This is a guest post by Esther Kassovicz, updating us on the progress of her project to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian women, which she first told us about a few months ago in an 11 Questions survey. Fill out the survey and let us know what you are up to! We look forward to featuring your good work soon!

We’ve had by now 2 monthly joint meetings, and I feel that the trust between us is building slowly but surely. Our facilitators are very experienced and our various activities have enabled us to discover and rediscover again that each of us, in spite of surrounding opposition and cynicism about the future of such gatherings, want to give this a real chance.

The first time we all met in March, we were given a sheet with 5 circles, and were asked to specify our various identities and which one is the most important to us. Quite a few women wrote they were human beings and women first, and only after that Israeli or Palestinian or other things. It was very powerful thing to do and realize we really had a common ground to stand on, from where we can look together at everything else in our way. And as we went around we found everyone was there to further deepen our knowledge of each other and each other ’s cultures which was very moving and the potential of our group. At the end, we all sat mixed up in our groups, and each of us had to light a match and say in those few seconds what she wishes to happen in this group, and it turned out we all shared a lot of hope and positivity about what such a group of women can achieve.

Second time we met in April, we had a 2 days weekend gathering in a lovely guest house located in Beit Jalla, a village outside of Jerusalem, named Talitha Kumi where the women from the West Bank could avoid going through Jerusalem and the hassle of getting all the permits to cross the checkpoints in order to attend.  Sadly, they could only stay for the first day, and the Palestinian women from the North of Israel could only arrive late in the afternoon, so we only had all three groups together mainly only for the last activity that day.

So the Israelis and the women from the West Bank had time for at least a couple of activities, one of which was looking at the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a twist, from the wolf’s point of view. This helped us consider how much stereotypes and prejudice prevent us from knowing each other for real and from finding ways for coexistence. To me, the most moving part of this discussion, was to recognize there was already enough trust and sensitivity between us that enabled us to look at this phenomenon together, and see we all shared this and even though we didn’t have an answer yet how to overcome this, we didn’t recoil or get discouraged—just felt that by coming together as we were, we were giving a chance exactly for something different to occur between us.

When the women from the North arrived, we watched a documentary named Two State of Mind by acclaimed director Shira Richter, about two actresses, one Israeli and the other Palestinian who battle it out in the heat of the Sahara desert in a 4x4 Jeep rally—a story of extraordinary friendship despite their strongly held differences in their faiths and versions of history. It brought up a lot and we had a lively discussion. The main sense I got was that although many appreciated the value of their friendship as it came across in the movie, people felt it wasn’t satisfying enough and hoped to go even further in our group, even though we’re not yet sure what that means and whether that’s even possible, especially that some women have previous experience of such mixed groups and not so much happened as a result.

After the West Bank Palestinian women left and after dinner, we didn’t have anything planned but we continued hanging out together. A couple of the younger Palestinian women brought a music CD with wedding music, as it’s apparently the wedding season in their village, and they’re practicing their dances. So they happily played it for everyone, which was great fun but a bit humiliating for some of us Israelis because we had to admit as simple as it might look, belly dancing is an art and we don’t quite know how to move that part of our body…those of us who have already known this, just watched some of us finding this out that evening—it was fun for all nonetheless…

Then quite spontaneously someone suggested we played Truth or Dare and very soon we were sharing some savory interesting stories about ourselves. It’s quite priceless what spending such unplanned time together enables, and we hope we can have more opportunities for such time with the West Bank women as well.

The next day was very full too, but I’d like to tell particularly about a couple of the activities because they were very revealing and interesting. In the first one we were divided in two equal groups, each given 15 balloons, and asked to come up with a strategy to gain as many balloons for our group, and only fully blown balloons counted. Our interpreter was the observer. It was quite exciting that both groups came up with the same two strategies—first was the win:win no battle offer, basically not to risk losing any balloons in fighting, but rather join forces and we all have 30 balloons together. The second offer, in case the other group wouldn’t agree to this brilliant idea, was to fight to get them from the other group.

We were very pleased that the win:win no battle offer was accepted immediately, but the facilitator kept changing the ground rules, so we needed to keep negotiating over those. The revealing part was what the observer told us which was that the Palestinian women let the Israelis dominate the negotiations and also particularly in one group, although they actually wanted to fight first, they recognized the Israeli woman who took the lead had a good suggestion, so they felt they shouldn’t voice their reservation with the leader. So this dynamic was very interesting for all of us to look at—both for the Israelis to question how are they dominating, and for the Palestinian to question why they feel silenced—and see the effects of this dynamic if we’re not aware of it. I felt very raw looking at all this and excited because I see such potential in changing these limiting patterns when we’re truly becoming aware of them. If we can do this, this is a real change in consciousness .

At the last activity of the weekend we were each asked to dedicate ourselves a flower for we are or for something great we did. What was striking to me was to see how naturally the Palestinian women were able to speak about themselves and their achievements, and how the Israeli women felt much more difficulty and discomfort with doing this. I almost didn’t do this, as I was blanking out, and even when I finally spoke I didn’t make much sense. :) The most moving part was that one of the Israeli women couldn’t do it at all, and a Palestinian woman actually took another flower and dedicated it to her.

There’s something very beautiful developing between us and we’ve decided to start initiating more communication between our monthly joint meetings to simply keep moving along together. I’ll keep posting as we go along.