Good afternoon everybody. I'm going to give people a minute just to take their seats Good afternoon and welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here and I understand that weather fears have Thinned us out a little bit so I want to give a special welcome to the hearty among us who have Come out in advance of the winter predict predictions. It's great to have you here For a really exceptional program and I want to start by just welcoming some of the people we have with us here today first and foremost senator Mitchell who is a wonderful Stalwart friend of peace around the world. We're delighted to have you here. You'll hear more from him in a moment Mr. Michael Lon Lonergan I said who's the deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Ireland welcome Dr. Adrian Johnston Chair of the International Fund for Ireland Mrs. Stella O'Leary the US alternate observer to the International Fund Mr. Willie Carter McCarter who's the former chair of the International Fund for Ireland and Mr. Norman Houston the head of the Northern Ireland Bureau here in Washington, DC, and we're delighted to have so many illustrious peace builders here with us who have our brain much experience I'd also like to offer a special welcome to a group of community leaders who are here from Northern Ireland and Ireland as part of the American management and business internship training program And hopefully everybody will survive. What may be or may not be the snow tomorrow I want to give a special thank you both to Michael and to Ambassador Anderson And the whole Embassy staff for the partnership on this event and we really look forward to hearing from everybody For those who haven't been here before The US Institute of Peace was founded just a little over 30 years ago by the US Congress as an independent National Institute Dedicated to the proposition that peace is very possible It's very practical and it is essential for our global security and we pursue a Mission and a vision of a world without violent conflict by working with partners in conflict affected countries and Working with them to identify very practical skills knowledge tools that enable them to manage Conflicts so it doesn't become violent and to resolve it when it does and we operate on the premise that there will always be conflict The question is how to make it Transformative how to keep it from becoming violent in a way that rips apart societies and families and so it's very much Squarely within our mission to partner with the Embassy of Ireland today to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Fund for Ireland and Reflect a little bit on what are the lessons That we can pull from that experience For the larger peace building field and in particular for the Israeli Palestinian conflict When Northern Ireland's combatants made peace after decades of conflict they did so on a basis of a foundation of both grassroots reconciliation and economic development that was built over a decade by the International Fund for Ireland and Today similar efforts are underway in the Israeli Palestinian conflict that seems as intractable now as The Northern Ireland violence once did so we draw hope from the lessons As we look forward and us IP has had a law a long focus and engagement with both of these conflicts actively engaged with the Israeli Palestinian conflict from the very beginning of US IP's history as we've worked to both perform informed policy prevented deterioration of conditions on the ground and Look at how to create a supportive environment that can drive and sustain diplomatic progress We've also had an engagement with Northern Ireland from the very beginning of the Institute including senior fellows such as Steven fairy who was the former council secretary of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland We've had more than 37 grants to the conflict and many of our staff works closely To this day with the Cori Mila community, which is one of Northern Ireland's oldest peace and reconciliation organizations and in fact We'll partner with them to co-host a workshop later this month with South Sudanese organizations So today is a wonderful opportunity to have former government officials peace building practitioners and scholars To do that look at what worked in advancing peace in Northern Ireland And what are the lessons that we might extract from that to apply to the Israeli Palestinian conflict? And so we've got a wonderful Cross-section of people who have been engaged through your own practice and experiences on both sides of that equation And nobody is more qualified to kick us off Then our keynote speaker longtime friend of the Institute and a very distinguished peacemaker senator George Mitchell Senator Mitchell has been very involved and committed to realizing this shared bipartisan vision of a world-free with violent conflict throughout his career and We've worked with him when he joined with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to co-chair the task force on the United Nations Which US IP convened in 2005? You are a permanent presence here in our building There's a video profile that I invite you to view of senator Mitchell As part of our witnesses to peace building just right out here And you spoke here at US IP shortly after we moved into the building as part of our Dean Atchitz and lecture series So and just recently we were honored to host senator Mitchell for a launch of his new book on the Arab Israeli Conflict a path a path to peace So for those of you who know senator Mitchell and have had a chance to hear him speak we are in for a treat And we thank you once again for coming to share your knowledge and experiences. Please join me in welcoming senator Mitchell Well, thank you very much Nancy for that very generous introduction Thank all of you ladies and gentlemen for being here and for your warm reception. I Speak often Several this week because it happens to coincide with St. Patrick's Day So for me The introduction is the highlight of the program Everything else that follows is secondary And it's always nice to hear pleasant things said about yourself particularly in front of a audience of strangers The risk of course is that if you hear that kind of stuff often enough you may begin to believe it so I like to begin with a story about introductions and an occasion on which I was brought back down to earth I Chared three separate sets of negotiations in Northern Ireland over a period of five years When I finished I wrote a book about my experience and when it was published I went