CCTS No 37: Work in Palestine and Israel with Civil Society Organisations

In September 2004, Responding to Conflict (RTC) began working with civil society organisations in Palestine and Israel. Its purpose was to strengthen their capacity to work effectively, co-operatively and strategically to transform conflicts within each of their societies. RTC aimed at building ‘strategy groups’ of key civil society actors who were competent in conflict transformation skills, able to contribute decisively to the resolution and management of conflict, the prevention and escalation of violence, and the sustainability of peace processes in the region.

From RTC’s wide experience it is clear that civil society can play a strategic role and provide an alternative vision, inspiration and hope, even in the midst of violence, mobilising the general public and influencing politicians and decision makers. Groups and individuals like those RTC is working with can provide a voice for ordinary people, to advocate [for] and support moves towards a just resolution of conflict. They can act as a watchdog against abuses of power and encourage engagement in building the institutions and processes needed to sustain longer-term patterns of peace and justice. When a peace agreement is eventually reached in the Middle East, a great deal will depend on such civil society actors if the agreement is to be more than a paper exercise from which the bulk of the population remains alienated. Without the commitment of ordinary people to peace through civil society organisations, violence can rapidly re-establish itself. Crucial roles of civil society include monitoring human rights, mediating in social disputes, ensuring transparency and accountability in governance, and promoting tolerance and communication within and between Israeli and Palestinian societies.

Phase 1 (2004 – December 2007)

With the above thinking in mind, following a 10-month pilot project ending in April 2004, RTC began the first phase of its programme with the objective of helping Palestinian and Israeli civil society organisations to build their capacity to act in a more proactive, coherent and strategic way, in order to ensure that the visions, aspirations and concerns of Palestinian and Israeli citizens for a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict impacted effectively on political decision-shapers and on public discourse.

RTC’s belief was that progress towards this objective would, in the longer term, enable civil society to make a practical contribution to the achievement of a just and sustainable resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, based on democratic and accountable structures and processes of governance that support the handling and resolution of conflict without recourse to violence.
Key ideas in RTC’s rationale for the programme were those of individual transformational change; the integration of conflict sensitivity into organisational programme planning and increasing the multiplier effect.

The first three years involved building partners’ understanding of, and skills in, conflict transformation (e.g. conflict analysis, mediation and negotiation, peacebuilding, intervention strategies, and the link between conflict and development). This would be done at workshops and interim meetings. Partners later applied this learning to specific conflicts within their societies, at the grassroots/community level and within their organisations.

To carry out this programme on its behalf, RTC employed a programme coordinator, Sarah Giles, and put together an international team from amongst its staff and associates, each of whom had relevant experience and skills to bring to the work. The team was headed by Marwan Darweish, (himself a Palestinian), Joan McGregor (from South Africa), Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (from Kenya), Vesna Matovic (from Serbia) and Paul Clifford (from the UK).

Programme partners

In Palestine, RTC began discussions and introductory CT workshops with an existing network of 100 civil society organisations (CSOs) in the West Bank and Gaza, from which a representative [membership-based] group soon emerged. In Israel, RTC began with a series of bilateral organisational relationships, which in 2006 progressed to a partnership with a group comprised of 24 Israeli civil society organisations, both Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Arab. The groups in Palestine and Israel are now referred to as Conflict Transformation Resource Groups (CTRGs). In Palestine there are 22 members – 12 from the West Bank and 10 from Gaza – and in Israel there is a total of 24.

Palestine

RTC’s programme partners are influential senior actors from a range of non-governmental organisations in West Bank and Gaza, nearly all being members of the well-established Palestinian Non-governmental Organisations’ Network (PNGO). PNGO is a cluster of voluntary organisations working in multiple human, social, and developmental fields. They are brought together by a unified vision to form a civil and democratic network that strives to support, consolidate, develop and strengthen Palestinian civil society.

Discussions and workshops during the pilot phase reflected the sense amongst Palestinian civil society organisations of being ‘under siege’ and needing to focus on emergency response, reactive protest, and simply helping communities to cope with impossible conditions day to day. There seemed to be no space left for co-ordination of responses or exploration of positive alternatives for action on cross-cutting issues affecting the whole of the Palestinian civil society. Nonetheless, Palestinian CSOs retained a strong heritage of effective action and cooperation from the first Intifada, when they were actively engaged in nation-building. There was a clear memory of what a strong civil society can look like, and some structures and networks from that period continue to the present time.

Israel

The pilot phase of RTC’s programme revealed a fragmented Israeli civil society, with few networks or coalition structures, in which many CSOs working on conflict-related issues were marginalised and had little desire to work together.

