Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group
Formation July 1992 (1992-07)
Founder Adham Salem, Nahida Salem, Libby Traubman, Len Traubman
Purpose Non-Violent Conflict Resolution and Dialogue
Location
Website Official website

The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group is a non-violent conflict resolution group established in 1992 in San Mateo, California. Its first meeting was held in a local neighborhood residence. As of May 2015, the group remained active and continued to meet monthly in members' homes.[1] The one-to-one, face-to-face method of conflict resolution, modeled by this dialogue group, was increasingly looked to globally by educators, researchers, journalists, activists, trainers, and strategists including the U.S. Department of State, which distributes the dialogue group's instructive films in Africa.[2]

Members of the group have initiated and provided facilitation support at seminars, conferences[3][4] and youth gatherings,[2] created both printed[5] and video[6] facilitation guidelines, and responded to requests for media interviews.[7][8][9][10] Interest in their work increased in national media during the 2000 Intifada.[11][12][13]

Beginnings

Initial incentive to form the dialogue group came from coexistence models of the 1980s in the Middle East and Africa. Examples are: Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam (Oasis of Peace), a village where Jewish and Palestinian Israeli families live and learn together, and Koinonia Southern Africa,[14][15] founded by Reverend Nico Smith during apartheid years, which gathered thousands of Blacks and Whites together to share meals and stories, sometimes in public at risk to their lives. Both initiatives were honored together during the San Francisco 1989 Beyond War Award Ceremony.[16] The word Koinonia means "belonging together" or "communion by intimate participation"[17]

Several members of this dialogue group have deep roots in the principles and educational tradition of the Beyond War movement of the 1980s, which was succeeded by the Foundation for Global Community, the group's first fiscal sponsor.[18] Fiscal oversight support was later provided by the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center.[19]

In 1991, several of the dialogue group founders, who had worked with the Beyond War Foundation and the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation, brought together Palestinian and Israeli citizen leaders who forged and signed the "Framework for a Public Peace Process" .[20]

The Living Room Dialogue model

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group

Engaging in peacebuilding, the early Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women and men participants in the dialogue group were determined to export solutions, rather than import problems. They intended to create a people-intensive—not money-intensive—easily reproducible, in-home model to parallel and compliment the government peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as in other regions of the world.[21] By 1993, government negotiators were clarifying their own plea for mandatory citizen participation and the need for the creativity of People-to-People Programs, as found in Annex VI of the 1993 Oslo Accords.[22]

As designed, the living room dialogue group format gives dynamic form to the emerging paradigm of people-centered human security that challenges traditional notions of government-centered national security and is focused on sustained state, regional, and global stability.

Means of change

Change is viewed by the dialogue group in binary terms—a "no" component and a "yes" component. While defining the "no" component—what is wrong, disintegrating, and in need of correction—the dialogue's larger intention is to embody and paint a picture of the "yes," The intent is to focus less on the old and the obsolete—what does not work—and more on modeling the new, the "yes" component that works for the good of all. The dialogue group's ongoing experience is that change begins in small circles of local innovators and Culture Creatives.

The means of Communication to strengthen relationships, release creativity, and effect change is Dialogue, with its quality of Listening for Learning. While the action of dialogue is designed to deepen and enhance circles of relationships, it is not to be mistaken for safe, casual Conversation or adversarial, win-lose Debate. Furthermore, this type of dialogue's contribution to Conflict Transformation is not in Conflict Resolution or Deliberation. Rather this type of dialogue is used to introduce, familiarize, humanize, dignify, and empathize with all the people in the room, so that Conflict Resolution and Deliberation can then take place on a solid foundation. In particular, the dialogue process begins with exploring each person's life narrative, because in many cases "an enemy is one whose story we have not heard". A beneficial outcome of this type of dialogue is a reduction in the widespread humiliation and rankism on Earth as defined by Robert W. Fuller.

This Track II Diplomacy approach is not a quick fix but requires time, and thus is rightfully referred to as Sustained Dialogue,[23] as defined by Dr. Harold H. (Hal) Saunders. Useful practices of this cross-cultural communication continue to improve, drawing from the best of Bohm Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, and the ongoing global Dialogue Among Civilizations.

Activities

The contributions made by this dialogue group to the expanding effort to choose conversation over conflict were recognized in the Directory of Arab/Jewish/Palestinian Dialogue Groups published by the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking at the University of Minnesota.[24] Always seeking to expand the network, participants in this Dialogue Group communicate daily face-to-face and by e-mail, telephone, and Skype with citizens worldwide to encourage new groups and provide both graphic and written how-to guidelines (pdf).[25] This dialogue group regularly publishes e-mail reports on the global success stories regarding the expanding public peace process.[26]

Creating and Distributing Educational Tools and Instruction Guides

The dialogue method draws on the wisdom of Elie Wiesel: "People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell." Dialogue-initiated peacebuilding successes are documented in film and other tools of education that are available for community building. Documents created by the group and freely distributed for use by others include: Palestinian & Jewish Recipes for Peace,[27] Camp Activities for Relationship Building (pdf),[28] The Public Peace Process of Change (pdf),[29] MEETING MOHAMMED: Beginning Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue (pdf),[30] STORY AS ENTRY TO RELATIONSHIP: Teacher's Guide (pdf),[31] ENGAGING THE OTHER: Teacher's Guide (pdf)[32] and also see related Theses and documents of others.[33] The dialogue also maintains a web resource page referencing multi-lingual graphics that can be used by other groups wanting to use dialogue as a communication tool.[34]

Dialogue groups launched and supported

Many dialogue and relationship-building endeavors continue to be birthed and deepened with assistance from this dialogue group:[35] Building Bridges in Western New York,[36] The Dialogue Project in Brooklyn,[37] The Houston Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue Group,[38] Jewish-Arab Dialogues in Atlanta,[39] Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue in San Diego,[40][41] documented in the film, "Talking Peace",[42] Middle East Dialogue: A compassionate Listening Group in Los Angeles,[43] Monmouth Dialogue Project in New Jersey,[44] Potlucks for Peace – Ottawa,[45] Arab/Jewish Women's Peace Coalition [46] and The West Los Angeles Cousins Club.[47]

International initiatives and support

Cameroon

Global Compassion[48]

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire – Ivory Coast

Dozos-Guerre Tribal Reconciliation [49]
Albino Citizens' Humanization and Integration [50]

Bauchi State of Nigeria

Participation by the members of the Forward Action for Conservation of Indigenous Species.(FACIS) in the conference in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria gave this group the confidence to gather Muslim and Christian men and women for a Dialogue.[51]

Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria

Dialogue In Nigeria: Muslims and Christians Creating Their Future Together [2]

The Republic of Singapore

Skype-Facilitated Singapore School Dialogue [52]

Additional initiatives supported

Intercultural Journeys[53]
Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp
Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp
From 2003–2007, the dialogue group partnered with Camp Tawonga to bring hundreds of Muslim, Jewish and Christian, elders, adults, and youth from 50 different towns in Palestine and Israel to successfully live together and communicate with each other at the Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp—Oseh Shalom – Sanea al-Salam.[54][55][56][57]
Participants included former armed combatants from both sides of the conflict. The attendees worked together to transcend stereotypes in an effort to dignify one another and demonstrate what peaceful, face to face coexistence looks like. Participants returned to the Middle East to begin or expand their own successful relationship-building initiatives including: Arava Institute for Environmental Studies,[58] Givat Haviva,[59] Interfaith Encounter Association,[60] Combatants for Peace,[61] Neve Shalom~Wahat al-Salam,[62] Nir School of the Heart,[63] Peace Child Israel, and [64] Sulha Peace Project.[65]

Documentary filmography

PEACEMAKERS: Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp (2007)

A variety of films document The Dialogue Group's domestic and international experiences. Over 13,000 DVDs have been requested from all continents and every U.S. state including citizens from 2,594 institutions, 2,601 cities, in 82 nations including 20 countries in Africa. Films include:

