Interview with Walid Salem

Can you please tell me a little about your background?

I was born in June of 1957 in Ras El Amoud, which is a part of Silwan1 in Jerusalem. I finished high school at the Ummah School in Jerusalem.2 I was imprisoned for the first time when I was in 12th grade in 1975, so I had to write my Tawjihi exams3 in prison. I got out in June 1976 after ten months of detention and enrolled in Bir Zeit University4 to study social science. I spent a long time away from the classroom because I was politically active and was constantly sitting in the cafeteria engaged in politics!

I was imprisoned for a year and a half while in university; 76 days of which I was in interrogation chambers--but I didn’t confess. With all that, it took me eight years to finish my studies instead of four. After that I worked as a journalist in eleven newspapers and magazines for almost eleven years. All of them got closed down by occupation forces. At the time I was still politically active with Palestinian organizations that opposed occupation and all those newspapers and magazines had strong political agendas against occupation. The last time I was administratively detained was for a total of one and a half years in six months intervals. I got out in February 1993 and joined Panorama5 as a board member. That is when I started to have political and organizational disagreement with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine,6 which ended with my withdrawal from the Front. From ’94 to this day I’ve been writing books and giving lectures about civil society, democracy and human rights-- Palestinian citizens’ rights-- as well as being active in peace work. I worked in the media for a long time. I also worked as a trainer. I have trained 20-25,000 people in issues of democracy, civil society, management and strategic planning all over the West Bank. I have written a few books concerning democracy, human rights and civil society, youth, social development and the right of refugees to return to their homes. This is an over-view of the main fields I have worked in.

Can you tell us more about your differences with the DFLP?

For an outside audience, could you explain why you were imprisoned or detained?

This is part of my past and I have forgotten about it, but in 1975 I was detained for being a member of the political wing of the Arab Communist Ba’th party.8 The detentions in the eighties were for being charged with being a member of the DFLP, although I never admitted to it. In ’91 I was charged with being a member of the higher central committee of the DFLP. According to the DFLP, it was considered a betrayal to admit you were a member, since it considered itself a secret movement. Admitting you were a member was considered a betrayal of your country and of the DFLP. Of course there were members that would confess, but the higher ranked leadership of the Front would never confess. I was considered one of those leaders, that’s why I was committed not to confess.

What about George Habash?9 There are acknowledged leaders for every party.

That is true, there are acknowledged leaders that lived outside the country, but we were present inside the country, in the occupied land. Of course all of that was before the PA10 came into power and fighting occupation was considered to be secretive. Despite all those conditions I was always involved in the political wing, I was never part of the militant wing; I never shot a bullet or learned how to use a weapon, which explains why my detention periods were not very long, relatively. The sum of the time I was in detention was five years, whereas the militant activists were detained for longer periods.

Please tell me about your role in Panorama and your activities there.

I started my work in Panorama as a member of the board between 1993 and 1995. I then started working with the staff of Panorama. Since 1997 I have been the director of the Jerusalem office of the association. I also participate in the association’s training programs.

What is the nature of Panorama's activities?

The association went through four stages during its evolution. During the first stage between 1991 and 1994 we concentrated on horizontally spreading democracy in Palestinian society, through workshops from Jenin11 to Hebron.12 At that time we did not work in Gaza.13 In the period we also concentrated on developing Palestinian literature about democracy through conferences that we held. The “first conference” in 1993 resulted in a big report about democracy in Palestine. This was an international conference attended by academic and political people from around the world in addition to Palestine.

The second stage was between 1994 and 1997. During this stage we concentrated on spreading democracy mainly among the youth. The third stage was between 1997 and 2000. During this period we concentrated more on vertical approaches concerning democracy. We held training sessions about democracy; we wanted to inform people about participatory mechanisms, and how to use participation on the level of planning, follow up, monitoring and evaluation and on the level of ministries, NGOs,14 security mechanisms, women and youth organizations. We trained all these parties in the mechanisms and tools of participation, which is democracy inside organizations. In other words, we tried to democratize the structure of the organizations.

The fourth stage began in the year 2000. During this stage we started to focus not only on training for democracy, but focusing on building associations. We help associations build strategic plans. Part of our work, in addition to spreading democracy, is community development. Our name is the Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development. We started working on community development and then on helping associations build themselves. These are the main stages in our development. During these stages we initiated many activities and discussions concerning Palestinian society, most of them about democracy, civil society, civil rights and civic education. These were the dimensions we concentrated on during our programs.

