The Dialogue Program

The heart of the Hands of Peace program are the daily two-hour dialogue sessions that are led by trained facilitators.

In these sessions the facilitators try to make sure that the participants:

• Get an opportunity to express their understanding of the topic under discussion each day – including such topics as the history and causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the impact of the conflict on them as an individuals, and/or its impact on their communities,

• Are required to at least listen to what the other side has to say, thereby broadening their understanding of the conflict,

• Have an opportunity to develop the skills of compassionate listening (listening for understanding rather than preparing a response while the other is speaking – perhaps even interrupting in order to respond), as well as the skills of formulating their views in language that’s more likely to be heard and less likely to trigger an angry response.

• Are challenged to think critically about the conflict – not only about the other side’s role in the conflict, but also their own side’s role in and responsibility for the conflict.

The goals of the coexistence sessions are simply that:

The participants become more critical in their thinking about the conflict and more effective in communicating their ideas, and that the participants will go home

a.  realizing that the conflict is more complex than they thought it was when they came,

b.  acknowledging that there is more than one way to describe the history of their shared conflict, and

c.  realizing that peace will require hard work and commitment on both sides.

Finally, the coexistence program shares with the overall Hands of Peace program the goal of helping the participants discover the human face of the people on the other side of the conflict in the hope that this will cause them to want to work for a peace that provides justice and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.