[Linganth] in a week

[Ilana Gershon]

Dear CaMP readers,


We will be chatting with Yael Warshel tomorrow about her new book,
Experiencing the Israel-Palestinean Conflict: Children, Peace
Communication, and Socialization,

She has asked us to read chapter 9 and parts of the introduction.  Please
read as much as you can, but do feel free to join us even if you haven't
managed to read everything.



The readings can be found here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/54rm8ld5ha94iix/Warshel.Experiencing.the.Israeli-Palestinian.Conflict.2021.Chapter%209.pdf?dl=0




The meeting will be 1-2 pm  EST on Friday, September 24th, and can be

reached by clicking on this Zoom link:

https://iu.zoom.us/j/949202698

Looking forward to seeing you all virtually,

Ilana



>From Yael:


*Warshel, Yael. (2021). **Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
Children, Peace Communication and Socialization, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.*
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/experiencing-the-israelipalestinian-conflict/696329534C17D1B0BA9243FE02A7D0C8>





*“Introduction: Peace Communication and Why Study Israeli and Palestinian
Sesame Street’s Media Intervention Model?”
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/experiencing-the-israelipalestinian-conflict/introduction/14ECA5D4AA097979672C93656A5C4C32>*



Read pp. 1-8 and 59-61 that outline’s the book's aims and organization, and
helps situate chapter 9.



The introduction explores the emerging subdiscipline of Peace Communication
(PeaceComm), beginning with a discussion about the history of the practice,
and the author’s ongoing quest to introduce a subdiscipline, dedicated to
assessing and evaluating the critical efficacy of the practice. A
methodological template for comparative global assessment and evaluation is
offered, stressing the need to prioritize political conflict data and
conflict zones-based context analyses, given that political conflict is
caused by collective grievances related to “group”-level disadvantages and
perceived disadvantages, not individual prejudice. The template is
operationalized through the assessment of *Sesame Street* interventions
into the Israeli Palestinian ethnopolitical nationalist conflict, drawn
from field work in 2001, 2004-2006, and 2011. Best practices and other
interdisciplinary contributions for practitioners are recommended, to
understand conflict intractability where socialization, culture, and
inter-“group” (mediated and interpersonal) communication intersect in
glocalized conflict zone contexts, and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
specifically. The interventions targeted children, who comprise the
majority within conflict zones. The model used, mediated contact effects,
is one of seven models and six subtypes of PeaceComm practiced historically
worldwide the author has previously categorized, and is one of those most
in need of PeaceComm scholarship, with potential to succeed but scarce
evidence collected about its efficacy.



*Chapter 9 "Pursuing Equality: Arab/Palestinian Israeli Children’s
Schematic Interpretations of Constructs of Opposing National and Civic
Identities”
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/experiencing-the-israelipalestinian-conflict/pursuing-equality/02846798E4AA4CA2E7ACB9E63F2F308E>*



Chapter 9 of the book depicts the community, socialization and narratives
of Arab/Palestinian Israeli children of Uhm Al-Fahm, from where Warshel
sampled the Arab/Palestinian audience for her study of theirs, Palestinian
and Jewish Israeli children’s reception of Israeli and Palestinian *Sesame
Street*, to illustrate the assessment of a peace communication intervention.
This large ethnopolitically Arab city in Israel has often been viewed by
Jewish Israelis negatively, as the “seat of Palestinian nationalism;” and
by Palestinians, also negatively, as “home to ’48 Arabs who did not resist
Zionists” but are culturally and politically key to pursuing justice for
Palestinians. From the inside, locals see inequity of resources, and police
as monitoring and targeting them. Their concerns with police policies and
practices, including as appeared largely to not trickle down to children,
are discussed in this chapter. Fahmouwee children’s interactions revolved
largely around other Arab/Palestinian Israelis. The majority did not
position themselves as the conflict’s victim, unlike the Palestinian and
Jewish Israeli children; and defined themselves as a third sub-state
identity, “Arab Muslim Fahmouwees.” By documenting the far less explored
lives of Arab/Palestinian Israelis, this chapter gives voice to these
children’s positionality, serving to demonstrate how they navigate their
daily life through Palestinian and Jewish Israeli conceptions that the
coexistence of their two identities is a biological impossibility.
Importantly, and as contrasts with the one-fifth of the population of
Israel they constitute, Arab/Palestinian Israelis under 18, specifically,
are approaching one-third of the that population range. Resources however
are allocated on the basis of the former statistic, yet the latter re-frame
questions about who is an Israeli citizen. Despite their awareness of
“fighting,” these children also painted a picture of normalcy. Though their
everyday conflict zone experiences also encoded them to erase their shared
others in *Sesame Street*, theirs was a relatively more nuanced
interpretation, suggesting that Arab/Palestinian Israeli children are
uniquely open to the possibility of being moved by the series’ aims. Still,
they also normalized and reproduced the violence, reinserting themselves
into the status of state minority through their identity negotiations and
protest play patterns. For them too, like the other sets of children,
conflict resolution is achieved through extreme negative means, by
“converting Jews to Islam.” The divergence of their extreme political
opinions, despite whether they more readily might be moved by the series to
“like” Jewish Israelis, demonstrates the book’s argument that PeaceComm
must emphasize changing policy relevant political beliefs, given underlying
causes for armed political conflict.


Best,

Yael Warshel
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