Conflict Resolution: between workshops and focus groups on the way to community reconciliation

Gaza, Publication and Information Unit:

At a time when Palestinians are updating their electoral register data, the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, in partnership with the Carter Center and the Arab Thought Forum, held a workshop on Thursday 21/2/2013 entitled "Mechanisms for addressing the social effects of the division", with the participation of a group of party leaders and members of the community reconciliation committee.

The workshop began with the deputy director of the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, Iyad Abu Hjair, welcoming those present and reviewing with them the community reconciliation document, "which emerged from several focus groups and earlier meetings, producing a set of recommendations discussed during the workshop", explaining that community reconciliation  leads to national reconciliation.

Abu Hjair then gave the floor to the director of the Carter Center, Mr. David Fivash, who in turn spoke about the Center's programmes and the complementary role it plays with the various elements of society in order to unite work towards community reconciliation.

For his part, Rabah Muhanna, head of the community reconciliation committee and one of the workshop's participants, said that community reconciliation will not be achieved unless political reconciliation is achieved as a reality on the ground, explaining that any agreement confined to Hamas and Fatah cannot succeed because it falls within a party framework; rather it must include all the Palestinian factions

In the same context, Salah Abu Rukba, member of the Arab Palestinian Front, held the international community responsible for what is happening, given its failure to abide by its undertakings, noting that there are thousands of people harmed in the Gaza Strip by the events of the division, whether the families of martyrs, the wounded or the owners of homes that were burned and demolished, who must receive what they deserve, and calling for an initiative to find a solution.

Jamil Salama, secretary of the Palestinian Accord Commission, stressed that the community reconciliation file has become a subject taught at universities, and that the first stage in reaching community reconciliation is to count the damage and the number of victims of the division, explaining that there can be no talk of a general amnesty for those responsible, because the victim's next of kin will not forgive, and the killer must bear the consequences.

All those present stressed that the essential point for achieving reconciliation lies in the emergence of genuine will on the part of the Hamas and Fatah movements to end the division, together with the realisation that dispersal and discord are a danger to the Palestinian national cause.