New writings on PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East). These
are descriptions of peace-building projects undertaken by Palestinians and
Israelis working together. PRIME is run by a Palestinian, Sami Adwan, and an
Israeli, Dan Bar-On.
*************************
"Learning Each Other's Historical Narrative" in Israeli and Palestinian
Schools
A Joint Palestinian and Israeli Curriculum Development Project
January, 2002 - December 2007
http://vispo.com/PRIME/leohn.htm
"This project of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME)
focuses on teachers and schools as the critical force over the long term for
changing deeply entrenched and increasingly polarized attitudes on both
sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The goal of the project is to
"disarm" the teaching of Middle East history in Israeli and Palestinian
classrooms.
Specifically, teams of Palestinian and Israeli teachers and historians will
develop parallel historical narratives of the Israeli and Palestinian
communities, translate them into Hebrew and Arabic, and test their use
together in both Palestinian and Israeli classrooms. Unlike other projects
that are limited to revising existing Israeli and Palestinian texts, the
PRIME project aims at engaging teachers on both sides in an entirely new
collaborative process for teaching the history of the region.
At this stage in their polarized history there is not enough common ground
for Israelis and Palestinians to create a single historical narrative.
Rather, the project is designed to expose students in each community to the
other's narrative of the same set of events. For the first time, students in
each school system (beginning with 15 and 16 year olds) will not only learn
what shapes their own community's understanding of historical events, but be
required to confront the historical perspectives and contexts that shape the
other community's sense of reality."
*************************
Establishing a "Localized" Process for A Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In Israel and Palestine To Address Refugee Issues at the Heart of the
Conflict
http://vispo.com/PRIME/truthandreconciliation.htm
"….For this reason, the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East
(PRIME) has developed a new "localized" methodology for approaching
Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. The methodology focuses on recording
oral histories to document Palestinian refugees who fled, or were forced out
of specific locations within Israel and Jewish-Israeli immigrants who
settled in those same locations, many of them after fleeing the Holocaust or
persecution in Arab lands. It also involves recording local
Palestinian-Israeli encounters that bring together a small number of such
families
"disarming" the teaching of history in the Middle East, and video oral histories
-
Type: discussion