on a tour of the United States to promote sales of the book. I Receive many many invitations in the process. I learned that in the United States There are more Irish American Organizations than there are Irish Americans And every one of them invited me to come to their group and speak I couldn't go of course But I went to many and as I traveled this country speaking to Irish American groups They developed among them an informal competition as to who could give the longest most fantastic Often truly ridiculous introductions of me The proper reaction of course Would have been for me to show some humility But I had an improper reaction. I loved it. I encouraged them. I scolded them when they left something out and I became overly impressed with myself Listening to these marvelous introductions in Chicago a fellow get up and spoke for 35 minutes and read off a list of everything I'd done in my life Much of which I'd not previously been aware of so I particularly enjoyed that one And then when I got to the last stop it was in Stanford Connecticut the Stanford Connecticut Irish American Society When I entered the building Had a hard time squeezing my head in the front door. I was so impressed with myself Then an elderly woman rushed up to me shook my hand vigorously spent several minutes Heaping praise on me and then she said I don't live anywhere near here I drove three and a half hours across the whole state of Connecticut to come here to ask you Please would you autograph my poster? She handed me a poster with a photograph on and a pen I said I'd be very happy to autograph your poster But before I do I think I should tell you that I'm not Henry Kissinger It was a photograph of Kissinger. She said you're not too well. Who are you anyway? She said And when I told her she said why that's just terrible She said I drove three and a half hours to meet a great man named kester and all I've got is a nobody like you So I said I'm sorry. You feel so bad. I wish there's something I could do to ease your pain After a few moments. She said well, there is and when I asked what it was she leaned forward I lean forward. We were in a conspiratorial crouch and she said in a loud whisper Nobody will ever know the difference She said would you mind signing Henry Kissinger's name to my poster? so I did and Ever since then knowing that that poster is hanging on her living room wall in eastern Connecticut I've enjoyed these kind comments, but learn not to take them too seriously now that the really best part of the story Is that about a year ago? Henry and I have peered together on a program in Manhattan It was in a one of these private clubs in a high-rise building and It was a moderator and two of us on a stage and we were asked questions about Middle East and China and other places and I thought it'd be a good time to tell the story which I did the crowd laughed and Henry Seemed to enjoy it when we finished the program We find ourselves in the elevator going down to the ground level and Henry said to me said I have to tell you He said I've heard you speak often particularly when you were Senate Majority Leader, but we've appeared together often He said but I've never heard you speak better than you did tonight And I said really well, that's quite a compliment coming from you I said was it my answer on China my discussion of the Middle East. No, no, no He said it was that story you told about me at the beginning He said that's really great You should tell it all over America and I do and I report back to him regularly So now I include the United States interest to for peace on my list Well, I was asked to talk About my experience in both Northern Ireland and the Middle East as part of this Conference which will deal with the possibility of lessons learned or Possible lessons you'll hear from Couple of excellent panels this afternoon of people Who have had specific grassroots experience in both places? I'll be somewhat general, but I've had the opportunity to participate extensively In both places in both societies and in both conflicts And so let me say at the outset that when I announced the Good Friday Agreement in the early evening of April 10th 1998 Almost exactly 19 years ago. I said that by itself The agreement did not guarantee peace Or political stability or reconciliation It made them all possible But I knew that there would be and I predicted that there would be many difficult decisions along the way To be made by future leaders indeed the agreement itself Expressly does not resolve did not resolve every issue the agreement created Some commissions to deal with issues that the parties Couldn't deal with Good Friday Agreement was as are all such human efforts a compromise The best that could be achieved politically at that time So in the search for peace it is important to adjust our vision upward To the high and noble goal of peace But it is also important to adjust our vision downward to make certain That we don't fall prey to the notion that once a political agreement is reached to end a conflict That there'll be no further work or effort required Indeed one can argue that the agreement to end the conflict Represents the beginning of resolving other conflicts the importance of the agreement being To limit those future discussions and negotiations to democratic and peaceful means as opposed to the use of violence There can be no doubt That crucial to every effort to achieve peace and every agreement to accomplish peace Is effort at the grassroots level by individuals by private groups by government sponsored groups To maintain a constant level of communication and to keep alive in both societies particularly When the political process is or appears to be stalled to keep alive the hope And the desire and the manifested intention of the people For peace The international fund for island is one of many organizations that's done outstanding Work in that regard over a long period of time to try to find those areas of immediate friction at the local level those areas of pain those areas in which Bringing people together is important to reduce stereotypes and demonization of those who represent other Either in religion or national identity Or in territorial claims This is really peace building At the immediate community level But I think While it is important To pursue those efforts To support them to encourage them It is also important again To maintain the prohibition by themselves Such efforts will be inadequate to achieve peace unless there is also A comparable effort indeed Perhaps more intense