Our Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group in California

Source: HERE (Wikipedia).

The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo, California was started in July 1992. The first meeting was held in a local neighborhood residence. As of February 2014, the group is still active and continues to meet monthly in one another's homes, having growing global influence.^[1] One of the oldest, sustained, far-reaching activities of its kind, the principles and means of this unique, in-home model are increasingly looked to from every continent by educators, researchers, journalists, activists, trainers, and strategists including the U.S. Department of State who distributes the Dialogue's instructive films in Africa.

Contents

• 1 Early inspiration
• 2 Beginnings
• 3 The Living Room Dialogue model
• 4 Means of change
• 5 Actions
  • 5.1 Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp
  • 5.2 Dialogue groups encouraged
• 6 Educational tools and instructional documents
• 7 Documentary cinema
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Early inspiration

Initial incentive came from coexistence models of the 1980s in the Middle East and Africa. Neve Shalom ~ Wahat as-Salam (Oasis of Peace) is a village where Jewish and Palestinian Israeli families live and learn together. Koinonia Southern Africa,^[2][3] founded by Reverend Nico Smith during apartheid years gathered thousands of brave Blacks and White to share meals and stories, sometimes in public at risk to their lives. Both initiatives were honored together during the San Francisco 1989 Beyond War Award Ceremony.^[4] The word Koinonia means "belonging together" or "communion by intimate participation".

Beginnings

The group founders have deep roots in the principles and the educational tradition of the Beyond War movement of the 1980s which was succeeded by the Foundation for Global Community, the group's first fiscal sponsor that was succeeded by the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center. In 1991, some of the founders had worked with the Beyond War Foundation and the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation to bring to the California redwoods Palestinian and Israeli citizens leaders who forged and signed the historic "Framework for a Public Peace Process" .^[5]

The Living Room Dialogue model

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group

Engaging in peacebuilding, the early Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women and men participants were determined to export solutions, rather than import problems. They intended to create a people-intensive—not money-intensive—easily reproducible, in-home model for the nearly-absent citizen contribution to parallel and compliment the government peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By 1993, government negotiators were clarifying their own plea for mandatory citizen relationships and creativity of People-to-People Programs, for example as found in Annex VI of the 1993 Oslo Accords.^[6]

The Living Room Dialogue gives dynamic form to the emerging paradigm of people-centered human security that challenges traditional notions of government-centered national security and is necessary for sustained state, regional, and global stability.

Means of change

Change is viewed by the Dialogue group's founders in binary terms—a no component and a yes component. While defining the no component—what is wrong, disintegrating, and in need of correction—the Dialogue's larger intention is to embody and paint a picture of the "yes," what relationships and life can and will look like sooner rather than later. The intent is to focus less on the old and obsolete—what does not work—and more on modeling the new, the "yes" component that works for the good of all. The group's ongoing experience is that change begins in small circles of local innovators and Culture Creatives.

The means of Communication to strengthen relationships, release creativity, and effect change is Dialogue, with its quality of Listening for Learning. Dialogue is not to be mistaken for safe, casual Conversation or adversarial, win-lose Debate. Furthermore this Dialogue's contribution to Conflict Transformation is not in Conflict Resolution or Deliberation. Rather this type of Dialogue is used to introduce, familiarize, humanise, dignify, and empathise with all the people in the room, so that Conflict Resolution and Deliberationcan then take place on solid foundations. In particular, the Dialogue process begins with exploring each person's life narrative because in many cases "an enemy is one whose story we have not heard". A beneficial outcome of this type of Dialogue is a reduction in the widespread humiliation and rankism on Earth as defined by Robert W. Fuller.

This Track II Diplomacy approach is not a quick fix but requires time, and thus is rightfully referred to as Sustained Dialogue, as defined by Dr. Harold H. (Hal) Saunders. Useful practices of this cross-cultural communication continue to improve, drawing from the best of Bohm Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, and the ongoing global Dialogue Among Civilizations.

Actions

The action of dialogue is deepening and expanding the circles of relationships. The first 20 years of action encompassed 242 meetings, while creating several hundred local and international outreach activities and nurturing the birth of hundreds of other groups. Always reaching outward, Dialogue group participants communicated daily face-to-face and by e-mail, telephone, Skype with citizens worldwide to encourage new groups and provide how-to guidelines (pdf)^[7] in words and contemporary graphics. This dialogue group regularly publishes e-mail reports^[8] on the thousands of human success stories of the larger global family involved in the expanding public peace process.

Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp

Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp

From 2003-2007, the Dialogue group partnered with Camp Tawonga over five-years to bring hundreds of adults and youth from 50 different towns in Palestine and Israel to successfully live and communicate together at the Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp—Oseh Shalom - Sanea al-Salam.

Dialogue groups encouraged

Many Dialogue and relationship-building endeavors continue to be birthed and deepened with assistance from this group: Arab-Jewish Women's Peace Coalition - in Edmonton, Building Bridges in Western New York, The Dialogue Project in Brooklyn, The Houston Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue Group, Jewish-Arab Dialogues in Atlanta, Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue in San Diego, documented in the film, "Talking Peace", Middle East Dialogue: A compassionate Listening Group in Los Angeles, Monmouth Dialogue Project in New Jersey, Montreal Dialogue Group, Potlucks for Peace - Ottawa, The West Los Angeles Cousins Club, and Zeitouna (Olive Tree) Arab-Jewish Women's Dialogue - Michigan.

Educational tools and instructional documents

The Dialogue draws on the wisdom of Elie Wiesel: "People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell." Dialogue-initiated peacebuilding successes are documented in film and other tools of educationthat are available for community building. Instrumental documents created by the group and freely distributed for use by others include: Palestinian & Jewish Recipes for Peace, Camp Activities for Relationship Building (pdf),^[9] The Public Peace Process of Change (pdf),^[10] MEETING MOHAMMED: Beginning Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue (pdf),^[11] STORY AS ENTRY TO RELATIONSHIP: Teacher's Guide (pdf),^[12] ENGAGING THE OTHER: Teacher's Guide (pdf)^[13] and also see related Theses and documents of others.^[14]

Documentary cinema

PEACEMAKERS: Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp (2007)

A variety of films document the group's domestic and international experiences. Over 13,000 DVDs have been requested from all continents and every U.S. state including citizens from 2,594 institutions, 2,601 cities, in 82 nations including 20 countries in Africa. Films include:

• PEACEMAKERS: Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp
• DIALOGUE AT WASHINGTON HIGH
• CROSSING LINES IN FRESNO
• DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA: Muslims & Christians Creating Their Future
• 20 YEARS OF PALESTINIAN-JEWISH LIVING ROOM DIALOGUE (1992-2012)
• ABRAHAM'S VISION: Graduation Day!

References

1. Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group still going strong after 20 years - by alix wall, j. correspondent In j., the Jewish news weekly of Northern California -- Thursday, December 13, 2012 - [1]
2. Dale Martin, "Old-fashioned Potlucks Lead to New Friendships", The Times, San Mateo, California, March 29, 1991, Mirror of article
3. Libby and Len Traubman, Remembering our roots in Koinonia Southern Africa, Website article
4. Beyond War Award - 1989 - Neve Shalom~Wahat al-Salam - Carter Center - Koinonia Southern Africa Free Video
5. Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, Beyond War Foundation, FRAMEWORK FOR A PUBLIC PEACE PROCESS: Toward a Peaceful Israeli-Palestinian Relationship, 1991. PDF
6. THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN INTERIM AGREEMENT ON THE WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP, Annex VI, Protocol Concerning Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation Programs, 1999, Website Page
7. how-to guidelines".
8. What Others Are Doing: E-mail Reports About Successful Palestinian-Jewish and Interfaith Relationship Building Activities Website Page
9. Camp Activities for Relationship Building".
10. "The Public Peace Process of Change".
11. "MEETING MOHAMMED: Beginning Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue".
12. "STORY AS ENTRY TO RELATIONSHIP: Teacher's Guide".
13. "ENGAGING THE OTHER: Teacher's Guide".
14. "related Theses and documents of others".

External links

• Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group
• Foundation for Global Community
• Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN)
• Peacemaker Camp 2007
• Arab-Jewish Women's Peace Coalition
• Building Bridges
• The Dialogue Project
• The Houston Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue Group
• Jewish-Arab Dialogues
• Palestinian & Jewish Recipes for Peace
• Talking Peace
• Middle East Dialogue: A compassionate Listening Group
• Monmouth Dialogue Project
• Potlucks for Peace - Ottawa
• The West Los Angeles Cousins Club
• Zeitouna (Olive Tree) Arab-Jewish Women's Dialogue - Michigan
• PEACEMAKERS: Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp
• DIALOGUE AT WASHINGTON HIGH
• CROSSING LINES IN FRESNO
• DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA: Muslims & Christians Creating Their Future
• Free Streaming Video on Archive.org 20 YEARS OF PALESTINIAN-JEWISH LIVING ROOM DIALOGUE (1992-2012)
• ABRAHAM'S VISION: Graduation Day!
• Seven films for the public peace process