« Thematic Highlights

Reconcilation

Itamar Shapira
Combatants for Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ We come to talk to people in the name of militancy because it grabs people’s attention and they feel it’s legitimate for us to be talking about reconciliation.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I wrote a letter to the family [of the man who killed my son]. It took me about four months to make the decision, many sleepless nights and a lot of searching inside myself about whether this is what I really mean. I wrote them a letter, which two of the Palestinians from our group delivered to the family. They promised to write me a letter. It will take time; these things take time, I'm waiting. It could take five years for them to do that. They will deliver the letter that I wrote to their son who is in jail…If they write me a letter in return then I could publish both of the letters as an example and it could show some people that there is a way. That the people you least expect can do this kind of thing, surely that's an example to other people to start to look for a way.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I think we have to forgive each other for horrible things that we've done to each other, and that hasn't happened. We need to go through that process. We also need our leaders to make those political statements to help create the environment for forgiveness, and to stop the suffering that we impose on each other, but peace is about reconciliation, forgiveness, understanding. We've got a long way to go. It's going to take years; it's going to take generations. It's a marriage, and a marriage, a partnership, requires working at it every day at every level, and that's what peacemaking is about, that's what peace is about.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Each person's development on the path of reconciliation is different. It takes time. I can see how I myself have grown over the past two years, the difference in the way I respond to questions now compared to where I was two years ago; it's completely different. I'm an ancient person but I'm still learning. This is a long difficult path of learning, of tolerance, of being able to dialogue with a settler and to dialogue with somebody who's very angry; you learn that. I've always been able to persuade people because I'm a good salesperson, but now I come from a much cleaner place.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ayelet Shahak
Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen Shahak, Bereaved Families Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ They say today that what happened in South Africa (the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) occurred because the conditions there were ripe. I do not think the conditions here are ripe. It is not only something that I have to go through, it is something that must happen in the background, with the peace process.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I am not a huge supporter of the word forgiveness, because you don't really have to go there. It's perhaps only at the very last stage of reconciliation that you go into forgiveness. And it could be that in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we get to the forgiveness stage in 20, 25 years, or something like that, because it's such a difficult process.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Robi Damelin
Parents Circle - Bereaved Families Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ How many Israelis know exactly what happens at a checkpoint and how many Palestinians understand the daily pain of living here, and what soldiers come out of the army with? Very few, but if you allow them to share their narratives, like in our group… if a person like Yakov Gutterman stood up and told the Palestinians that he came out of a Nazi concentration camp to live in Israel and he had a son here on kibbutz and that son died, was killed in the conflict… and you look at Khaled Abu-Awwad's family who were refugees from somewhere near Bet Shemesh and the life they have led and the loss of two brothers… when both of these narratives are told to Palestinians and to Israelis, will it be easier for us to have empathy for each other?”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ The message of reconciliation is, in order for us to have no more killing, we have to negotiate the past, and these people [Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families] are the perfect partners in both societies to talk about and to negotiate the past. They are the ones who can negotiate past atrocities without lending them to serve as a vehicle for further violence, which is what both sides are currently doing. Both sides' political leaders are using these atrocities in order to instigate further violence. We should use the same tool that is used to ruin chances for peace in order to bring peace. I believe this idea is missing in both societies' narratives right now.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ The work done by most of the theorists who write about reconciliation stems from the assumption that reconciliation is a process that starts after a peace accord has been signed. That's the concept that everyone is talking about. Or at least hand in hand, simultaneously. I believe that we have to start with some notions of reconciliation, some gestures, some ways in order to have people thinking about it and wanting it, and pushing it, and saying, "there is something that was missing in Oslo, and we want it, it's something good for us." If people will feel like that, then we might come to a place where we can have it formalized into a commission or another formal mechanism.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ofer Shinar
Consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Reconciliation is not the way to achieve the kind of justice in which all those who have done wrong will get such and such jail sentences. There's no way it will happen. So it's a weak kind of justice. Perhaps the justice will be weak, but both societies will be much stronger. So we have to really think whether we want justice to be pure and perfect, or whether we have actual people on the ground that we want to live, and even if they've done wrong, we want them to live to be able to forgive themselves and we want others to forgive them.”  [Source in Complete Interview]