Following the murder of 5 Israelis in Bnei Brak and amid the latest outbreak of violence, the GI’s Project Manager for our joint youth and reconciliation program, shares her thoughts, insights and hopes from ongoing engagement between Israelis and Palestinians working hard for peace.
If you don’t speak to the other side, it’s easy to fall into self-congratulatory fallacies about “shrinking the conflict” policies that make Israeli presence in the West Bank more palatable (to Israelis, at least). Increasing the number of work permits and decreasing the wait time at checkpoints are band-aids on a heavily bleeding wound. The strongest army in the world cannot prevent the conflict from escalating into violence again, and again, and again; for the sake of both our peoples, it is time to try another way.
