Do you think that your work promotes peace? | Just Vision تجاوز إلى المحتوى الرئيسي

Do you think that your work promotes peace?

I believe that providing Palestinian and Israeli students with an opportunity to be exposed to the other's narrative - to come to know how the other side thinks and how they live their lives - has an essential role to play in changing Palestinians and Israelis' perceptions of each other. A Palestinian or Israeli who reads the story of the other is not the same person he or she was before doing so; facing the other's story increases one's understanding of one' own story and own reality, regardless of whether this understanding is positive or negative. At the same time, one comes to appreciate the multiple dimensions of the other's story. Professor Sami Adwan 24 Education

Do you think that your work promotes peace?

I believe that providing Palestinian and Israeli students with an opportunity to be exposed to the other’s narrative - to come to know how the other side thinks and how they live their lives - has an essential role to play in changing Palestinians and Israelis’ perceptions of each other. A Palestinian or Israeli who reads the story of the other is not the same person he or she was before doing so; facing the other’s story increases one’s understanding of one’ own story and own reality, regardless of whether this understanding is positive or negative. At the same time, one comes to appreciate the multiple dimensions of the other’s story. This is what I said at a conference in France in November-- by the way our book has been translated to French and Italian and is being used in schools there. When the French students asked me how this project has affected me, I said simply, “You will never be the same.” Perhaps I gave such a terse answer because I was tired at the time. But that is what I said. After the reading the story of the other, you will not be the same person you were before. Something changes. Of course the extent to which one changes differs from one person to another. Reading the other’s story may bring one to be more sympathetic, compassionate, and understanding. In some cases it might even help one to rethink one’s own story, and say “Maybe I shouldn’t have thought about the other in this way.” In the first stage, all of this happens at the personal, individual, human level. From there, the single individual may become a group of five, ten, fifteen, thirty, or two hundred people. We cannot say that this project, by itself, will lead to peace. Grassroots work - the development of this and other people-to-people projects - is necessary, but not sufficient for the achievement of peace. A political decision or agreement can be implemented from the top down, but in order for peace be to transformed from a political decision to a reality, people must follow it. For this reason, we need both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms to function together and reinforce one another. Furthermore, it is also impossible to look at these narratives without giving attention to the reality in which Palestinians live. Palestinians are suffering under complete occupation. Of course, Israelis who are hurt by Palestinian attacks also suffer, but Israelis’ suffering does not reach the level of Palestinians’ suffering because the Palestinian situation is one of an entire nation suffering en masse. I know that suffering cannot be weighed or measured, but the fact is that the Palestinian people are occupied. They are denied their freedom, independence, self-determination, and very humanity. Such things are impossible under occupation. On the other hand, Israelis might be suffering from the threat of the Palestinian attacks. I do not know if this can be said, but Israelis might also suffer due to the knowledge that they have occupied another nation and are continuing to do so. This feeling manifests itself in various phenomena in Israeli society, such as the increase in incidents of violence and car accidents and in relationships within the family. There is a direct linkage between these phenomena and the status of being an occupier. There are many more examples of this type.