I’ve been asked to publicize this March conference. First the publicity, then my hesitations.
“Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Pathways to Peace”
March 28-30, 2008
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS DUE NOVEMBER 30, 2007
Sponsored by:
- Central Connecticut State University
- Jewish Academic Network for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
- American Task force for Palestine
- Geneva Initiative North America
The goal of the conference will be to highlight the contribution that social scientific and humanistic research and scholarship can bring towards peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Presentations and panels will focus on research examining the factors fueling the longest conflict of modern times, and contributions with instrumental ideas to achieve a just and equitable solution to the conflict.
The meeting will include keynote speakers, concurrent presentations and panels. We will strive to maintain a balance between Israeli, Palestinian and other U.S. and international speakers and encourage researchers from all sides of the conflict to send their proposals.
Presentations will highlight research regarding obstacles and opportunities to the achievement of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to) research in:
- Social and psychological factors in the conflict
- Historical, philosophical, and theological issues
- Economic factors and cooperation
- Demographic realities and solutions
- Geographic obstacles to peace
- Negotiations – Models, perceptions and strategies
Given my recent experience participating in the Dialogue on the Wall in Minneapolis, which left me feeling burned by the moderator’s acknowledged failure to treat Palestinians in the audience even-handedly, I’m proceeding cautiously. Besides, conferences based on conventional academic norms about appropriate topics and styles generally leave me frustrated and worn out; that problem is likely to be magnified when the focus is Israel and Palestine.
Another issue: The chair of the conference is Moises Salinas, a JANIP member who has written a new book called Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain: The Psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. My critical review of the book will soon appear in ASAP, the online journal of SPSSI (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues). The book, which so far has gotten positive reviews elsewhere, reflects what seems to me a narrowly focused social psychological conflict-resolution analysis, devoid of political context, that happens to match Salinas’s own position as a left-Zionist Meretz member who supports the Geneva Accord. In brief, the book emphasizes things like taking into account the different negotiating styles of Israelis and Palestinians and downplays or ignores history, justice, and law — crucial concerns also dismissed by the rabbi who moderated last month’s Minneapolis panel.
Perhaps not coincidentally, neither justice nor law appears in the conference’s list of suggested topics.
So when Salinas asked me to spread word of the conference, I asked in return if it would be open to people who do not share the two-state goal of the sponsoring organizations or who depart from mainstream perspectives in other ways. Encouragingly, he responded by saying the organizers had already said yes:
[A]s long as a paper was methodologically sound (for the discipline) and that it was an analysis of obstacles/opportunities to end the conflict (not ‘Side Bashing’), it should be welcome. We have a wide field of reviewers that espouse many points of view, but we’ll do our best to keep political views out of the reviewing process.
Salinas added that a panel on the issue of Single State/Two-State Solution would be welcome.
That’s encouraging. So right now I’m leaning toward submitting something, probably along the lines of things I’ve written about here and on my website. Several other possible panels come to mind, such as the relevance for peace and justice of Israel’s effort to be both a Jewish and a democratic state and the Palestinian divide over how much compromise is feasible or acceptable. For the moment I’m assuming political criteria won’t be imposed later, perhaps masked by overly zealous “academic” concerns. But after Minneapolis, I’m taking nothing for granted.
Technorati Tags: critical psychology, Israel, Palestine, social psychology, Zionism
Oaxaca, Mexico Saturday 15 September 2007
Dear Dennis Fox,
This is just a short followup to my note yesterday. Since then I’ve looked more at your blog and thought about responding to the announced conference. Moises Salinas website is a giveaway. As far as I can see he’s a very busy macher trying to paddle/peddle his way up the academic swamp. The very notion that it’s possible to isolate consideration of real conflicts (Israel vs. Palestine, Capitalism vs. indigenous Mexicans, and so on) from political struggles is just academic bullshit. As a member of the Jewish Academic Network for Israeli-Palestine (JANIP), there’s no way he can be non-political or objective. Nor does his work have anything at all to do with conflict resolution. Rather, he feeds on maintaining the illusion that there are valid grounds for the conflict on what he terms BOTH SIDES. Purporting to work at conflict resolution is what keeps him in business. Like an undertaker, who profits from lots of deaths.
Regarding Alexander Cockburn, I think he’s a very smart and very nasty person. I haven’t personally had any unpleasant encounters with him, but judging from his idiotic writing on global warming, and inferring from a note I got from Manuel Garcia Jr. that he wouldn’t even consider Manuel’s first-rate piece on global warming (It’s in Dissident Voice), I think it’s probably a waste of time trying to get a fair hearing from him. I had always liked what I saw as his feisty style (the liveliest column in The Nation), but after my friend Carmelo Ruiz Marrero did a flip following Cockburn’s global warming piece, I wised up a bit.
If I do further publicize Salinas’ conference it’ll probably be with a suggestion that folks consider instead spending the resources they would have used to attend the meetings to support some really valuable efforts. I’ve sent the Anarchists Against the Wall $1,000 and The Wheels of Justice current bus tour in the U.S. two contributions of $1,000 each (inspired by Mazin Qumsiyeh). That’s money that doesn’t go to the IRS or corporate America. What we need to trun this world around is real education. I’ll send you the correspondence with Kobi Snitz of Anarchists Against the Wall. It’s pretty funny. Those young people are marvelous.
All best wishes,
George