You may ask about the joint projects we hold with the Israeli society. We started holding joint projects in 1997. This does not mean that we had no activities before. We had activities but most of them were with the Left wing, most of which wasn’t Zionist.15 After 1996 we started thinking about becoming more open to Jewish groups that support Palestinian national rights, even if they considered themselves Zionist groups. It was then that the idea of joint projects began. Within this framework the director of the association, Dr. Malki, founded the Copenhagen Group. The International Alliance for Peace was based in Copenhagen in 1997. This alliance included intellectuals and politicians from Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan.16 This alliance still exists. In addition to this alliance we started having joint projects with Israeli groups. At the present time we have the following joint projects: one project is “Peace and Justice.” In this project there is cooperation with Israeli groups. During this project we will hold activities in June about the Israeli occupation. We hold activities every year about this. This year we held a demonstration against the wall, in Ram.17 We held a conference in the Seven Arches Hotel18 about the issues of peace. 101 people, including 52 Israelis, 38 Palestinians and seven foreigners attended the conference.

After this conference we held a meeting for 14 groups that support peace from both sides. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate future activities. We organize domestic meetings between Palestinians and Israelis. The purpose of these meetings is to create an opportunity for both sides to talk about the issues of peaceful coexistence and the normalization19 of relations. These meetings don’t replace general meetings that are held between Israeli and Palestinian activists who meet in order to exchange experiences and ideas about enhancing peace activities and contributing to peace. Another project is the Code of Ethics for the academics on both sides about the responsibility of being leaders during the current situation. Should academics be more committed to performing their work as academics than to performing their social responsibilities regarding events? If you are a teacher of human rights, what is you responsibility regarding daily killings? As an academic you should combine theories and reality. This project tries to develop a code of ethics in order to encourage academics to take a more active roll, to try to implement their ideas in reality. The European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP),20 the Truman Institute21 and Panorama are cooperating in writing a book about the roll of civil society in peace building in Israel and Palestine. The book will be issued in English by the ECCP in Holland. The book is almost ready to be printed. These are four projects I work on in the Jerusalem office of Panorama. There is another project called “Bringing Peace Together.” Our next steps in this project will include planning strategies for reconciliation and strategies for disarmament demobilization and reintegration of the armed groups in the political system.

Who are your Israeli partners in the "Bringing Peace Together" project?

It is a project that includes different Israeli peace movements, joint Palestinian-Israeli peace movements like Nusseibeh-Ayalon,22 people from the Geneva Initiative,23 members of Fatah,24 activists from the Palestinian-Israeli Action Group for Peace25 as well as academics and activists from civil society. We meet regularly and make plans for future activities. We focus more on policy development than on peace activism. We have another project focusing on peace activism which includes meetings for youth groups in Bethlehem,26 Jerusalem and Kfar Saba27 to develop the youth’s vision for nonviolent strategies. After those groups meet separately in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Kfar Saba, they will all join together in a conference in Talitha Kumi.28 The coordinators of those meetings are Panorama, the Arab Educational Institute in Bethlehem29 and the Israeli Forum for Peace, which basically include Ya’akov Manor30 from Kfar Saba and Yitzhak Schnell, who is a professor at the University of Tel Aviv. The other part of the June activities is a conference for all peace movements to discuss nonviolent strategies and the code of ethics for peace.

I also want to tell you about “Shared History,” which is a book that was published locally; now we are going to publish it for sale in the States. The book covers the events from 1948 to the present. Another book is being published by the European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP), the Truman Institute and Panorama are cooperating in writing the book. The book is about the roll of civil society in peace building in Israel and Palestine. It will be published in Arabic, but the ECCP has translated its last chapter, which talks about the lessons learned from peace education. Different Palestinian and Israeli writers participated in writing the papers. These are projects I work on in the Jerusalem office of Panorama. I also work with a project that aims to build a non-violent Palestinian movement. For this purpose I met with Dr. Mubarak Awad,31 who is one of the most prominent supporters of nonviolence in Palestinian society. During the first intifada he was deported by the Shamir32 government to Washington and now teaches at the American University in Washington, DC. We are working on founding a non-violent Palestinian social movement as a substitute to Oslo and the violence. We held training sessions for groups, from Jenin to Rafah,33 that believe in non-violence. We are doing a conference in cooperation with Holy Land Trust,34 an association from Bethlehem.

Who are the Palestinians who take part in the joint Israeli-Palestinian projects?

Palestinian academics participated in the book project [along with Israelis]. I will go through the chapters of the book. I wrote the first chapter, the historical review of the cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian civil societies, in association with Edy Kaufman.35 The second chapter, about the Palestinian civil society, was written in association with Dr. Emanuel Hassasian. The third chapter, about Israeli civil society, was written in association with Dr. Tamar Herman36 from Tel Aviv University. The forth chapter, about joint ventures, was written in association with Gershon Baskin37 and Dr. Mohammad Dajani.38 The fifth chapter, about negotiation, was written in association with Menahem Klein39 and Dr. Riad Al Malki.40 The sixth chapter, about the strategies of non-violence, was written in association with Dr. Mohammad Abu Nimer,41 an Israeli Arab who lives in the US. The seventh chapter, about the roles of Israelis and Palestinians in the peace process, was written in association with Dr. Khaled Abu-Asbah42 and Shuli Dichter.43 The eighth chapter was written in association with Edy Kaufman and Juliet Verhoeven.

