Bridging the Divide: Peacebuilding in the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict, edited by Edy Kaufman, Walid Salem and Juliette
Verhoeven. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. 320 pp. including index.
Paperback, $23.50.
Amnesty After Atrocity? Healing Nations after Genocide and War
Crimes by Helena Cobban. Paradigm Publishers, 2007. 284 pp.
including index. Paperback, $24.95.
Sol Gittleman
Sol Gittleman, former provost of Tufts University, Massachusetts,
is now the Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professor at
Tufts.
It requires a very special kind of courage to continue pressing
toward reconciliation in the face of overwhelming odds. Here are
two books that represent whatever there is left for hope in an age
of apocalyptic violence and seemingly irreconcilable conflict
around the world. The fact that Edy Kaufman and Walid Salem were
willing and able to produce this remarkable volume of research into
the role of non-governmental agencies still functioning in the
midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in itself astonishing.
The forces aligned against "normalization" would look on any
cooperative effort of this kind as an unwanted truce in the battle
for victory.
The opening chapter, "Palestinian-Israeli Peacebuilding: A
Historical Perspective," written by Kaufman and Salem, is a tour de
force of balancing on a tightrope over an abyss, but they pull it
off. Every time period considered, beginning with the first Zionist
immigrations to the end of the British Mandate, represents a
potential minefield of contradictory interpretations, even
conflicting terminologies. The authors deal with the crashing
together of two nationalisms, but in the midst of the greatest
hostilities there were still Arabs and Jews willing to meet and to
call for cooperation and dialogue. This historical chapter is a
play-within-a-play, as Kaufman and Salem do their own negotiations
on the sub-headings: "From the Israeli War of Liberation, or the
Palestinian Nakba, in 1948 to the Six-Day War in 1967." As for
analysis, there is plenty of fault to hand around on both sides,
and neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are spared, when
criticism is appropriate. At the conclusion, they admit: "It is in
itself a challenge for both of us to reach a consensus about what
we learn from the past in order to understand the present and even
more for going toward the future."
The next six essays were written individually either by
Palestinians or by Israelis, or cooperatively with shared
authorship. The writers and researchers represent the best of the
civil societies on both sides, peace activists and faculty from
Israeli and Palestinian universities: Tamar Hermann, Manuel
Hassassian, Mohammed Dajani, Gershon Baskin, Menachem Klein, Riad
Malki, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Shalom Dichter and Khaled
Abu-Asba.
Who could fault them for getting discouraged? In the concluding
essay written by Kaufman, Salem and Juliette Verhoeven, senior
staff member at the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, the
authors despair: "It seems that the effectiveness of the peace and
conflict resolution organization in both societies is at a low
point."
Nonetheless, Bridging the Divide holds out hope that the reasonable
minds will yet prevail. It concludes with a directory of some 80
organizations working in the field of conflict prevention and peace
building in Israel and Palestine.
***
Helena Cobban is a first-rate journalist who has observed the
transition from anarchy to justice and reconciliation all over the
world. She has no axes to grind. Her analysis of the post-war
responses to the horrors of South African apartheid, genocide in
Rwanda and the brutal armed insurgency in Mozambique are moving,
but marked completely by a reality developed over years in
reporting on humanity's capacity for brutality. It is realistic,
yet depressing, to note that many of her conclusions might be used
in the coming years, when the world inevitably examines the
genocide-in-the-making in Darfur. Some things never seem to
change.
In each of the three case studies, Cobban asks the difficult
questions. In Rwanda, the brutality directed against the Tutsi
community and also against those Hutus who would not show
sufficient zeal in the killings left deep and unhealed scares in
the post-genocide period. This led inevitably to a prosecutorial
approach of seeking out the perpetrators, finding them and bringing
them to trial in front of often terrified and intimidated
witnesses. Cobban asks: Does this approach actually contribute to
healing the wounds of the past? Or has it perpetuated and
exacerbated past differences among human groups? How should we
start to list the broader social and political goals at which
criminal prosecutions should aim?
The South African experience was different. In late April 1994, the
butchery in Rwanda was reaching its frenzied climax just as totally
free elections, based on one person, one vote were experienced by
40 million formerly disenfranchised citizens. Apartheid was
finished. Freedom had arrived, and the formerly enslaved, murdered
and brutalized blacks of South Africa rejoiced. But would they seek
revenge? How would they deal with those who earlier had tyrannized
them? Even before the elections, the anti-apartheid parties led by
Nelson Mandela had promised a version of amnesty and had won the
grudging cooperation of the white rulers.
It was this spirit that led to the establishment of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, with its innovative victim-centered
process. It was the repair of relationships that was at the heart
of this policy, rebuilding the community of people in South Africa.
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu played a significant role in
producing a result that was a blending of Christian forgiveness and
African ubuntu.
In Mozambique, there was yet a third way, different from Rwanda and
South Africa. Unlike them, in post-civil war Mozambique there was
no official forum to review the atrocities or to hear the voices of
the victims, no official organ of the state or of the United
Nations, which had played roles in both Rwanda and South Africa.
With the acceptance of the 1992 peace accord and the end of
hostilities, the Mozambicans reverted to a side of their national
character that is reluctant to discuss painful incidents in public.
There were blanket amnesties, followed by a series of "healing
projects" carried out at the individual and small-group level all
over the country. Parties in the civil war who had demonstrated the
most brutal behavior either came into the government or
participated as part of the formal and loyal opposition as a
political party. The violence, which had lasted unabated for 15
years, had ended. Cobban is transparent in her admiration for the
Mozambican solution: People pay little attention to Mozambique
because it is not now a conflict-ridden society and does not
attract the attention that failed efforts do.
***
Here we have two serious studies that hold up at least the
possibility of peace on Earth, good will toward humanity. If their
goals and aspirations were fulfilled, it would mean, paradoxically,
the end of civilization as we have known it. Good luck to all of us
in these perilous times.