Conceptions of Peace
The Late Professor Dan Bar-On
PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East)
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Interview Highlights »
“ We think that true peace means that you recognize how the other is different from you, not how the other is the same as you are. To create a bridging narrative means to create a same-ness. We don't want to create an illusion of same-ness; we don't think that will happen, not in the near future, at least. So first of all you have to recognize that the other thinks differently from yourself.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ I don't do this work for the benefit of Israelis or for peace. I do this for the benefit of Palestinians. The creation of a viable and democratic Palestinian State is a Palestinian interest and an Israeli interest at the same time. I work for the Palestinian interest. The Israeli interest doesn't concern me much. I am not concerned about loving the Israelis, embracing them and living with them in love and friendship. What concerns me is being able to play a part in achieving peace as a way of life. Nobody loves peace because he was born that way, or has romantic feelings towards peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ I differentiate between peace building and peace making. Peace making is an agreement with elites. Peace building is engaging the majorities on both sides to benefit from peace as a way of life, and as something that can contribute to them on a collective level and on an individual level.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Adele Zumot
All for Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace means no war. It means life and death; if there is no war, there are no deaths and there is peace, there is life. Peace is everything. Personally I dream of peace and living it. I grew up hearing about it, but all I could see was fighting over this and that, giving up here and there-- this is what created the whole mess of the conflict. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
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Interview Highlights »
“ I think we have to forgive each other for horrible things that we've done to each other, and that hasn't happened. We need to go through that process. We also need our leaders to make those political statements to help create the environment for forgiveness, and to stop the suffering that we impose on each other, but peace is about reconciliation, forgiveness, understanding. We've got a long way to go. It's going to take years; it's going to take generations. It's a marriage, and a marriage, a partnership, requires working at it every day at every level, and that's what peacemaking is about, that's what peace is about.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Nasser Laham
Maan News, Bethlehem Television
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Interview Highlights »
“ I don’t hate the word peace, but I found that neither my people nor the Israeli people believe in it anymore [...] when people hear this word, they hear something that hurts; it denotes American-style peace, Oslo Accord peace. I am searching for a word, the way the word t’adia (calm), is now used instead of ceasefire. People want new words, a new lexicon, so I must think of a new word instead.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Sarah Karajeh
Bereaved Families Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ For me peace means security. Peace means comfort, peace of mind and everything related to security.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Helmi Kittani
Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace means to me two independent countries, the State of Israel and the State of Palestine, within borders, which most people in the two regions agree to, the 1967 borders. Peace means to me that between these two countries there will be open borders, allowing economic and social activities. Peace means to me that it is possible to establish many areas of joint economic activity between the two countries for the sake of creating sources and places of employment for both peoples. Peace means to me that in Palestinian universities and Israeli universities Palestinian and Israeli students can learn together and in the process also develop common cultures. Peace means to me the life here will be quiet for all. Israelis can live in quiet and Palestinians can live in quiet. And both peoples can together think about building a market - culturally and economically - that will serve as a positive example to the rest of the world. And true peace means to me that Israel and Palestine can help resolve other conflicts in other places of the world. That's the peace that I want.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Eliyahu McLean
The Sulha Peace Project, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Middleway
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Interview Highlights »
“ You can have a settler rabbi and a Hamas sheikh working together for peace, because they're speaking a common spiritual language even though they're coming from diametrically opposed political points of view. I like to say that spirituality is trying to find the underlying place of unity between contradictory opposites, places where there might be a resonance and a commonality between two opposing sides, even settler and angry Palestinian, or Left wing and Right wing. It's almost like in this world, things are divided, but the place from which everyone originates, the ultimate place, is a place of unity. So the idea is to remind people that our source is the same source. We come from the same source, whether you call it a monotheistic God, or the Native American Great Spirit, or the Great Buddha, or whatever. I want to tap into the field of energy, the place of unity where people come from.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace is the end of a process that hasn’t even started. The process we are trying to embark on is to acknowledge the necessity of separating, the necessity of the state of Israel to end the Occupation and to invest in Israel's internal problems, with of course, security measures. Of course my hope for the long term is a step necessary for future peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Walid Salem