We held a meeting about the Code of Ethics in Barcelona. The Palestinians who attended included Mr. Sami Al Kilani44 from Nablus University,45 Dr. Noah Salameh,46 the director of the Wifaq Center in Bethlehem, Riad Malki, myself, Dr. Mohammad Dajani, Atel Kaimari who is a well-known journalist and Ilan Halevi47 who is a Palestinian Jew, not an Israeli, who lives between Paris and Ramallah48 and who has been a member of Fatah since 1971. The Israelis included Edy Kaufman, Menahem Klein, Yossi Yonah49 from Beer Sheva university50 and others. There where a number of Spanish people as well. In this conference we discussed issues related to the academic debate.

I can talk about the Israeli-Palestinian interaction during that conference. Menahem Klein wrote about Edward Said.51 I wrote a paper about the debate around normalization, how it affects relations with Israel, and the Arab position concerning the issue. I found that there was a strong Israeli position against normalization. Normalization isn’t rejected only by our side, but also by the Israeli side. This issue is problematic. For example, when the settlers52 claim that the Palestinians are strangers in this land, and that they should either live as strangers or leave, this is a position against normalization. When Israel claims that their basic identity is European, not Middle Eastern, they consider themselves to be in a position of “us against Arab culture,” even against knowing about Arab culture, and this is a position against normalization.

There were differences of opinion among the Israelis themselves. Menahem Klein’s position about normalization was that the Israelis should be part of the European culture. Yossi Yonah’s position was that Israel will cease to exist if it does not know the language and culture and become a part of the area. Edy Kaufman claimed that every nationality may have many identities. Israel may have a European identity and a Middle Eastern identity. He also said that the Palestinians may have a European identity or a Middle Eastern identity without contradiction. Among the Israelis there were three main positions about the identity of Israel.

Among the Palestinians there was debate about Edward Said. One side claimed that it is enough to create a thinker that makes important contributions to human culture. The other side claimed that Said should have left a mark on Palestine like the architect Gaudi53 left his mark on Barcelona. This is an example of the pluralism within the two sides. The debate during the conference was good. The conference papers are going to be printed as a book financed by the city council of Barcelona. Based on the results of the conference, we will continue our work on the Code of Ethics.

Were Palestinians able to come to the conference from all over the West Bank?

Sadly, they were able to come only from Jerusalem. I say sadly because we were expecting people from all over the West Bank but they were unable to travel. One of the problems of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation is that people from the West Bank can’t participate in meetings. The only way to meet is via video conference or if Israelis come to Palestinian cities or towns. It is hard to meet with Israelis now because the Israelis can’t go into West Bank cities and the Palestinians can’t move freely.54 In this situation the Palestinians are more in need of the sympathy of the Israelis concerning the wall55 and other issues. There are Israeli groups who are working on ways to deal with the wall and the checkpoints and other issues. For example, Ta’ayush56 performs real acts of sympathy with the Palestinians.

There is a project that I haven’t told you about which is MECCA--Middle East and Central Caucasus Citizen Assembly-which includes groups from places like Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and others. We held our preparation meeting in Amman and people from Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Turkey and Iran attended. Israel was present with all those people. There were also people from France and Holland. Prince Hasan of Jordan57 attended as well. The main idea is to transform the Middle Eastern people from subjects to citizens. The Arab regimes treat its people as subjects and not as citizens. We started working on founding a chapter for MECCA in Palestine, and another one in Israel. There are already attempts to found one in Jordan, and in Iraq there have been some serious steps taken to found a chapter there. There is already a committee working in Morocco but there hasn’t been enough done in Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Iran. There are other countries that didn’t come to the meeting, like Syria and Lebanon, because of the normalization issue with Israel, so we will go to them! There is a delegation from MECCA going to Syria and Lebanon to found chapters there. The Egyptians didn’t come so another delegation from MECCA will go to Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities. We hope that by the end of the year we will have founded chapters for MECCA all over the Middle East.

When did you start doing work related to the conflict?

Since 1974 I was a political activist in the Palestinian political parties. I spent five years of my life in prison. As a result of my time in prison and my political work, I started to discover, after 1994, the importance of working with the Israeli people. It is not enough for us as Palestinians to work against the Israeli people from the outside; we need to work with the Israeli people from the inside in order to achieve equality. We need to talk to the Israelis, because the Israeli media doesn’t present a true picture of what is happening. We need to talk to the Israeli people and present to them the true picture of our reality and at the same time look at the reality from their side. We should be influenced by the other side as well as influencing them.

