FACE TO FACE - encounter for Palestinians, Israelis and Germans

International Trinational Seminar 2019 (8 days)
12th – 18th September 2019 

and 4 additional national seminars of preparation and post processing 
 

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.” Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela 

But how will that be possible when the Palestinian and the Israeli societies continue to separate from each other, allowing themselves to become imprisoned within their own narratives concocted of facts and fictions, of real human tragedies and legends, of realities and propaganda? How can these fortifications be opened, when both sides are afraid of reactions of social exclusion within their own families and social environments when they dare to meet the “enemy”? 

Voices from our previous seminars: 

I live in my own closed Israeli society with so many different unacknowledged prejudices and blind spots. It will take a life time of work to find them all out, to overcome them and not to revert back to them during trying times. This seminar made a really deep impression on me as part of this continuing life-long process (Israeli participant) 

I was thinking that the whole world is living in a paradise, and we are the only ones living in hell. But after we heard the personal stories from the guys from the Israeli group and from the German group, I realize that a lot of people actually get stuck in many emotional problems, social troubles, political troubles. Something started changing in my mind: we are not the only victims in this world. (Palestinian participant) 

Someone said something positive about Hitler that was for the Israelis very hurting. So I told the story of my grandfather, he was a soldier in Russia close to the Massacre of Babyn Jar (1941). I was surprised how deeply the Palestinians listened. One woman even cried. They were shocked and started to understand why the Israelis are so much frightened about their security. (German participant)