Israel/Palestine: Micro Grassroots Activity

Abstract

The way in which each protagonist defines the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has created a series of different grassroots responses towards a resolution. That is, the dynamics of occupied and occupier, majority versus minority, powerful and powerless, victim and perpetuator remain central to understanding the reaction of grassroots organisations and their attempts at peace building. Within Israeli society, grassroots efforts operate under the banner of either ‘coexistence’ or ‘peace’. Coexistence work deals with relations between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, while peace activity is defined in terms of relations between Israelis and Palestinians living in the lands occupied after 1967. Palestinian citizens of Israel were initially partners to coexistence activity but political developments within that community have created new forces acting against the ‘Jewish’ notion of coexistence. For Palestinians from the territories, peace amounts to ending the occupation, and civil society (the grassroots) has acted as a functionary towards this end through ‘out administering’ the enemy. This chapter will examine the dynamics, the politics and the impact of the peace process on the Israeli and Palestinian grassroots.