The pilot phase did reveal a clear need for organisational capacity building and support to Israeli social change organisations. Our focus was on those whose work challenges the injustices in Israeli society (e.g. the non-existence of the right to conscientious objection; inequalities of rights and opportunities for marginalised Jewish and Arab communities; and the discrimination in contemporary land legislation). We also wanted to support those addressing aspects of the reality resulting from the Israel/Palestine conflict (occupation of the Palestinian territories and the resulting suffering of Palestinian population living there).

In the belief that the conflict transformation approach could strengthen the capacity of these organisations to achieve their social justice objectives, and enable them to clarify their organisation’s approach to understanding and dealing with conflict, RTC began working bilaterally with four civil society organisations.

Programme achievements

A mid-term review of the programme’s progress was conducted in 2006, with the involvement of an external consultant. During 2007, a Learning & Evaluation project was carried out in partnership with Coventry University, to assess the impact of the new knowledge and skills of conflict transformation on the work of RTC’s partners in the region.
Although there are commonalities in the achievements that can be associated with RTC’s work in Palestine and in Israel, there are also differences in the progress made with the two groups of partners.
RTC has successfully developed strong working partnerships with the CTRGs in Palestine and Israel, based on trust, openness and mutual respect. Both groups comprise senior level managers or directors of civil society organisations whose sectoral or thematic work reflects the complexity and tension of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine. Both groups are committed to learning, acting and reflecting together on how the conflict transformation approach can strengthen civil society’s capacity to manage conflict effectively and prevent the escalation of violence.

The mid-term review noted the following commonalities between RTC’s partners in Israel and Palestine:

Other achievements from the first phase:

During the war in Lebanon, in August 2006, the group requested that RTC facilitate an emergency workshop on how Israeli civil society can respond to the conflict and how to challenge the escalating violence. There was a high level of attendance (22 participants) and the process produced very positive feedback, with many participants commenting that they had come to the workshop dejected, despairing and without hope and were leaving energised and hopeful. The energy and hope came from realising, through the analysis they did, that they were not helpless in the face of the current crisis and that they could develop strategies to address its implications.

Phase 2 (2008 – 2009)

The objective of this second phase is to enable RTC’s partners in Palestine and Israel to address some of the sectoral conflicts which threaten to increase fragmentation and violence between different sections of the population, thus reducing the appetite and capacity of ordinary people for peacebuilding at the level of the wider Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Programme challenges

Readers who find this article interesting may like to refer to Review 34, July 07 for the report of a seminar entitled ‘Designing Peacebuilding Interventions’ at which Marwan Darweish and Sarah Giles spoke about this work.