Panorama
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Interview Highlights »
“ 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.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yehuda Stolov
Interfaith Encounter Association
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace means harmonious relations between all the residents of the region. I don't think it is associated with any specific political model. I think that peace makes many political models possible, some of which seem like complete fantasies given the reality. Without constructing the human infrastructure, even the most conventional model - such as that of two states - seems pretty bizarre, too. An agreement can't hold up if it lacks human infrastructure. The Oslo Accords didn't fall apart because it was a bad agreement but because there was no trust between the two communities.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yana Knopova
Coalition of Women For Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ I'm interested in people who seek justice, who want solutions based on justice; peace is part of the Israeli rhetoric. Palestinian rhetoric talks of liberation, forget about peace. Then they [the Israelis] say they [the Palestinians] don't want peace! Would you debate whether to adopt the Geneva Convention's resolutions with regard to your keepers if you were locked up in jail? Peace is void of content for me. It's very nice to talk of peace, today but I'm interested in justice.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shwanesh Maniov
Seeds of Peace, Children of Abraham
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Interview Highlights »
“ Peace is respecting the other side, seeing them as I see myself. I'll understand their needs just like I want people to understand my needs, to be seen as a person. But peace in general for me is being able to wake up and decide to go to the beach in Gaza just because I feel like it. Just like I can drive from Germany to Italy by car without any fear, without any checkpoints. I want to go to Syria. That's the peace I envision.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Salwa Abu Libdeh
Dialogue On The Road
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Interview Highlights »
“ It means the same as it would mean to any Palestinian. It means to be in my house and feel like I can sleep safely in it. Peace is to be in your home on your land. For example, when you are abroad you start to long to come back home. So how do you think it feels when you are on your land and you still have that feeling? Real peace is the peace of the soul [...] At the same time, I think of peace on the Israeli side, that they shouldn’t go out on the streets and get killed. Just like I am a mother and care for my children, there are other mothers who feel the same way. This is why I want peace for my children, to live in comfort and security, and I want peace for myself to know that I will not get hurt. But I want peace in my home, on my land, while I am still on it. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yana Knopova
Coalition of Women For Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ Nowadays I think we're witnessing a revival of the Arab Jewish identity among what is termed Mizrachi people. I think that they have the key to true peace, a kind of peace that is right for the Middle East, a peace that will be achieved by Arab Jews and Christian and Muslim Arabs. It's an inter-Arab issue and the state here will be an Arab one with minorities: a large Jewish minority, and large Christian Palestinian minority, a Muslim minority, a Bedouin minority, Druze, but it will be an Arab state. With all due respect we won't be able to hold on to this, and I don't even know if there is anyone who truly believes that in a hundred years' time there will still be a European presence in the Middle East. It goes against the course of history.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ We focus on communities on either side of the Green Line or on either side of the border between Israel and Jordan, that share a water resource-a river, a stream, a wadi that runs through them. The communities utilize that common resource to try and better understand each other's reality-their water or environmental reality-but also to improve the environment they share and in the process build good neighborly relations. That's what peace is all about, being good neighbors.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Itamar Shapira
Combatants for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ I can’t imagine peace here in the near future. I hope that it will happen because without hope there is no reason to work for peace, but I don’t expect my generation to witness us living together, doing business with each other, blossoming relations. I think there needs to be separation; I think that a separation barrier is a good idea in theory -- not its current contour obviously, the way it closes off tiny ghettos -- but a fence that high, of similar intimidating proportions on the 1967 borders; that would be fine.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Gidon Bromberg
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
Portrait »
Interview Highlights »