and more difficult At the levels of governments Or those groups who are engaged In the end of conflict In those whose assent And support is necessary To bring about peace And stability Prosperity and reconciliation At the higher level And in that regard In a sense I think the people of northern ireland were fortunate It's Easy common Increasing in all democratic societies and Perhaps in some others as well To denigrate ridicule and demean Those who hold public positions and For sure Much of it is well deserved In every society But at the same time it's also important to recognize That there are many occasions in human history When men and women of vision courage and integrity Came together at a crucial moment in their society's history And took steps to end conflict and bring about peace And that surely was the case in northern ireland A lot of people have thanked me for my efforts and thanked president clinton and a lot of others Make no mistake about it The real heroes of the northern ireland peace process With the men and women of northern ireland The ordinary citizens Especially the women who made clear their desire for peace Or more accurately a desire to end the bitter hostile conflict that had gone on for so long And the political leaders Ordinary People just like you and I Who'd spent their entire lives in conflict But who at a critical juncture in their society Summoned the courage and the vision to take extremely difficult steps Steps which Exposed them and their families To the prospect of violence Steps which expose some of them To the ending swiftly of their political careers And all of them Which were extremely difficult Given the circumstances which had led them to that point And so I I think it's important that While we acknowledge recognize and promote Activity at the grassroots level In government sponsored organizations and private organizations and NGOs and even by individuals No one of us should think That's enough to do the job It's an essential component But it's just a component I want to discuss one area One subject area in northern ireland that was of particular difficulty High emotion And Resounds to this day The good friday agreement Includes a mechanism by which A process was established to permit the possible early release of prisoners Many of whom were imprisoned for Severe acts of violence murder assassination Bombing I met and spoke with many of these Almost all men All of whom like to think of themselves And define themselves As Patriots for a cause Many of them because I am an american Compared themselves to George washington's army At valley forge People on both sides But to the widows Who'd lost husbands In these murders and assassinations To the fathers who'd lost sons and some daughters To the individual citizens The prisoners were not patriots They were criminals They were murderers They were assassins And so we had an extraordinarily difficult And moral judgment to make In terms of the agreement I became convinced that no agreement would be possible If it did not include A at least a process by which Some of the prisoners could achieve early release On both sides There were political parties in the talks Who were affiliated with paramilitaries There had been many previous Negotiations in northern ireland All of which had failed And after the last most immediate predecessor to the negotiations in which i was involved the british and irish governments Conducted a review Of those discussions in an effort to find out What went wrong and how to learn lessons for the future And one of the conclusions that they reached Was that a principal reason for failure of the prior negotiations is that they excluded The political parties That had paramilitaries affiliated with them And they limited the negotiations to what are called in northern ireland the constitutional parties With that is the parties That don't have paramilitaries affiliated with them And they reached a conclusion Common sense really That when you're trying to end a war It's hard to do so if you won't talk to the people who are fighting the war So indeed the very first assignment That i was asked To work on in behalf of the british and irish governments Was to try to resolve the tension that it developed In trying to get into the talks Because the british government had a policy That said the talks cannot begin Until all of the paramilitaries surrender their arms in a verifiable way And along with my two colleagues the former prime minister finland and the former chief of the canadian general staff We conducted an inquiry and we were told overwhelmingly almost unanimously That the talks couldn't get off the ground that way that there was no way That the paramilitary groups on either side Would surrender their arms prior to the commencement of talks that there might be a hope of doing so During or after the process, but there was no prospect And we made that report to the british government which displeased the then prime minister But we included enough in the report that provided A way to get people into the talks including the non-constitutional parties with paramilitaries On their accepting Principles of non-violence which came to bear my name because they were in our report And that got the talks going and ended up successfully But it was an early indicator Of the commitment of some of the parties to the paramilitaries and the paramilitaries to Their members so in the agreement We had this prisoner Release mechanism After the agreement was reached on april 10th Under the terms of the negotiations it was not self-executing So there had to be a referendum And the agreement in order to take effect had to be approved by a majority vote in a free and open election Separately in both northern island and the republic of our So I returned home on Easter weekend thinking my work was done But I soon was called by both governments and asked to return To travel throughout northern island and Ireland speaking in behalf Of approval of the agreement and one of the assignments. I was especially asked to do was to meet with the Victims the survivors the widows To discuss this provision in the agreement and I did so I don't think I persuaded a single one of them to vote for the agreement But I did try to persuade them that there was a logical rationale For the inclusion of the provision in the agreement And the substance of my argument which was usually made in extremely difficult and highly emotional circumstances Is that There is no possibility In bringing these conflicts to an end To resolve satisfactorily