Workshops spur foes to see the other's perspective

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

For more than 20 years, Herbert C. Kelman and his colleagues have brought together politically influential Israelis and Palestinians in problem-solving workshops to wrestle with pressing Middle East issues. "We come to the peace process as scholar-practitioners. We combine research, theory building, and practice," says Kelman.

Problem Solving

Using Kelman's model for interactive problem-solving in conflict resolution, participants in his workshops move beyond entrenched perspectives to generate fresh insights for use in the tumultuous Middle East peace process. The goals of these problem-solving workshops are to enable the parties to explore each other's perspectives and thus gain an understanding of the other's fundamental needs and fears; to generate joint ideas for solutions to their conflict that are responsive to both sets of needs and fears; and to transfer the insights and ideas they derive from this interaction into the political debate and decision-making processes in their own communities.

A central tenet in Kelman's work is the belief that unofficial or "track two" diplomacy can make useful contributions as a complement to the official process. Taking the Oslo negotiations as a case in point in Negotiation Journal (January 1995), Kelman wrote, ". . . nonofficial individuals and settings can play a significant role in advancing a negotiating process that has reached an impasse at the official level."

Psychology of War

Kelman, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has long studied the social psychology of international relations. His model of conflict resolution is based on an analysis of the social-psychological processes that promote conflict. When in Cairo in 1977, shortly after Egyptian President Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, Kelman commented in an enormously popular speech that "psychological factors contribute . . . to the escalation and perpetuation of conflict by creating barriers to both the occurrence and the perception of change. . . . Important segments of the leadership and various interest groups within the society are bound into the conflict because their way of thinking proceeds from the assumption that the conflict is inevitable and their raison d'etre depends on the continuation of the conflict."

Conceptualizing Peace

In recent years, Kelman has carried out his work under the auspices of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR), which he established and directs at Harvard's Center for International Affairs. The Joint Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Relations, his current project (co-chaired with Professor Nadim Rouhana of Boston College), consists of "high-level but unofficial Palestinians and Israelis," says Kelman. The group is now producing written products -- joint concept papers -- that address the final status issues left unresolved in the Oslo Agreements, such as settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, and Palestinian statehood.

The Working Group's efforts began in 1994, two years before Peres lost the election to Netanyahu. "As long as the Labor Party was in power, we knew the negotiations would be going on and our papers would be taken very seriously," Kelman comments. "Our primary audience were the negotiators and decision-makers. We don't have as much access in this [Likud] government. So for the moment," Kelman sighed, "we'll try to make our papers available to the public and hope they will contribute to the ongoing debate. This has always been part of the task. Right now it's the most important part."

Noting that the concept papers are unique -- "they are joint papers between Palestinians and Israelis" -- Kelman says that the documents "will identify different options for dealing with the particular issue, present the advantages and disadvantages of each option from the point of view of each side, and try to reframe the issues so they'll be more amenable to negotiation." Kelman believes that "sooner or later the peace process will get back on track because there's no future for either side if the status quo continues."

Looking ahead, Kelman says, "The next major assignment for our Working Group is to explore the question: What kind of relationship do we envisage for these two societies in the long run, after an agreement has been signed? With a shared vision of a mutually enhancing future relationship, we can then go back to ask how the final-status issues have to be resolved in order to make that relationship possible."

Personal History

Kelman's origins as a Jew born into the roiling Europe of the 1930s and '40s certainly helped cultivate his passionate commitment to peace and justice. Kelman was born in Vienna in 1927. His family fled their home in 1939, lucky to find refuge in Belgium at a time when most borders were closed. Kelman's family was fortunate again to obtain U.S. visas in the spring of 1940, just weeks before the Nazis invaded Belgium.

"My experience of the Nazi era and what human beings are capable of had a major impact on my thinking. It made me acutely aware of the dangers of dehumanization," says Kelman.

These experiences had a direct impact on Kelman's work on the social conditions that lead people to participate in sanctioned massacres and torture and on his 1989 book, with Lee V. Hamilton, on Crimes of Obedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility. Kelman's early life and other experiences motivated his commitment to peace. "The pattern of my life," Kelman says, "has been to do my peace activism primarily as a scholar. This is what I wanted to do from the beginning, when I entered graduate school. And I have been fortunate in being able to pursue that course throughout my career."