“ Peace, and sustainable development. That's the mandate of the organization; we're working at creating peace between peoples. We're very much aware that if you only focus on the prime ministers or the presidents signing some sort of accord, it's meaningless. Israel and Jordan have had a peace treaty for ten years. There's no peace between Israelis and Jordanians; it doesn't exist, it's a fallacy. Most Jordanians are hostile toward Israel, and most Israelis are unaware of anything that's really going on in Jordan. It's not peace, and if it stays at that artificial, governmental level, with a change of government, it will all crumble, it will all disappear. The type of peace process that involves people, that involves communities and the shared environment, creates real foundations for peace, it builds understanding.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Orly Noy
All For Peace Radio
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Interview Highlights »
“ Honor. And justice. It's not so much about love. For a lot of people I think it is about love, but for me it's more about justice and fairness and honor. You can love somebody but if you mistreat him… I don't mind people not liking the Palestinians, but I mind people not treating them with justice. It's just human fairness; it's not fair for them to live like this. It's not fair. Peace for me is the realization that every person is born with equal rights. Peace means that no child should die in Rwanda because he has nothing to eat just because he is unfortunate enough to be born there. It's crazy. It's about justice and fairness more than anything else.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Shlomi Daskal
The People's Voice, Realistic Religious Zionism
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Interview Highlights »
“ Israelis and Palestinians don’t believe in peace nowadays. It’s a term that we’ve exploited over the past 10 years, and we’ve tainted it. We kept speaking of peace and nothing happened. That’s why when I come to sell the Israeli society my views I don’t talk of peace because then I’d be told, “You’re talking nonsense.“ No, I talk of a divorce settlement. I believe that currently the two societies, Israeli and Palestinian, are ill societies. They are in critical condition, even if peace as it were arrived tomorrow morning and we were to reach a settlement, both societies would have to undergo rehabilitation, painful and difficult. If that’s what happens tomorrow morning then I really hope that my grandchildren will be able to live in ideal peace. But it will take a long time; I’m sure that when it does happen we’ll witness people going here and there but it won’t be a process and it won’t be profound. It will take a long time for us to emerge from this. Peace for me is an ideal I wish we could achieve.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yafit Gamila Biso
The Olive Tree
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Interview Highlights »
“ In order to establish a just peace we must ensure the other side's human rights as well as ours. You can't differentiate human rights work from peace work, it's ultimately connected. In order to build peace, or what is termed "trust," with the other side we must ensure their rights. We can't just impose our will. Full rights must be ensured, whether it is for children, women or men. It's all linked; you can't separate human rights from peace work. This is what I am doing when I work to promote children's rights to receive medical attention or get an education. It is a brick in the wall of the peace we aspire to construct.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Adi Dagan
Coalition of Women for Peace, Machsom Watch
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Interview Highlights »
“ As an initial stage I think [the two-state solution is] pretty much the only solution that can be considered because I think that most Israelis and most Palestinians wouldn't want to live in a joint framework; it's problematic after a history of prolonged struggle and imbalance. I think that in the long term separation will be difficult to maintain, especially in such a small area that is so densely populated, and also according to my vision. Peace means cooperation and open borders and much more freedom. Take the EU, where people can live in any of the countries, work in any country there. I think that's the meaning of peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Wafa Srour
The School for Peace
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Interview Highlights »
“ All Jewish Israelis, even racists, claim that they want peace. But what they actually mean by peace is that they continue to keep the Palestinians under occupation and the Palestinians say, "OK." Our view of peace is different. For us, peace is based upon equality: not you in a position of superiority and me in a position of inferiority. Even during Oslo, the feeling of superiority on the part of Jews was something unbelievable. How can that be considered to be peace? Peace will only be achieved when the two sides are treated as equals. That means that Israel has to give up its feeling of superiority. Only when both sides are equal, can each think of making concessions to the other. That is genuine peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
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Interview Highlights »
“ We should have a good and respectful relationship between two countries, not between a people and their occupier. The creation of two countries is the solution. This is the final solution. The current solution is that both people sit down and decide that we have had enough killing and occupation. The people should decide upon this, not the governments. The governments can’t force upon us something we don’t want. We should convince each other of each others case. This is how people get married. They love each other before getting married; they can’t marry when they are enemies.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Devorah Brous
Bustan
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Interview Highlights »
“I realized that while one half of the populace’s discourse deals with peace, the other deals with rights and injustice. There’s a clash between them-- not to mention the people that aren’t even discussing it because they are promoting the war agenda.
