The Middle East: Past Projects

Project: Middle East
	Past Projects
Back To Current Projects	Training Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Mediators Our projects in Israel began years ago with a series of trainings for Israeli mediators. In May 2004, the ICfC partnered with the Israel Center for Negotiation and Mediation in bringing together 22 Israeli Jews, Palestinians, Druze, and Bedouins for advanced training in helping resolve the problems that contribute to the current conflict. The training focused on gaining skills in mediating historic narratives preparing them to facilitate the work towards resolving and reconciling the Jewish–Palestinian conflict.
Overview
Past Projects
Reports & Further Reading	Conflict Mediation: Yaad-Miaar The trainees undertook a narrative mediation project in the West Bank, between the Jewish settlement of Yaad and the descendants of a destroyed Arab village Miaar. Yaad occupies the same territory as Miaar once did. The workshops addressed the tensions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians over the territorial dispute. Members of both groups are living around a hill in which both side’s families held historic roots, but with radically different histories and personal stories. After a few months, the group formed a strong bond that helped them to move forward together, get 'unstuck' from the positions they started out with, and reach a solution to preserve the hilltop together. The group continues meeting together to this day to discuss and work through any issues that arise. Participants have gone through a life-changing journey in which they have found richer historical perspectives, empathy for the 'other', and many friends from the opposite group. Such a situation was unimaginable to the participants in 2004, when this journey started
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	Conflict Mediation: Hadar We consider Yaad-Miaar a model of a long-term dialogue with historical conciliation at its core. Since then we have implemented other projects based upon its dialogue style. In 2006, a project was undertaken in Hadar an urban center of Haifa, where ethnic tensions run high. In Hadar, we are working towards alleviating inter-communal tensions between the Jewish and Arab residents. Since the first dialogues the residents we are working with have initiated further co-existence projects due to the good rapport that was established in the meetings. Some of the ideas that have come out of these meetings include: joint sports activities, multi-ethnic choirs, and multi-ethnic cooking classes.