Through these activities we build peace from the base, and not from above between political leaders only. We need to build peace through relations between the two people. This may be called normalization or criticized as peace work among the Palestinian public, but this is an implementation of the decision of the PLO58 from 1974. The PLO decided on the importance of the work with the Israeli public in 1974, in the twelfth national council.59 It is very important to work with the Israeli people because the Israeli government is decided by elections, therefore working with the Israeli people will ensure political change in their government, which will lead to peace in the future.

You used to work with the Israeli Left. Is it more important for you to work with the Israeli Right and Center now?

There are different views about this issue. My personal opinion is that it is important to reach the Israeli people on the street. Not the Right or the Left. I ask my Israeli counterparts to organize public meetings that are attended by the largest number of Israelis. They also request to appear in meetings attended by many Palestinians, but this is only possible in Jerusalem and not in the West Bank. We organized meetings for Israelis and Palestinians to appear in front of audiences from the other side. This is very important in order to create dialogue and to make each side more willing to accept and consider the point of view of the other side. This is important in order to prevent the exclusion of the other side's arguments and to take the other side’s point of view into consideration when planning for the future.

Do you think these activities contribute to peace?

There is controversy concerning this issue. There are two analyses. Edward Said wrote in 1994, when he withdrew from meeting with Israelis, that these meetings are without purpose, and that most of the attendees do so for financial reasons, not because of feelings of national responsibility.60 He said that the Israelis benefit more from the meetings because they come better prepared. The Israelis have an organized agenda, in contrast to the Palestinians who aren't organized. He also claimed that the Israelis are more coordinated than the Palestinians and therefore the relations are unbalance and the Palestinians participate from an inferior position. This is one evaluation.

According to another evaluation there are clear results from these activities, and if you combine the results, the effect on the two societies is substantial. Recent proof of this is that as a result of the Geneva Initiative by Ami Ayalon,61 Sharon62 was forced to announce plans for withdrawal from Gaza.63 The withdrawal from Gaza isn't a complete peace plan, but different peace initiatives force even the Israeli Right to be more open to different perspectives and create its own initiatives. Therefore peace initiatives have a direct result in the form of convincing people about peace, and an indirect result in the form of forcing the political powers to start developing ideas for a solution to the situation. The direct and indirect results combined can have great effects. If we stop the meetings, what is the substitution for influencing the Israeli public? A better alternative to stopping the meetings is evaluating the current work program and trying to find the flaws in order to build better programs for the future according to the lessons learned.

Why did you choose this course of action?

I’ve worked in other fields. I’ve worked in spreading non-violence and democracy among the Palestinian society. I work as a trainer and a writer. I work in many fields. This is one of the things I do. What I say to everyone, including the Israelis, is that the Israelis have a problem, which is that they work with the Palestinians more than with the Israeli society. If you want to make a real effort for peace, you should work intensely with the Israeli society and not only with the Palestinians. It is important to work with the Palestinians and show that you have peaceful intentions, but it is also important that you spread the peaceful intentions among your own society.

I say the same to the Palestinians. We as Palestinians should deal with all the dimensions of our citizenship as Palestinians. A dimension of my citizenship is being a responsible citizen of my country. Another dimension of my citizenship is my relationship with our neighboring countries, not only Israel. As a responsible citizen I should be multi-dimensional. The responsibility cannot be divided; I should perform all my responsibilities, internally and externally.

What are the challenges you face?

The challenges facing me in Palestinian society are the un-democratic political elites. The people are democratic, but the leadership isn’t. My problem regarding democratic society isn’t with the people, but with the leaders-- not only the PA, but all the leaders. One of the challenges for a national democracy in Palestinian society is democratization of the leading political powers in terms of their work and decision-making. If they are democratized, they will encourage social involvement and not presume that they should work instead of the people. If they are democratized they will start working in popular ways that are mainly non-violent. The challenges and problems facing democracy and popular involvement strategies are the political elites that are not used to sharing control and think that they should determine the agenda and make decisions for the people, not with the people.

There is a difference between deciding for the people and deciding with the people. We developed a Palestinian peace program in 1974.64 This was an initial program. We developed a complete peace program in 1988.65 The main concept of this program is two countries for two people and mutual recognition of and between the two countries. Oslo was founded on this principle. The main challenge is the clarity of the Israeli peace program. When we have a clear Palestinian peace program, we don't have a clear Israeli peace program.

We talk about a Palestinian State that will be founded in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem;66 we are very clear. When it comes to the Israelis, the Left and Right want a Palestinian state. When you get down to the details about what Palestinian state they are talking about, you realize there are differences. Sharon offers Gaza and 42% of the West Bank.67 This is not a state. The Israeli Left has its differences also. The Labor68 party wants corrections to our proposal and Meretz69 wants fewer changes. There are many problems, among the Left and the Right, concerning Jerusalem. There are problems for everyone with the issue of the refugees, despite the existence of the Taba agreement;70 the Israeli side has problems accepting this agreement. The right-wing has abandoned the agreement altogether. Sharon has rejected the five options given to the refugees in Taba.71 The Israeli people aren’t united in their position towards peace. The Palestinian people made a clear decision about peace in 1988. Because of this it is important to work with the Israeli people in order to help create an Israeli peace program.

