Michael de Laine

Palestinian-Israeli peace group among winners of new conflict resolution award

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 15 March 2009

A group of Palestinians and Israelis who want to fight for peace in their area of the Middle East, a conflict negotiating team at Høje Taastrup, west of the Danish capital, and the former head of Denmark’s police intelligence service jointly won the first prizes for conflict resolution awarded by the Livia Foundation.

The foundation, which is still being set up, believes there is a third way to solving conflicts – neither giving in nor sticking to a hard-held position, but being cool-headed, analysing the causes of the conflict, amassing resources and then using brainpower and intuition to resolve the situation.

“We will find and support projects that show it is possible to manage conflicts without using violence,” the Livia Foundation said of its work. “We look for people who work by building bridges between enemies and getting them to talk together. People who cross the line to their opponents and stretch out their hand in reconciliation. Or who fight for truth without using violence. Or who see steps towards enmity and take steps towards détente. Who bring conflicting groups together so they can see each other as humans.”

One of the three prizewinners was the Combatants for Peace movement, which was started jointly by Palestinians and Israelis who had taken active part in the violence in the Middle East. The Israelis were soldiers in the Israeli army (IDF) and the Palestinians were part of the violent struggle for Palestinian freedom.

“After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only through weapon sights, we have decided to put down our guns, and to fight for peace,” the group said.

Combatants for Peace have organized meetings between Israeli and Palestinian veterans since the beginning of 2005. The idea is that both sides talk about the violent actions that they have taken part in and about the turning point which led them to understand the limits of violence.

“Naturally, these meetings were fraught with many fears, but we soon learned that, despite years of fear and hatred, there is more that unites us than divides us,” the group said. “Only by joining forces will we be able to end the cycle of violence, the bloodshed and the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.”

No longer believing that it is possible to resolve the conflict between the two peoples through violent means, the members of the group say they refuse to take part any more in the mutual bloodletting.

“We will act only by non-violent means, so that each side will come to understand the national aspirations of the other side,” Combatants for Peace said. “We see dialogue and reconciliation as the only way to act in order to terminate the Israeli occupation, to halt the settlement project and to establish a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, alongside Israel.”

The other group awarded a prize by the Livia Foundation on 12 March was the conflict negotiating team from Høje Taastrup. This self-organised, cross-disciplinary, bottom-up initiative aims at resolving smaller crises in families and the local society before they grow into large conflicts. The nine people on the team can be contacted by the council’s staff or directly by people who see there are conflicts that need resolving.

In the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic town, conflicts range from forced marriages in a family to disputes between groups that may involve racial tensions and territory.

The third prizewinner, Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, was once head of the police intelligence service PET; he is now a senior law enforcement adviser.

Bonnichsen’s willingness to use his right of speech as a public employee and his insistence on talking to highly placed Muslims in Denmark during the infamous Mohammed cartoon crisis three years ago brought him into trouble with politicians who saw no need for dialogue with ‘the other side’ in that conflict.

“We recognise and reward them for their contributions to innovative and constructive resolution of conflicts in society, their will to build bridges between people, cultures and nations, and their ability to find pioneering but cool-headed paths in difficult conflicts in society,” the Livia Foundation said.