I also think there should be sanctions and cutting off the aid. I have an American friend who said, "Abigail, I really love you very much but you cost me a lot." She's right! It's incredible how much every American taxpayer has invested in this muck! That needs to be cut and we should be sanctioned.

As an academic, what is your stance on academic sanctions?

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.

What would you like people from abroad to know about this conflict?

I want them to be familiar with basic history, which I don't think they are. I also want them to know how many people are involved in this conflict, which I don't think they do. When I went to school in Chicago in 2000 there was a Chinese student, and when my friends and I were upset about what was happening, she said, "How many people is this actually about? How many people live in Israel?" I said, 6 or 6.5 million, of which a fifth are Arab citizens. She said, "That's about the size of a high school in Beijing." So get a real sense of proportion, be a little modest. With all due respect to this conflict, larger conflicts have been resolved, conflicts involving more people. We too can resolve our little friend, the conflict. It means the world to us but on a global historical scale, it needs some proportion.

I want people to know what this is all about because there is a lot of ignorance. I am very critical of people in the Jewish community in the US who follow blindly, like AIPAC,40 who constantly say, love Israel, support Israel. I always tried to break this and ask people, how do you want to support Israel? I explain the best way to support Israel is to oppose the occupation because when it ends Israel will be better off.

I want to tell people: know more, be more familiar, be less susceptible to propaganda. Arabs or Palestinians all over the world should know there are Israelis who are trying to do something to oppose and who sometimes pay a price. Israelis should know there are Palestinians doing this on their side and that not all are violent. Not all support violence or occupation. I don't think people are aware of this.

Do you pay a price for being active?

There is a chance I pay a price on a professional level but I'm not sure I mind paying it. The work I do, the activities I'm involved in, the people I'm in touch with, all make it impossible to find work at the GSS41 or the Mossad,42 if I wanted to. I wouldn't be able to work there. Not that these necessarily are places where I want to work, but there is work at their research departments that is very important, interesting departments like at the foreign ministry or the Mossad's research department. I'm not sure whether this fits with my ideology - say the Mossad and not the GSS - because this is a government institution run by a government I don't identify with. I think that had I wanted to work there, I wouldn't be able to be.

I think I pay a price, the same price all the people who are doing this kind of work do. It's a price I pay willingly, even lovingly. [The situation] occupies and bothers me and this work occupies me and is very demanding emotionally. Like I said before, being involved is sometimes exhausting and sometimes I see things others don't and it's depressing or exhausting, or tiring or frustrating, and sometimes I would like to live in New Zealand, so to speak. But I'm not, and I'm glad I'm not. I'm very happy and glad that I am active because when I lived abroad I missed being involved in this place, all of the aspects, the complexity and the different shades of colors.