Israel Reflections 2013–Is Trust Necessary?

At the ABA Section on Dispute Resolution Annual Meeting last week, Senator George Mitchell spoke about Northern Ireland and how important hope and patience is for a peace process. On the other hand, and contrary to much that we read about in negotiation, he did not argue that trust is needed. Several of our speakers in Israel spoke about this as well.  The following blog from Nick Grode picks up on this theme:

Having returned from Israel, I find myself reflecting on what I have learned.  One of the most interesting lessons centers on the role of trust in conflict resolution.  While in Israel I had the pleasure of listening to Gershon Baskin [Baskin negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli solider held by Hamas for five years] and Moty Cristal [Cristal was last year’s ABA keynote speaker, a well-known negotiation expert involved in numerous Israeli-Palestinian issues] speak about the Middle East conflict.  Both commented on the lack of trust between the Israeli and Palestinian governments.

Interestingly, neither saw this lack of trust as a bar to peace. 

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Israel Reflections 2013–Yad Vashem

Today’s post is from Brendan Byrne on visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial – a regular stop for visitors to Israel including the President this past month.

Yad Vashem is the official memorial to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust that took 6 million lives and left physical and emotional scars on millions more during World War II. The museum itself is located on a tranquil and peaceful mountaintop surrounded by walking paths that allow for reflection after the atrocities recounted within.

To enter the museum everyone must cross a wooden bridge. Once inside I immediately noticed that I was surrounded by 30 foot high concrete walls and instantly recognized that I was not entering the comforts of home; it was something far from home. Rounding the first turn I saw a single long hallway that seems to be brightly lit at the end, but I couldn’t just walk a straight path to that light; the path is blocked by numerous wired fences.

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Israel Reflections 2013–The Golan Heights

This year traveling up to the Golan Heights was a little more fraught with tension – after all, UN peacekeepers had been held for three days by Syrian rebels and the Syrian civil war made the historically quiet area more active. It also ended up being the location of one of the most amazing learning experiences of the trip. To put this all in perspective, student Katie Lonze shares her experience from both 2011 and 2013:

Two years ago, I was part of a group of about 30 law students from Marquette University and Arizona State University that traveled to Israel over spring break to learn about International Conflict Resolution and the various attempts at peacemaking in the Middle East. As a first-year law student, not enrolled in the class, I came into the trip with a less than fully developed understanding of the issues going on in the Middle East (which of course assumes that it is possible to have a fully developed understanding of the region.) This past week I was fortunate to return to Israel with 32 students and four faculty members from Marquette. The return trip was an entirely different experience, thanks to both the wealth of knowledge I obtained the first time and to my continuing interest in learning about past and current events in the Middle East. 

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