Did you ever have a doubt about the rightfulness of your way of work?

No I don’t have doubts. There is a power in Israel that believes that Israel is part of Europe, not of the Arab world. If this power continues to control Israel, believing that they are a more civilized culture, Israel will continue to suppress Palestinians. The Palestinian violence will help them strengthen and justify their violent treatment of the Palestinians. When we use violence, they will react with even more violence. Their violent reaction will strengthen the sides that claim that Israel is a part of Europe and that the people in this area should be treated only by force.

These concepts that are established in Israel have two sources. The first source is the opinion that Israel is part of civilized Europe and that the Arabs are inferior and should be treated only with force. When we act violently we strengthen these two views. We are not in a situation like the British colonial rule of Egypt.72 We are dealing with the Israelis that suffer from the memories of the Holocaust. These memories exist whether we like it or not. Because of their history and memories, our acts of violence cause the Israelis to think of us as terrorists that want to do to Jews what the Germans did to them. Because the European public is sensitive to the issue of the Holocaust, Israel’s claims about Palestinian terrorism are heard a lot in Europe and America.

America and Europe are the dominant political players, not the Islamic countries, the neutral countries or even the UN. Therefore our violence causes us to lose our ability to influence the Israeli public, to lose American and European support and therefore to lose politically. The result of our violence and bad planning was that George Bush73 gave Israel a free hand to do what it wanted with the Palestinians during the last number of years. We have another strategy. The first component is joint meetings and the second component is Palestinian non-violence. These two components are interconnected and need to work together. The first component isn’t enough without the second because meetings with the continuation of violence will be meetings between the strong and weak sides and therefore unsuccessful.

Palestinian non-violence has three advantages. The first is popular involvement. Shooting is a pinpoint act and not everyone can shoot; a demonstration is a wide activity that is done by many people. The non-violence will help us retain the popular involvement that was lost. The second advantage is to show the Israelis that the Palestinians are not thirsty for their blood. Non-violence is a means for building peace, in the sense that non-violence is based on the recognition that the other side is human and we don’t want to kill them. Therefore non-violence is a message of peace. We convey that we are practicing non-violence because we don’t want to kill the other side.

The third advantage is that non-violence sends a message to the dominant powers in the world that our struggle is a popular one. It calls for the end of occupation. It is not a terrorist struggle that aims to destroy the Jews and that is a threat to the stability of the region, as we are accused. Even the Arab countries are afraid of us and view us as a threat to the stability of the region. Our message is peace and a combination of joint meetings, the attempt to reach the Israeli street and the development of non-violent activities as a substitute for the concept of violence.

What is the main way in which the conflict has affected you?

The effect was considerable; I feel it on the personal level because I was imprisoned. The issue of the conflict for me isn’t theoretical, but an experience I lived through. I spent seven months in interrogation chambers during different periods; the longest was for three successive months in 1980-1981. I have suffered on the personal level and therefore the conflict has a direct effect on me. Personal suffering in our situation, or in a situation like it was in South Africa,74 causes a person, over time, to think about general dimensions and less about personal matters. The extreme leftists call this situation an act of renunciation of the struggle. I call it personal experience.

Personal experience and suffering, which is a part of the collective suffering of course, when added to the collective suffering causes the person to start thinking about the general dimension and responsible ways of solving the conflict. These solutions will reflect his responsibility and voice concerning the situation and depending on the way he thinks he can contribute to changing the course of events. For these reasons I call my work a means of transforming the conflict, from a situation of conflict to a situation of no conflict.

I think, based on my experience of 30 years in this field, that we have two options. One is to continue the violence from both sides, which will result in the building of walls: the physical wall Sharon is building and the more important walls that are the mental walls. The mental walls will cause the Palestinians to reject any connections with the Israelis. The violence has already resulted in the creation of a mental wall among the Israelis, which makes them want to stop seeing the Palestinians and stop dealing with them altogether. The other way is building peace from the bottom up in order to transform the conflict in a way that will lead to future cooperation.

The transformation of the conflict isn’t a joint program. You can’t describe it in such a way. The transformation of the conflict is an attempt to plant the seeds for future cooperation that can’t be neglected or replaced. This cooperation is essential for us as Palestinians because if we want Israel to be a part of the region, and not to be a part of Europe that treats us as inferior, this is our only way to achieve peace with Israel. It is our responsibility as Palestinians to make Israel a part of the region, because we are the ones that have daily contacts with Israel. This does not mean the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel will remain, but will treat the other countries in the region as equals. We need cooperation with Israel, because transforming the conflict is a tool for transforming Israeli society and Palestinian society, but especially for changing Israeli society’s view of the Palestinians as inferior.

Because of your experiences, was your choice of work a surprise to you or your family? Did it change your relationship with them?

