Ceasefires are a common thing in Israel/Palestine. Whenever there is an operation in Gaza, moderates and leftists on both sides call for an end to all violence, to restore the “calm” or “quiet” (for a lack of a better word in English; it’s definitely not full “peace” that they’re asking for). I agree, of course. […]
I’m sure many of the program’s participants are familiar with the “New Atheists”: public figures like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris, that are working to actively promote atheism globally. A couple of weeks ago, I had an argument with a friend about them that made quite an impact on me. He argued that the New […]
In his 1989 movie “Do the Right Thing”, Spike Lee explored the Kingian tension between love and hate, in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Lee paints a dark picture of the state of civil society in the USA in a post-civil rights era, a reality charged with lasting racial tensions and emphasized differences. […]
“Peacebuilding” is a strange concept. It’s loose. As I mentioned in my first post, it seems that our program’s focus on this loose concept is deliberate, and rightly so – in conflict-ridden, violence-struck areas, the only way for policymakers to achieve true long-lasting peace is to think holistically; to balance the different conditions that each […]
The Summer Peacebuilding Program started off by throwing us into the water, heads first, tackling some of the most challenging questions regarding the nature of peace, violence, and the peacebuilding process. One thing that became clear quickly, above anything else, is that we don’t all talk about the same thing when we talk about peace, […]