References

  1. Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group still going strong after 20 years – by alix wall, j. correspondent In j., the Jewish news weekly of Northern California – Thursday, December 13, 2012 –
  2. 1 2 3 DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA: Muslims & Christians Creating Their Future (65 min). Vimeo.
  3. "Palestinian Jewish Dialogue Season of Light Three Continent Video Bridge – 2014". igc.org.
  4. "OWL Global Wisdom Circle – 4/14/2015Listening to the Enemy". One World Lights.
  5. "Dialogue communication graphics Arabic Hebrew French English listening peacebuilding reconciliation education". igc.org.
  6. 1 2 ABRAHAM'S VISION Graduation Day! – Muslim & Jewish youth learning together – 2010 (40 min). Vimeo.
  7. "Palestinians, Jews engaging and creating". cnn.com.
  8. "Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue". kalw.org.
  9. "The Citizen-To-Citizen Public Peace Process – ICERM Radio Program with Libby and Len Traubman – International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation". International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation.
  10. Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue – Archival TV news (April 2002 – 10 min). Vimeo.
  11. Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue – Archival TV news (October 2000 – 4 min). Vimeo.
  12. Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue – Archival local ABC news (October 2000 – 3 min). Vimeo.
  13. Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue – Archival local NBC news (October 2000 – 3 min). Vimeo.
  14. Dale Martin, "Old-fashioned Potlucks Lead to New Friendships", The Times, San Mateo, California, March 29, 1991, Mirror of article
  15. Libby and Len Traubman, Remembering our roots in Koinonia Southern Africa, Website article
  16. Beyond War Award – 1989 – Neve Shalom~Wahat al-Salam – Carter Center – Koinonia Southern Africa Free Video
  17. ""Fellowship in the Gospel" : A Study of the Greek Word Koinonia". ancientroadpublications.com.
  18. http://globalcommunity.org/fgcHistory.pdf
  19. "Community Partners – Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center". pcrcweb.org.
  20. Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, Beyond War Foundation, FRAMEWORK FOR A PUBLIC PEACE PROCESS: Toward a Peaceful Israeli-Palestinian Relationship, 1991. PDF
  21. "New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation – Exploring Faiths". New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation.
  22. THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN INTERIM AGREEMENT ON THE WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP, Annex VI, Protocol Concerning Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation Programs, 1999, Website Page
  23. http://www.sustaineddialogue.org/iisd/relationship_model.htm
  24. http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/RJP/Projects/Palestinian-Israeli-Connection/Directory_Arab_Jewish_Palestinian_Dialogue_Groups.pdf
  25. "how-to guidelines" (PDF).
  26. What Others Are Doing: E-mail Reports About Successful Palestinian-Jewish and Interfaith Relationship Building Activities Website Page
  27. "Palestinian & Jewish Recipes for Peace – Middle East Israeli Arabic Food Cookbook Holiday Gift". igc.org.
  28. "Camp Activities for Relationship Building" (PDF).
  29. "The Public Peace Process of Change" (PDF).
  30. "MEETING MOHAMMED: Beginning Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue" (PDF).
  31. "STORY AS ENTRY TO RELATIONSHIP: Teacher's Guide" (PDF).
  32. "ENGAGING THE OTHER: Teacher's Guide" (PDF).
  33. "related theses and documents of others".
  34. "USEFUL MULTI-LINGUAL GRAPHICS for Change, Communication, and Relationships of Peacebuilding". masterpeace.org.
  35. "Jews and Palestinians Talk Peace in a Living Room". VOA.
  36. "Building Bridges in Western New York". buildingbridgeswny.org.
  37. "The Dialogue Project". thedialogueproject.org.
  38. "Intercultural Dialogue". joysounds.net.
  39. "JADA – Jewish Arab Dialogues in Atlanta". educationprinciples.net.
  40. "San Diego Jewish Palestinian Dialogue". sdpalestinianjewishdialogue.org.
  41. The Christian Science Monitor. "Seeking understanding... one dinner at a time". The Christian Science Monitor.
  42. "Talking Peace Trailer – IMDb". IMDb.
  43. "Home Page". middleeastdialoguela.
  44. "Directory of Arab-Jewish/Israeli-Palestinian Groups for Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence – Monmouth University". monmouth.edu.
  45. "Montréal Dialogue Group". Montréal Dialogue Group.
  46. "SWO: Articles". sufiwomen.org.
  47. "LA Cousins Club". sarah4hope.org.
  48. "Interfaith Dialogue". Global Compassion.
  49. Dozos-Guerre Tribal Reconciliation in Cote d'Ivoire (June 2013). YouTube. July 17, 2013.
  50. https://vimeo.com/100366261
  51. http://www.uri.org/the_latest/2015/05/a_strong_partnership_between_facis_and_jewishpalestinian_living_room_dialogue_in_san_mateo_california_usa
  52. Skype-Facilitated Singapore School Dialogue (55 min). Vimeo.
  53. "Intercultural Journeys". Intercultural Journeys.
  54. "Jews and Palestinians talk peace under NorCal pines – Education". Jewish Journal.
  55. "TUOLUMNE COUNTY / Peaceful setting, intense dialogue". SFGate.
  56. Peacemakers Camp News – 2005. YouTube. April 15, 2010.
  57. http://traubman.igc.org/camp2006radio.mp3
  58. "Arava Institute for Environmental Studies – The premier environmental studies and research program in the Middle East". arava.org.
  59. Simply-Smart. "Givat Haviva – The Center for a Shared Society". givathaviva.org.
  60. "Interfaith Encounter". Interfaith Encounter.
  61. "Combatants For Peace". cfpeace.org.
  62. "Oasis of Peace". Oasis of Peace.
  63. "Welcome to NIR School". nirschool.org.
  64. "Peacechild Israel". mideastweb.org.
  65. Sulha Peace Project
  66. Peacemakers – Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp. YouTube. October 20, 2009.
  67. Dialogue at Washington High. YouTube. October 21, 2009.
  68. CROSSING LINES IN FRESNO (documentary – 29 min). Vimeo.
  69. "New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation – "DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA: Muslims & Christians Creating Their Future"". New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation.
  70. Albino ~ Non-Albino Reconciliation – April 2014 – Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire (with English sub-titles). Vimeo.
  71. "20 Years of Palestinian-Jewish Living Room Dialogue". Internet Archive.

External links

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