Building a Base for Common Scholarship and Understanding - Palestine - Jordan – Israel in the New Era of the Middle East (1995-1996)

The three players at the heart of the transformation process the Middle East was undergoing in the early to mid-1990s were Palestine, Jordan, and Israel, yet despite the importance of internationally applauded agreements reached between them during 1993 and 1994, the real process of achieving durable peace among the people had only just begun. There were many obstacles that could jeopardize the peace process as misunderstandings and mistrust generated by decades of conflict still existed in the general outlook of each of the societies involved.

Against this background, three institutes - PASSIA, the Center for Strategic Studies (Amman) and the Moshe Dayan Center (Tel Aviv) embarked on a joint project to contribute to resolving differences by pooling their resources, knowledge, and expertise. Through a program of dialogue and workshops, the aim was to promote understanding regarding their separate identities and existence, their histories and their relationship to others in the region. The emphasis was on domestic developments in the three societies as an understanding of the countries and the people among whom peace is intended to prevail is a prerequi­site for any conflict to be truly resolved, and gaining an objective awareness of the out­look in societies next door is part of the process.

Each of the workshops (click here for a full list) was to involve nine scholars, three from each institution/country, chosen according to their expertise. One scholar from each team would present a paper which would then be discussed by the remaining participants. The workshops addressed various subjects and served as a venue for open, multilateral dialogue. At the end of the project, the proceedings, including the position papers presented in those trilateral sessions, were published in a book.