CRDC Celebrates Ambassador McDonald: ICAR Advisory Board Member Honoured by People to People International

On November 16 2010, People to People International (PTPI) held an event with ICAR on campus titled “From Revenge to Reconciliation: A presentation on the Israeli/Palestinian peace movement.”  People to People International was founded in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower and is currently run by Mary Eisenhower, his granddaughter.  The evening included the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to Ambassador John McDonald, who championed disabled persons rights in the United Nations.  Ambassador McDonald has been a friend and vital part of PTPI’s work with the disabled for the past thirty years and is a member of the ICAR Advisory Board. The speakers for the event were the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution’s  (CRDC) Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, and Kobi Skolnick, an Israeli native.  They each gave a personal narrative about growing up on opposite sides of the conflict and their experiences with family tragedy.  Recounting events in their upbringing, they explained the “shift” that led them from revenge to active peacemaking.

“I realized that what we know of each other is only part of the truth,” said Abu Sarah when describing his first encounter with Jews in Israel who were neither settlers nor soldiers. He spoke about the “emotional wall” between Jews and Arabs that keeps them separated.  Abu Sarah and Skolnick both joined and became vital members of the Parents Circle-Families Forum, which consists of five hundred families, both Jews and Arabs, that have lost family members in the conflict. “…Somebody has to break down the cycle of violence and the cycle of revenge.  Regardless of what happens to you, it’s not true that you have no choice how to respond - we all have choices,” explained Abu Sarah.  Skolnick added, “the missing part of the whole process is that no one talks with real people, everybody talks with the factions [comitting] the violence. When you have five hundred people, [from] Israeli and Palestinian families, meeting on the same day [as] Palestinians or Israelis throwing stones or shooting, - [the violence] will be the headline-but if we are together-it is not a headline.”

Abu Sarah and Skolnick combat this by running dual narrative tours in Israel and by speaking at home and in the U.S. in high schools, universities, and with family and friends about their shared vision of coexistence. "I've gotten to know Aziz and Kobi after traveling with them to Israel and the West Bank," said ICAR alum Jason Miller. "After hearing their own personal stories about how it is they came to work for peace, it only encourages me to help them in their quest…All people, not just those connected to the conflict in Israel and Palestine should hear them speak because they make the conflict human and real.” Meg Carter from PTPI expressed her respect for the work of CRDC: "Aziz and Kobi’s presentation was so personal that it touched all that heard it. I agree with them that we need to reach out to one person at a time to change the world into a more peaceful environment. Our People to People International event was well received by the attendees.”