My relations with my friends from the previous phase of my life have changed. Today most of my relations are with people that believe in the work of transforming the conflict. Today I work with this group more than with the previous group. Some of my friends from my previous work are still with me. The political group I worked with before 1993 was the PFLP. This group is very radical. After the collapse of the Soviet Union75 and the First Gulf War76 people started to rethink their position and draw different conclusions. This resulted in 80% of the PFLP members leaving and taking different directions in life.77 I work with those people who chose other directions. In addition, I built relations with groups that I wouldn’t have built relations with previously.

Are there other people in your community that work in your field?

It is clarified in the article that I wrote about normalization that every group in Palestine has an Israeli partner. Everybody works with Israel. The DFLP and the PFLP have relations with the non-Zionist Israeli Left. Fida78 has relations with Meretz and the Labor Party. Fatah was willing to have relations with the Labor Party and negotiated with the Likud Party.79 Except for Hamas80 and Islamic Jihad,81 all the Palestinian parties have relations with the Israeli side. Even Hamas and Islamic Jihad have relations with the Palestinians inside Israel who are Israelis, especially the Islamic factions in Israel. The relations are not directly through one organization, but there are ideological common points between them as Islamic movements.

We are two societies that are interconnected. Most Palestinian political groups have Israeli partners. On the economic level there are partnerships. Many Palestinians work inside Israel. We are inter-connected societies politically and economically. You may ask why the Palestinian groups have relations with the Israelis who are their enemies in a conflict? Some people in Palestine claim that we should only have relations with the Israeli Left that is against Zionism. There are those who claim that we should have relations with everyone. Why don’t all those who deal with the Israelis form a united front for the coordination of the activities between themselves?

To look at this in a positive way, I propose that we work together rather than have disputes about this. We should try to coordinate together with the Israelis and try to unite with them on common ideas instead of shooting at each other. Unfortunately this is impossible in Palestinian society. In Palestinian society, because of the conflict between different political factions, if a group undertakes joint programs with Israelis, they present themselves as a political group. As a political group they have the power to defend themselves politically.

If you are an NGO you are forced to conceal your work, because the NGOs are weak and don’t have a force to depend on when they are attacked. The solution is not to work as an NGO or as a political group only. We should bring representatives from the political groups to work together with independent activists on activities and programs. This will result in the creation of a group including different people and organizations.

How do you explain the concept of normalization to someone who has no idea about the conflict?

Normalization means the transformation of the current relations with Israel into normal relations. Those who reject this idea claim that we shouldn’t have normal relations with Israel in a less than normal situation of occupation, and therefore the normalization with Israel should be postponed to after the Occupation ends. Some of these people say that we should have a long ceasefire with Israel after the Occupation ends, but not normalization. People like me claim that normalization with the Israeli peace groups is very important for building the future normalization between the two countries and people.

Do you think that your personal identity has changed?

Of course, I used to belong to an organization, until 1994, and now I belong to the homeland. My personal identity is wider now. I used to think in a narrow range. I used to think of the benefit to the party, but now I am free and I think of wider issues, which are the benefit to my homeland, not my small group. I regard myself as a free man after 1994. Before 1994 I wasn’t free, and my thinking was limited to certain issues and molds, but now I don’t have these limitations and my thinking is free.

Did you give anything up in order to perform this work?

No, I didn’t give up anything. I am totally convinced of my work.

What are the personal benefits of your work?

To be honest, before I started working on transforming the conflict, my personal income was higher. The issue is not a financial one or an issue of personal gain. I consider this work to be my duty as a citizen. It is an attempt to fulfill my duties inside of my society and in our relationship with our neighbors.

What do you consider to be a small victory?

I consider the planning and successful execution of an activity a small victory. The execution doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly according to my plans; the important thing is the success of the activity and the delivery of the right message. What is required today isn’t a lot of small victories, but the combination of the small victories into one big victory.

Is there anything or anybody that stops you from doing your work?

I work according to my belief that I learn from life. I learned through my self-education, not in academic ways. I wrote my books according to my self-education. I learned something from every one of the 25,000 people I trained. I learned much from my work with the media from 1982 to 1994. I worked with 11 newspapers and magazines. I learned much from the material I read. I read a lot, train a lot and interact a lot with people. I learn from all the people I interact with.

Did you meet people during your work that you wouldn’t have met otherwise, or has your work put you in situations that you wouldn’t have been in otherwise?

Of course, my work in this field opened up wide and new relationships for me, not only with Palestinians but also with internationals. I have relations with people in Germany, Britain, Holland, the US, and other places. This work opened up the possibility for me to meet interesting people on different levels including governmental and non-governmental personnel in different countries.

What are the main lessons you learned from your work?

