Sarah Casman - Blog Post #3

            Spending these past few days in the north was packed full of amazing experiences.  I was so impressed with all of the departments that the Peres Center for Peace has formulated to establish connections and relationships between Israelis and Palestinians.  Throughout the presentation, I kept thinking about the difference in attitudes between the Peace Center and Professor Avraham Sela’s talk at the Truman Institute on Monday.  While the Peace Center was full of optimism at the relations between Israelis and Palestinians and confident in their efforts to form positive relations, we all agreed that Sela’s presentation was extremely pessimistic and hopeless.  The contrast is huge.

            One of the things that really stood out to me about Sela’s talk was when he explained that, although the majority of Israelis are in favor of a 2-state solution, they have no idea what this truly means.  The fact that many of these Israelis still favor continued settlements means they don’t recognize that a 2-state solution necessitates Israelis and Palestinians work together as partners and neighbors.  A large portion of the ideological state of Israeli society would have to change in order for this relationship to be possible.

            This change of mindset is exactly what the Peres Center for Peace aims to alter.  By fostering Israeli-Palestinian relations, each side can recognize that they share the same basic needs.  For example, the department that focuses on business and economics helps create business relationships and trade agreements between Israelis and Palestinians.  When these connections are formed, it creates a dependency on each side of the spectrum; it is much harder to maintain prejudices when working so intimately with another person.  Another relevant department is focused on medicine and healthcare.  Just as in the economic department, here the two groups are reliant on each other for health and safety reasons – arguably fostering even more intimate relationships because it can involve the life or death of a family's children.

            The Peace Center is doing a necessary job of attempting to alter the perceptions of Israelis and Palestinians to the other group.  As Opa Aronoff explained, “Playing the blame game is counter-productive.”  He is right.  Both sides have made mistakes and both sides have been terribly wronged.  But, it is useless to dwell on these when the ultimate goal is lasting peace.  The way to change public opinion is to start representing each other as humans with equal needs and rights.

            Because of the importance of the Peace Center’s work, I was disappointed to hear that they have not been able to do substantial studies on the effect their programs actually have on the participants.  I think that these are necessary to prove their ethos.  I hope that more people start to identify the importance of this NGO so that they will eventually have the financial support for in-depth qualitative studies.  I think they play a huge role in a necessary step to peace.