Palestinians and Israelis in Rome - long

[AVNERH]

Dear list

I would like to use our experience in Rome for sharing some learnings (in addition to Harisson`s)about using open space in extreme situations of conflict. 

First I would like to use this opportunity to thank Harisson for the great work that he has done in Rome, being completely neutral, caring to people and sensitive to the tides, gliding with the energies and enable the participants to be fully and genuinly there. Starting the 3rd day with closure that enable people to work through what happened to them in the last 2 days was briliant. It freed the energies of the people to use all the afternoon, evening and some of the day after to take full responsibility and to plan very significant projects.

Preparing the meeting was extremely complicated and took so much energies from many people. I will try to give a simplified taste and learnings from it.

Sponsorship: The initiator was an Italian NGO manager(Nicoletta from Dionysia international center) that together with the Italian foreign ministry were interested in bringing 20 Israelis and Palestinians on the issue of forgivness. A local sponsor- Daniel Kropf (an Italian buisnessman)who participated in our training was added later and offered the open space. He enabled to enlarge the number to 50 because he trusted that OS can create intimacy with larger numbers of people.The topic was changed to building trust because we are not yet in a position of forgive - we still shoot.

Building the groups: This process took more than 2 months with a lot of pulling and pushing from all sides. On the Israelis the trend was to bring people you know and only in the last week we managed to enlarge significantly the variety to represent almost all sectors of society. On the Palestinian side there were different groups beccause the Italian initiator invited one Palestinian leader to choose the rest of the group and the local sponsor chose another. It took them some time (and crisis) to create a joint list of participants. The groups consisted from people from the buisness sector, writers and media, public figures, education, government officials, university and facilitators.

Facilitators: At the beginning Tova and myself were invited. Then we thought to bring Carol, an Israeli Palestinian (that took the OS training this year) to work with us to create a balance, but she was not accepted by some of the Palestinians, without knowing her, because she is not a `real` Palestinian. We decided to go abroad and hesitated between non jews Americans and Europeans (Europeans are perceived by Palestinians as more neutral than Americans).  Harisson recomended on Michael Pannwitz but since he couldn`t come Harisson changed his plans and came.It was decided that together with a `real` untrained Palestinian woman we will assist Harisson as natives to keep the space open. Tova and Carol came as participants.

Steering comity: It was a real Chaos, we never met all of them to work together. Some we didn`t see at all because they could not get out of their city.

The day before: We wondered if and how much preparation/training the people need before they start. At the end Nada, a Serbian woman and the expert (to my taste)in non violent comunication (Marshal Rosenberg) gave us only 1 hour of participative lesson on needs: The existence of honorable and valued need behind all manifestations of anger and hostility and the benefits in acknowledge that. She drew a lot on her experiences in working with childeren and adults during and after the war in Yeguslavia.  Nada participated in the OS, and the people found that what they learned from her as very meaningfull.

The press: The group decided not to cover the meetings in order to ensure free speach.A press conference was schedueled to the end with the intention that the group will decide what to say. They decided not to tell who was there and what were the issues. The reasons were the fear of sabotage and refraining to reduce the experience to words.

There were many incidents of the cruel reality along the meeting, as invading twice to the home city of some of the Palestinians participants, and killing of Israeli citizens. Finally as an illustration that on coming back to Israel/Palestine Israeli members of the group arranged from Rome a military escort to accompany some of their Palestinians new friends to their homes (in the middle of a combat there), and also brought back to jerusalem family members of another friend.

Summary: The event was a big sucess to compare with other Israeli-Palestinians meetings which are usually (so I heard) very much in  control of exact planning who, what, when.  The group decided not to reveal so the only thing I can say is that it was the first time that the Palestinians met not only the humanistic left but almost all the dimensions of Israeli society.For many Israelis it was the first time to meet and talk with Palestinians. This brought to much deeper levels of mutual understandings and friendships, and freed a lot of energies to actualize meaningfull passions that can make a difference. 

I came back with a heavy burden of responsibility.It seems that someone turned on the light at the end of the tunnel.

It is long but I hope it is usefull.



Avner Haramati

Jerusalem

avner at oganim.com






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