In short, the most important lesson is that in order to transform the conflict we need to work with the two societies separately like we work with each other. Another lesson is that because the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements are mainly secular, they didn’t have the chance to use religion in their call for peace. This is very important. All the peace activities were separate from the religious society. There were interfaith dialogues but these dialogues were between religious leaders not between the religious societies. This may be the reason for the problem of Hamas in the Palestinian society and Shas82 and the Mafdal [National Religious Party]83 in the Israeli society.

We did not work effectively with the religious elements of society. Our approach was secular and therefore the religious members of society are not involved in our activities. In order to work with them we need to use the tools of the religion itself and use the language of religion and the messages of the Bible and the Qu’ran. We need to extract messages that support the ideas we are talking about. We did not do this and the Islamic society headed towards extremism. This is an important lesson that needs to be learned.

The third lesson, I would suggest, is how to involve the international community. The international groups support either the Palestinians or the Israelis. We need to be able to recruit the supporting international powers to working with the two sides according to a strategy that we prepare for them as Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations.

What is the most important thing you want to do for your country and people?

I want there to be a democratic Palestinian state. I want there to be elections in Palestine, but not only that. Elections are a form of democracy, but elections alone are not democracy. I want there to be no concentration of power in the hands of certain political groups. I want the provinces to have certain authorities. I want there to be an elected council and a parliament for every city or province, in addition to the general parliament of the country. This will prevent the concentration of power, and allow greater political participation by the people. Some call this decentralization of power and others call it vertical division of power. I prefer the second name. There is horizontal division of authority, which is the constitutional and legal division of power, and there is the vertical division of power, which means that the central authority gives certain power to the local authorities.

I want there to be decentralization of power and a greater role for civil society. I don’t want the central government to have total control over the economy, I want there to be privatization of the economy, in the form of freedom for all the small programs and investments like our program at Panorama, not only for the big companies and programs. I want the Palestinian constitution to allow freedoms for religious and secular people alike. I want legal issues like marriage and heritage to be decided in secular courts for secular people, and in religious ones for religious people, like in Tunisia.84 I want the religious issues to be managed by the religions themselves, in the forms of mosques and churches, and not by a religious authority. I do not want the state to adopt a certain religion, rather leave this issue as a personal choice for every citizen.

I don’t want our country to be a false and fake democracy like the other Arab nations. I want us to be a model for the democratic development of the Middle East, not a model for a country that mimicked the false democracy of the Middle East. I want us to adopt the international treaties for human rights and implement them on the ground, and set them as a clear part of our constitution. I want us to have good relations with all the neighboring countries. I don’t want us to have a large military budget; I want to spend our money on development, not on militarization. I don’t want us to have strong security mechanisms. I want our security mechanisms to fight the collaborators and the violent political extremists, but not impose authority on the citizens. The security mechanisms shouldn’t spy on the citizens and the citizen should be innocent until proven guilty, not the opposite. We should cooperate with everyone and set an example for a civilized society, because we don’t have vast natural resources or large sums of money to invest in the army. Therefore our matrix of power shouldn’t be security, the army, or natural resources; it should be democracy, involvement, human rights and the respect for everyone.

I worked with Edy Kaufmann on holding meetings for organizations to discuss ways of embedding concepts of human rights into the peace process. What we found was that the current peace process doesn’t include human rights. Human rights aren’t mentioned correctly even in the agreements. They are mentioned partially and in general terms. The Israelis concentrated on peace during the debate, and on including the concepts of human rights in the future peace process. The Palestinians concentrated on including the issues of human rights and justice in the peace agreement. We reached the conclusion that we need to combine human rights and justice in order to achieve peace. There are no human rights without peace. The Israelis are more interested in a peace that stops terrorism and operations inside Israel. The Palestinians are more interested in peace and justice for them as a people. They want the peace to justly solve their problems. These are the aspirations of the two people.

I personally believe in two theoretical forms of peace. If you read books about peace you will notice two forms of peace. The first form is a situation in which there is no war and the other form is structural peace. In a situation of structural peace there is economic peace and personal security in addition to political peace between the governments and people. I believe in the structural form of peace. I believe that peace isn’t only an end to the situation of war and the entering of a cold war situation. Peace should be a comprehensive operation that provides economic, social and political peace for all those involved in it.

Do you think there will be peace in your time?

Sharon’s peace plans are to force the Palestinians into a situation of no war, using the wall. It is not cooperative peace, structural peace, which you build as a comprehensive operation involving all the political, social, cultural and economic levels. I regard peace as the moment we transform the conflict. In the moment we transform the conflict we will achieve structural peace.

How do you look forward to the next five or ten years?

The equations of the Middle East are always complicated and the policies are irregular to the extent that there is a difference between Arik85 and Ariel Sharon. One is the peacemaker that evacuated the settlement of Yamit,86 and the other is the man of war, destruction and killing, etc. It is hard to predict what will happen because events are connected to what will happen inside Israel. What will happen in Palestinian society and how will we to act? Are we going to use violence or non violence?

