Transforming the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict : From Mutual Negation to Reconciliation

This book is a collection of essential essays on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by eminent social psychologist Herbert C. Kelman.

Few experts or practitioners know the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as Kelman, and for over forty years he has conducted interactive problem-solving workshops at Harvard University and elsewhere, engaging more than one hundred Israeli, Arab and Palestinian political activists, journalists and intellectuals in constructive dialogue. Spanning the years 1978 to 2017, the essays gathered here are still relevant today, and attest to the author’s broad empathy for Palestinians and Israelis and his passionate pursuit of a resolution of their conflict based on consistent principles that satisfy the essential psychological needs and minimum political interests of both. The selected essays are not only insightful academic papers, but also serve as snapshots-in-time of the ebb and flow of conflict and peace efforts as well as guideposts for future would-be negotiators and facilitators.

This volume will be of much interest to students of Middle Eastern politics, peace and conflict studies, and international relations, and will help would-be negotiators and mediators in practice.

Herbert C. Kelman is Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, at Harvard University, USA. His major publications include International Behavior (editor; 1965), A Time to Speak (1968), and Crimes of Obedience (with V. Lee Hamilton; 1989). He is Honorary President of the Herbert C. Kelman Institute for Interactive Conflict Transformation, based in Austria.

Philip Mattar is the editor of the Encyclopedia of the Palestinians and of the Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. He is author of The Mufti of Jerusalem. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson Center, and a Senior Fellow at the US Institute for Peace. He was a founder of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and director of the Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington, D.C.

Neil Caplan taught at Vanier College and at McGill, Concordia and Queens Universities in Canada until his retirement in 2008. His publications include Palestine Jewry and the Arab Question, 1917-1925, Futile Diplomacy, 1913-1956 (4 vols.¬), The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories, and (with Laura Eisenberg) Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities.