Permalink Reply by anat on October 3, 2008 at 2:31pm
first of all, congratulations for the first disscussion coming out!! hope there will be more and more.
as to the topic, as to myself i like to take part in activityes that have some "fruits", something that keep ralling on its own way after the discussion is over. there for i have a suggestion: to use this discussion as a simulation for a real negotiations between the ones stand in the head of both nations, means to make our aim to get, after 2-4 weeks, to a point where we could all as-if sign on a contract. naturally, it is the spot where none of us feels comfortable in... means after the stage of claiming our opinions, each one of us will have to make a step toward an opinion that he disagree with, untill we find a meeting point.
hope that i made my idea clear....
anat
I finally have a chance to add my thoughts to the "one state vs. two states" discussion, but I see it has just been closed. I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate earlier. But the core of what I think about that debate is the same as my response to Anat's suggestion:
The inability of Israelis and Palestinians (the two peoples as a whole, and also their respective leaderships) to reach agreement about what a political settlement could or should look like is not the cause of the conflict but its result. Similarly, a viable final-status agreement is not the necessary condition for peace, but rather can itself only arise as the outcome of peace-oriented changes "on the ground" and in the consciousness of both peoples.
In the absence of those more fundamental changes, any formally signed political-diplomatic agreement - whether it calls for two states, or one binational state, or a non-ethnic civil democracy, or a confederation, or anything else you like - will remain a document on paper only, unable to be translated into real peace between peoples. But as soon as the essential transformation of consciousness has proceeded sufficiently - that is, when there is a critical mass of Israelis and Palestinians who understand that they are already not adversaries, but partners and neighbors who care for each other, and who recognize that their own well-being depends on the well-being of their counterparts - then the volatility of all the issues under negotiation will dissolve with relative ease.
This means that the measure of all our work is not whether it wins people over to a particular political position, but rather the extent to which it it leads people to see in the other a reflection of their own humanity and therefore to become unwilling to participate in or tolerate the mistreatment of the other.
In that context, a negotiation exercise such as Anat proposes may be useful to explore how strong a hold our suspicions still have on us, how deep is our mutual empathy, and how far-reaching a peace agreement does our current state of consciousness permit us to achieve. But I would urge us not to see it as an attempt to develop a model peace agreement that we would like to see implemented, as the Geneva Initiative set out to do. In fact, I would find it most interesting if we held one such negotiation very soon, and then another one, starting over from scratch, a year later, to see how our ongoing dialog and the deepening of our relationships with each other over that year affect the outcome.
Dear Roni
Let me join my congratulations to those of Anat. Let me also make a suggestion: that the topics will all be questions, and that we should use your fireside as an opportunity to practice debating controversial questions in a gentlepersonly way, with no aim to win over or convince others, but with an aim to strive together towards the truth. I myself have some questions to suggest, but will keep it for a separate input.
May this be fruitful
Chen Yehezkely
I have only one question. Are we all human beings? Implying, do we have the same basic needs?
Permalink Reply by Wael on October 4, 2008 at 11:33am
Hi Roni,
good work ..
lets learn from past experience why we failed to create efficient cooperation mechanism.
My suggestion is the following: Develop ideas into projects and create for each project own group and wiki-sub-site.
How to implement?
Once we create consensus on a specific idea during discussions about Israel/Palestine on the forum in this group or on
main forum of iPeace, we open a new thread in this group to further discuss and come to project new-group birth. The project will be documented by coordinator/collaborator on wiki-site. The "community" would have read the evolution and contribute if needed or if they have the resources to.
Other recommendation is regular meeting for any project .. but this should be left to project members how to organize them-self.
If we can develop and enhance better organisation methods, it will be benefits for us.
Permalink Reply by Wael on October 5, 2008 at 12:44am
on this: Roni, can we add/discuss this project-creating methodology into the guide lines to be an additional aspect of the group beside focused-discussions?
Hi Roni, some suggestions to improve your current discussion and the next discussions...
1. it's really impossible to have a serious discussion with an asynchronous discussion. I think you have to think about changing your method...
2. for example you have around 100 messages in your first discussion. Suppose that a guy like me come here just two times by week... Impossible to follow and share, it's a jungle...
3. Your current moderator for one state/two states is very kind but it's not really a moderation when many messages are out of the topic... Before a discussion, your moderator has to prepare document to discuss about it...