I can’t give you an answer but I can give you scenarios. The first scenario is that the extreme forces continue to control Israel, and continue in their extreme activities and we continue to use violence from our side and the Arab world and the rest of the world will not be able to change this. This means that there is a lethal future scenario that is very dark and without peace. The other scenario is that the powers that control Israel after Sharon will adopt the way of peace, we will adopt non-violent strategies and the world will help by supporting peace initiatives from both sides. The results of this scenario are different. In this scenario there might be equality and a Palestinian state. Bush still says that the Palestinian state will be founded in 2005 despite the situation. Recently the American administration declared that this date is too early and they want to change it. Nobody knows the new date and nobody can anticipate America’s influence on Israel’s policy. There are a number of unknown variables that affect the situation, therefore there are different scenarios.

Are you hopeful?

I am hopeful, of course. I think that one of the variables or factors that can influence the results are our peace activities.

What is the international audience that has the most effect in the region?

I heard from our ambassador in Washington that public opinion of the Americans is not important. He said that the American leaders are the important people. He confused me because I used to think that we should work internationally with the American public, but he said that we should work more with the American leaders. From this angle, it seems that the American leaders have the greatest effect on the conflict. European public opinion is next in its importance. This is because European public opinion is reflected in the way that support groups work with both the Palestinian and Israeli peace groups.

What is the biggest misunderstanding about the conflict?

It is hard to describe this in static terms because the situation is dynamic. The misunderstandings change according to the situation. A new misunderstanding I discovered is that Palestinians are violent by nature. I discovered that the Israeli and international public think that we are a violent society. This belief is connected to the view that Islam is the religion of death - that it regards death as holy. These conceptions are wrong. Islam is a religion that regards life as holy. According to Islam life is given as a gift by God and man doesn’t have the right to harm that gift.87 When a person kills another person he harms a gift given by God. There is a misconception among the international community that Islam believes in violence and killing. We have a misconception about the Israeli society that all of Israeli society is soldiers and settlers, and therefore targets for killing. Our political leadership has abandoned this conception but the public hasn’t.88 There are Israelis that have intentions of peace and co-existence that are stronger than those of some Palestinians. It is sometimes easier to reach an understanding with an Israeli than it is with a religious extremist.

What is the biggest misunderstanding about the nature of your work?

The Palestinians are in need of a great deal of awareness raising about the need for this work in order to transform the conflict. There is confusion and a lack of clarity among Palestinians about how to work with Israeli society in order to transform the conflict. There is work to be done about this confusion. One of the lessons I didn’t mention is the work on this confusion. We should work more on ourselves and talk together more, as Palestinian leaders and people, about the best strategy for working with Israeli society and for the most efficient means of struggle.

What do you think are the roots of the conflict?

There are two ways of approaching this issue. The first is to look at history in order to determine the roots of the conflict. The Palestinians claim that they have lived in this land for 6000 years, since the Canaanites.89 The Israelis claim in contrast that the Temple Mount90 existed in Jerusalem. Looking at history doesn’t help solve the conflict; on the contrary, it gives the conflict a religious dimension. The second way is to look at the conflict as a modern conflict that began in the 20th century. The Jews came to Palestine, and 900,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1948.91 The Jews occupied the rest of Palestine in 1967.92 The refugees outside Palestine and in Gaza and Rafah number 5.5 million people.93 This is the current situation.

How do we solve the conflict given this situation? My approach is that we should look for solutions more than look for the roots of the conflict. The solution should be relatively just, because an absolutely just solution will mean the return of the Jews and Palestinians to everywhere in Palestine. We need to look for relative justice that will end this conflict in the form of gain for both sides. We as Panorama believe that a gain for all sides is possible.

We held an activity about the historical approach to the conflict called shared history. This was a joint project in which Palestinians and Israelis wrote about the roots of the conflict that led to the situation of 1948. The papers from the conference are ready to be published and we are waiting for a publisher. Different Palestinian and Israeli writers participated in the writing of the papers. The papers refer to the period between 1885 and 1948.94 It is very interesting to discuss the modern roots of the conflict instead of the old historical roots. What is more important is the search for a formula to solve the conflict that will allow both sides to win.

What personal event or experience caused you to work in this field?

I am a person who has no time to think of personal matters. Therefore the way I arrange things is logical. There are people that are driven by logic and there are people driven by stimulation. I belong to the first kind. I make my decisions according to logical considerations rather than as reactions to events that I experience. Therefore my work in the field of conflict transformation is a result of a development in my thinking rather than personal experiences.

I was always a factor and influencing force in events and not a person who is only affected by the situation. I always did things as a result of thinking and logical considerations and not as a reaction to certain events. There were of course painful personal events but I did not determine my decisions as a reaction to them. When I am presented with certain offers for projects my acceptance or rejections are a result of logical thinking about what is suitable and what isn’t.

End.