Ofer ShinarIndependent advisor and researcher in Transitional Justice, former consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum |
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Personal Transformation and Israeli Military Service:
“ I grew up in a leftist home, a moderate one I think, and I became very political when I was a teenager. I participated in all sorts of political movements. I feel it's interesting how views very, very slowly change, because when I was in the army I spent a year of my life in the Occupied Territories, as a soldier, as a fighter, during the first intifada. I opposed it, but it didn't bother me so much, I was one of those who felt that it was better that I was doing it than somebody else. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Political Peace Processes/Political Leadership:
“ I discovered, reading the Oslo Accords, that they are very legalistic. Legal thinking has failed us throughout the process. This is the best example of the limitations of legal work. Lawyers can only go so far. You can make a contract and treaties, but changing the perception of people is so much more complicated and demands so much more than legal work. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ There are other kinds of human rights/peace NGOs who are working to document the atrocities and the violations and whatever, and it's very important, but they stick to the present, and in a way, it's like, you can chase the wind, but you have to do something else, you can only go so far by documenting - documenting will not prove effective in changing the feelings and perceptions that underlie our more rational conceptions of the opposed side to the conflict as well as the reasons for the conflict itself. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Personal Loss/Bereavement and Reconcilation:
“ 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]
Personal Loss/Bereavement and Martyrdom:
“ There is a word for it, shahid. It's different from bereaved-- bereavement is something else in Arabic. Shahid suggests that you have a certain place in society, that you've done something for your society. […] So in a way, it's very tangible, it's something you can really see. Bereaved people in both societies can do things and say things and get away with things and can change people's perceptions in a way other people cannot. This is why The Families Forum should not be a political organization, which means we should not get involved in the traditional process of peace making. Our role is to give voice to the victims who were not heard by the two sides during previous peace negotiations, for victims who refuse to allow further violence to be made in their name. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Political Peace Processes/Political Leadership and Reconcilation:
“ 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]
“ How do you start a reconciliation process when a bus explodes and 15 Israelis are killed? How can you start the process when the IDF kills Palestinian babies, even if by mistake? It's extremely difficult. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ You have to admit that you've done some things that shouldn't have been done. That's the only thing, and that's something that I believe is not only important to the oppressor, it's the thing that the victim wants more than anything else. In some feminist theories, you get the notion of feminist law and chauvinist law, and especially in rape trials you see how the law is all about punishing the oppressor and not thinking about the woman who was raped. In many instances the woman who was raped wants first of all the acknowledgment that there was an atrocity, something that shouldn't have been done. She wants her narrative to be acknowledged as the truth. That's even more important when you have to realize that there won't be pure justice. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Vision and Reconcilation:
“ 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]
“ 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]
Fear and Suicide Bombing:
“ I cannot describe the experience of hearing a suicide attack; to hear it- it's the worst thing that can happen to you. My girlfriend lives in Jerusalem and I really am very fearful for her life. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ For me, the only thing I want to do is to have no more people killed. That's the only thing I want. I just don't want them to be killed any more. For me that's peace. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
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