	Work in Palestine and Israel with Civil Society Organisations by Paul Clifford, with the help of Sarah Giles and Joan McGregor In September 2004, Responding to Conflict (RTC) began working with civil society organisations in Palestine and Israel. Its purpose was to strengthen their capacity to work effectively, co-operatively and strategically to transform conflicts within each of their societies. RTC aimed at building ‘strategy groups’ of key civil society actors who were competent in conflict transformation skills, able to contribute decisively to the resolution and management of conflict, the prevention and escalation of violence, and the sustainability of peace processes in the region. From RTC’s wide experience it is clear that civil society can play a strategic role and provide an alternative vision, inspiration and hope, even in the midst of violence, mobilising the general public and influencing politicians and decision makers. Groups and individuals like those RTC is working with can provide a voice for ordinary people, to advocate [for] and support moves towards a just resolution of conflict. They can act as a watchdog against abuses of power and encourage engagement in building the institutions and processes needed to sustain longer-term patterns of peace and justice. When a peace agreement is eventually reached in the Middle East, a great deal will depend on such civil society actors if the agreement is to be more than a paper exercise from which the bulk of the population remains alienated. Without the commitment of ordinary people to peace through civil society organisations, violence can rapidly re-establish itself. Crucial roles of civil society include monitoring human rights, mediating in social disputes, ensuring transparency and accountability in governance, and promoting tolerance and communication within and between Israeli and Palestinian societies. Phase 1 (2004 – December 2007) With the above thinking in mind, following a 10-month pilot project ending in April 2004, RTC began the first phase of its programme with the objective of helping Palestinian and Israeli civil society organisations to build their capacity to act in a more proactive, coherent and strategic way, in order to ensure that the visions, aspirations and concerns of Palestinian and Israeli citizens for a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict impacted effectively on political decision-shapers and on public discourse. RTC’s belief was that progress towards this objective would, in the longer term, enable civil society to make a practical contribution to the achievement of a just and sustainable resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, based on democratic and accountable structures and processes of governance that support the handling and resolution of conflict without recourse to violence. Key ideas in RTC’s rationale for the programme were those of individual transformational change; the integration of conflict sensitivity into organisational programme planning and increasing the multiplier effect. This is what we envisioned: Individuals from organisations working in a range of civil society sectors are trained by RTC in conflict transformation skills, tools and frameworks (individual transformational change); Participants share these analytical and practical skills with other members within their organisations (integrating conflict sensitivity into organisational programme planning); Participants share the tools and skills with the organisations’ beneficiaries and grass-roots organisations, in order to apply them directly to community-level conflicts in both societies (increasing the multiplier effect); These constituencies will eventually be sufficiently empowered to exercise a significant impact on public debate and national decision-making processes in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the search for sustainable peace. The first three years involved building partners’ understanding of, and skills in, conflict transformation (e.g. conflict analysis, mediation and negotiation, peacebuilding, intervention strategies, and the link between conflict and development). This would be done at workshops and interim meetings. Partners later applied this learning to specific conflicts within their societies, at the grassroots/community level and within their organisations. To carry out this programme on its behalf, RTC employed a programme coordinator, Sarah Giles, and put together an international team from amongst its staff and associates, each of whom had relevant experience and skills to bring to the work. The team was headed by Marwan Darweish, (himself a Palestinian), Joan McGregor (from South Africa), Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (from Kenya), Vesna Matovic (from Serbia) and Paul Clifford (from the UK). Programme partners In Palestine, RTC began discussions and introductory CT workshops with an existing network of 100 civil society organisations (CSOs) in the West Bank and Gaza, from which a representative [membership-based] group soon emerged. In Israel, RTC began with a series of bilateral organisational relationships, which in 2006 progressed to a partnership with a group comprised of 24 Israeli civil society organisations, both Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Arab. The groups in Palestine and Israel are now referred to as Conflict Transformation Resource Groups (CTRGs). In Palestine there are 22 members – 12 from the West Bank and 10 from Gaza – and in Israel there is a total of 24. Palestine RTC’s programme partners are influential senior actors from a range of non-governmental organisations in West Bank and Gaza, nearly all being members of the well-established Palestinian Non-governmental Organisations’ Network (PNGO). PNGO is a cluster of voluntary organisations working in multiple human, social, and developmental fields. They are brought together by a unified vision to form a civil and democratic network that strives to support, consolidate, develop and strengthen Palestinian civil society. Discussions and workshops during the pilot phase reflected the sense amongst Palestinian civil society organisations of being ‘under siege’ and needing to focus on emergency response, reactive protest, and simply helping communities to cope with impossible conditions day to day. There seemed to be no space left for co-ordination of responses or exploration of positive alternatives for action on cross-cutting issues affecting the whole of the Palestinian civil society. Nonetheless, Palestinian CSOs retained a strong heritage of effective action and cooperation from the first Intifada, when they were actively engaged in nation-building. There was a clear memory of what a strong civil society can look like, and some structures and networks from that period continue to the present time. Israel The pilot phase of RTC’s programme revealed a fragmented Israeli civil society, with few networks or coalition structures, in which many CSOs working on conflict-related issues were marginalised and had little desire to work together. The pilot phase did reveal a clear need for organisational capacity building and support to Israeli social change organisations. Our focus was on those whose work challenges the injustices in Israeli society (e.g. the non-existence of the right to conscientious objection; inequalities of rights and opportunities for marginalised Jewish and Arab communities; and the discrimination in contemporary land legislation). We also wanted to support those addressing aspects of the reality resulting from the Israel/Palestine conflict (occupation of the Palestinian territories and the resulting