When Soldiers Speak: From Acts of Violence to Open Communication

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Anne Read

Abstract

Interreligious conversations are essential in transforming current relations in Israel and West Bank Palestine from combat to communication. This paper presents the case study of a Jerusalem-based dialogue group, Combatants for Peace (CFP), which utilizes contact theory to match West Bank Palestinians with Jewish Israeli participants to speak of their experience of war and violence. This paper records and analyzes the impact of such encounters on participants as they overcome psychological, social, and religious walls to address their former enemies in conversation. Through such conversations, interlocutors re-examine their historical narratives, address their personal roles in the conflict, and develop individual relationships with one another. Interlocutor narratives developed within this case study are particular, unique, and even problematic in terms of the dominant narrative of peace in the Middle East. Working within the framework of Martin Buber’s theory on dialogue, I argue that conversation is an effective approach to reconciliation and reason that speech is a peace-building praxis. This paper offers an account of peace-building that allows for particularized, even idiosyncratic practices that operate on an intentionally small scale. This paper records the personal stories of conflicting communities as they engage with and address one another in conversation.

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