” [Source in Complete Interview]
Meir Margalit
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
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Interview Highlights »
“ [Peace] means leading quiet, peaceful lives, considering a future without fear. For Jerusalemites, it means going out for coffee or getting on a bus without any fear. I admit that when I think about peace I'm mostly thinking of my children. What scares me most is that my children will have to go through the same things we did. It's time for them to enlist, and they decided they will - not to combat units or units stationed in the Territories, they don't want to deal with oppression. I'm afraid of a situation where they will have to go through the same cycle we did: the Yom Kippur War and so on, wars that will get worse over time.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Dr. Ron Pundak
Peres Center for Peace, Peace NGOs Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ A peace agreement with the Palestinians doesn't mean that there won't be extremists on each side who will try to sabotage it. And it doesn't mean that immediately the borders will be open and I will be able to build my home in Nablus and that Palestinians will be able to build their homes in Tel Aviv. Eventually, peace can lead to something which is not a utopian world, but something realistic; it is something that we see happening elsewhere. If you examine the history of wars in Europe, our wars are almost nothing in comparison.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ali Abu Awwad
Bereaved Families Forum, Al Tareek (The Way)
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Interview Highlights »
“ Maybe what I am saying is confusing and hard to understand, but what I am trying to say is two things: first, usually people seek peace for themselves. We should seek peace for others. The first step is for an Israeli to stand up in Tel Aviv and say that he wants peace for the Palestinians before saying he wants peace for the Israelis. The Palestinians should do the same. The reason for this is that all the armies in the world can’t stop a suicide bomber, and all the militant operations in the world won’t necessarily lead to a liberated Palestinian state, but a single Israeli with good intentions can influence others who in turn can create a good intentioned leadership. The same is true for the Palestinians; but not every Palestinian can do this, he should be a Palestinian who fought and sacrificed, a Palestinian who realizes the meaning of peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ester Golan
Interfaith Encounter Association
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“ Peace doesn't have any meaning to me, because it's not part of my vocabulary. The war is fought, and the war is won or lost, and there is an end to it. Throughout my life I have never encountered the [use of the] word peace which has any meaning to me. I've encountered wars, one war after another, but nothing else […] It's something that doesn't belong to my repertoire. The nearest I can get is peaceful living, side by side, but peaceful is not peace. Maybe it's because it's part of the Hebrew thinking. Shalom. Shalom is something else. You say, "Shalom Aleichem," but you don't say, "peace unto you." Shalom has some connotation that is very unique to the word Shalom. And when I greet you and I say "Shalom," or in the prayer, Heveinu Shalom Aleichem "Grant us peace" -- Shalom is from the word "whole," shalem, and it's connected to the word Jerusalem, so it doesn't fit into the opposite of war. It's something in its own right. That's why I'm careful in using the term, because it has to have a meaning that also means something to me. And "Peace Movement" is a political term, it's been politicized. So I may not fit your image of peace workers.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ofer Shinar
Independent advisor and researcher in Transitional Justice, former consultant to the Bereaved Families' Forum
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Interview Highlights »
“ For me, the only thing I want to do is to have no more people killed. That's the only thing I want. I just don't want them to be killed any more. For me that's peace.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC)
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Interview Highlights »
“ According to the polls, most Palestinians, 70 to 80 percent, support peace despite the conflict, the bloodshed, the curfews, humiliation at the checkpoints and the hard economic situation. The Israelis support peace by about the same percentage, despite racist mentalities of separation, of aggression and state terrorism. Israelis believe in peace, but there is a difference between believing in something and realizing it. We don't seek peace as a romantic concept, we seek practical solutions that have benefits and build bridges for peace. This is mainly an internal Palestinian issue. We can't achieve peace without a strong civil society, a free economy, universities, research and normal life.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Melisse Lewine-Boskovich
Peace Child Israel
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“ Peace in the political context here means two states, it means fair and just minority-majority relationships, it means the other side of a long process of acknowledging an injustice that took place, and going through a process that allows everyone to be able to let go of the past without feeling they've compromised their integrity.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Yoa'ad Shbita
Building Bridges for Peace, Reut-Sedaka
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“ It is a word people like using. Nobody knows what it means now. Even [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, the "leader for peace." He isn't really talking about peace. It's a word that people play with. It's very unclear, you can't get its meaning from the dictionary. Personally I'm for changing the word; it's a word that gets played with too much. It's used to represent different things: radical leftists say peace; the radical right says peace. Maybe even Palestinian suicide bombers use the word. For them it's a type of peace. If you ask me it's just a word that people use to say whatever, even though it's supposed to be a positive word. You can do anything with it... even though it is a very pretty word as words go.” [Source in Complete Interview]
Ibtisam Mahameed
Interfaith Encounter Association, Middleway
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Interview Highlights »
“ If I go to Tel Aviv in this outfit [the traditional Muslim woman's attire], I will feel unwanted. They will fear me and wonder what is in my bag. I also get checked more because of my dress, especially before getting on a bus or in a train station or just walking on the street. Once I was waiting at the lights and there was a woman who walked away from me, she thought I might do something. I felt her fear and felt sorry for her so I tried to comfort her with a smile. I was just waiting for a minute for the light to cross the street. Those are things you face on the streets, it is not written on my forehead that I am a peace activist, so everyone looks at me the way they want. I still become afraid when I pass a Jewish street or neighborhood. You never know how the other will respond.” [Source in Complete Interview]