suffering of Palestinian population living there). In the belief that the conflict transformation approach could strengthen the capacity of these organisations to achieve their social justice objectives, and enable them to clarify their organisation’s approach to understanding and dealing with conflict, RTC began working bilaterally with four civil society organisations. Programme achievements A mid-term review of the programme’s progress was conducted in 2006, with the involvement of an external consultant. During 2007, a Learning & Evaluation project was carried out in partnership with Coventry University, to assess the impact of the new knowledge and skills of conflict transformation on the work of RTC’s partners in the region. Although there are commonalities in the achievements that can be associated with RTC’s work in Palestine and in Israel, there are also differences in the progress made with the two groups of partners. RTC has successfully developed strong working partnerships with the CTRGs in Palestine and Israel, based on trust, openness and mutual respect. Both groups comprise senior level managers or directors of civil society organisations whose sectoral or thematic work reflects the complexity and tension of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine. Both groups are committed to learning, acting and reflecting together on how the conflict transformation approach can strengthen civil society’s capacity to manage conflict effectively and prevent the escalation of violence. The mid-term review noted the following commonalities between RTC’s partners in Israel and Palestine: Need for the programme: Partners in both Palestine and Israel reaffirmed their belief in the need for the RTC programme and explained its significance in strengthening their capacity as civil society organisations; Trust and commitment: The trust developed between RTC and partners was acknowledged, as was the continuing commitment by all partners to the programme, despite external political and social developments that require emergency responses by organisations; Responding to the context: RTC’s partners reflected on the social and political changes in Palestine and Israel over the course of the programme to date, and expressed how being a part of the programme had strengthened their ability to pre-empt and adapt to new realities on the ground; Accompaniment and support for implementation: Feedback highlighted the emerging transition for partners from trainees to implementers, and the subsequent prioritisation of accompaniment and support by RTC over the provision of CT training. Other achievements from the first phase: Programme partners from Israel and Palestine acted as co-facilitators with RTC trainers at international workshops in conflict transformation, building their skills and confidence in training preparation, delivery and evaluation. (In Palestine, three partners have delivered CT training, in response to requests from international organisations based in the region); The programme supported the participation of over 20 individuals from Palestinian and Israeli civil society organisations at RTC’s international courses in the UK (Working With Conflict, Strengthening Policy and Practice, and the Post-graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution Studies with Coventry University). Several individuals also co-tutored on the Working With Conflict and the Strengthening Policy and Practice courses. In December 2005, RTC’s handbook for conflict practitioners, Working with Conflict: Skills and Strategies for Action, was published in Arabic and Hebrew and is being widely used and disseminated by RTC’s partners across the Middle East region In August 2006, members recognised a growing level of trust and openness amongst the Jewish and Palestinian Arab members, where none had existed earlier. This, they believed, enabled them to: “reveal the ‘self’ to the ‘other’”. This was manifested in members’ willingness to analyse together conflicts such as the Jewish-Palestinian conflict within Israel, the war in Lebanon and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. During the war in Lebanon, in August 2006, the group requested that RTC facilitate an emergency workshop on how Israeli civil society can respond to the conflict and how to challenge the escalating violence. There was a high level of attendance (22 participants) and the process produced very positive feedback, with many participants commenting that they had come to the workshop dejected, despairing and without hope and were leaving energised and hopeful. The energy and hope came from realising, through the analysis they did, that they were not helpless in the face of the current crisis and that they could develop strategies to address its implications. Phase 2 (2008 – 2009) The objective of this second phase is to enable RTC’s partners in Palestine and Israel to address some of the sectoral conflicts which threaten to increase fragmentation and violence between different sections of the population, thus reducing the appetite and capacity of ordinary people for peacebuilding at the level of the wider Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Programme challenges The internal political and social situation within Israel and Palestine increases the marginalisation of CSOs who are working for peaceful and political change; Political factionalism between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and the West Bank, and Israeli-imposed travel restrictions on Gaza residents, increase separation between the two locations and also prevent travel to and from Gaza for joint West Bank-Gaza workshops; Increasing demoralisation over the Israel/Palestine peace processes has devalued the word ‘peace’ and has created the need for a new understanding of ‘peacebuilding’; International decisions, following the election of Hamas to the Palestinian Authority, resulted in dramatic reductions in funding available for programmes in Palestine during 2006 and subsequently; The frequent emergency situations arising in Gaza make long-term planning for change, as opposed to emergency intervention, very difficult; Increasing demands on the coordination of the Palestinian group to support, encourage and monitor partners’ activities, in order to ensure the sustainability of the work beyond the next 24-month period; It took longer than expected for Israeli partners to gain the confidence to apply their learning to real actions; in Palestine, participants spent longer than anticipated working as individuals within their own organisations to implement learning, rather than moving to more cooperative work; In Israel, the transition from bilateral relationships between different organisations and RTC to work within a cohesive CTRG meant that Israeli partners were ‘behind’ their Palestinian counterparts in terms of conflict transformation training and still need further training at the end of the first phase. A broader range of Associates will be involved in this phase, drawing on relevant experience from different parts of the world. The first field visit in this phase included the director of a community development NGO in Mindanao, to address particular community development issues raised by the CTRGs. This cross-fertilisation of people and ideas from different conflict areas is seen as an important element in the continuing work. Readers who find this article interesting may like to refer to Review 34, July 07 for the report of a seminar entitled ‘Designing Peacebuilding Interventions’ at which Marwan Darweish and Sarah Giles spoke about this work.


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CCTS Review 37