every single grievance That by definition Not every single person can be satisfied that effectively would preclude an agreement because many of the grievances Are diametrically in conflict as were the societies themselves And so that while I could not ask any Widow or mother to put aside her grief I could ask her to understand that If this agreement goes forward There'll be far fewer others in the future Who had to bear a similar grief? That really it was the only way forward. It's a morally unsatisfactory argument To make And to listen to But it was an essential one at the time And I bring it up now because one of the most important contributions that's been made To the whole process in northern island has been the tremendous work done by many groups by many individuals In talking to and working with Both the victims Of those prisoners who Achieved early release And the prisoners themselves It's a continuing problem It's a it's a wound that will never heal satisfactorily from anybody's standpoint But it's an essential component I think of ultimately achieving stability and reconciliation in northern island And that will surely be the case If and when the time comes For an agreement in the middle east because in fact The amount of physical destruction The numbers of deaths The numbers of Persons grieving Are significantly larger The numbers of people Involved a larger the populations are much greater And they're subject to tremendous external influences Which did not exist and do not to this day exist In the middle east Let me discuss briefly now the middle east First the similarities The surface similarities to northern island are obvious A dispute over religion a dispute over national identity a dispute over territory In reality the differences are greater There in the middle east It is in fact much more complicated About a year ago I spoke to a large group of irish americans and the queens in new york city And I said to them that i'm about to say something I I never thought I would believe let alone say And it was that uh I spent five years in northern island and I thought the irish were really Very difficult to deal with But then I went to the middle east and I spent six months with the arabs and the israelis And by then it became clear that the irish were really easy to deal with A bunch of patsies as the way I put it Compared to the middle east It really is more complicated It's more difficult and as I said it's far more subject to external influences Ireland and the united kingdom and their constituent parts are surrounded By the english channel the north sea the atlantic ocean The israelis and palestinians are surrounded by what is now the most turbulent and volatile part of the world Where you have rapidly growing populations Where you have governments lacking the ability to meet even the basic needs of their people Where the deep divisions within islam Which some of which have existed since uh For 1400 years since the sunni shea split occurred in the succession in the in the conflict To succeed the prophet muhammad Where it's now reached a peak of intensity and difficulty All of this impacts The palestinian and israeli Issue and it in turn impacts Those wider issues intersecting overlapping sometimes contradictory conflicts which make it so hard To even understand what is going let alone To prescribe solutions as we the united states And our allies have seen for a long time But there are some things in common And some very important factors that have to be kept in mind I recall very clearly my first day in northern ireland I was taken to What is called The peace line Many of you are from northern ireland many here have been there so you'll know that There is a wall Which goes through the capital and largest city of belfast which divides the two communities 30 feet high in places topped with bob wire in places Wire mesh caging in places it goes right across major streets sometimes right through Buildings it was intended of course to Separate the two communities to prevent violence But it has become a continuing continuing symbol of that violence and interestingly enough The desire to remove the wall declines the closer you get to the wall So the people who actually live there Don't want the wall taken down because they have suffered greatly and they Will be the last to accept or believe that They can lead Normal lives In the morning I spoke on their side of the wall with the nationalist predominantly catholic in the afternoon With the unionist predominantly protestant I was amazed to find that there was so much interest It was my very first day in northern ireland that the proceedings were broadcast live on the radio And in it a succession of speakers community leaders political leaders ordinary citizens came in and Talked to us And what was most striking to me and my colleagues was how similar Their presentations were It was as though they had coordinated their discussions because they made essentially the same points just the reverse In terms of blame But the most lasting impression I had was of a young Extremely eloquent protestant minister some of you will know Jackie redpath who's still very active promoting economic growth for people in the poorer areas of Unionist northern ireland and He brought two maps One of them and he tacked them up on the wall one of them the title was Unemployment in the urban areas of northern ireland And then he tacked another one top of it and titled violence In the urban areas of northern ireland and you won't be surprised that they fit like a hand in a glove All of these conflicts Are largely identified in religious and national identity terms But all of them have a deep and underlying economic context Jackie spoke about the high levels of unemployment among Poor Protestants and poor Catholics He spoke about the lack of self-esteem that men have when They've never had a job Don't have a prospect of getting a job the opportunity to get a gun And to have complete control over one or two blocks of an urban area Gave them in a perverse way of self-esteem that none of us could really understand until we found ourselves in his or her shoes And I think it's important to keep that in mind always in terms of conflict resolution A peace agreement that is not built upon a foundation of economic stability An opportunity for all is a peace agreement that cannot endure And that's why it's so critically important that The private organizations and the government organizations concentrate their efforts On the acquisition of skills the acquisition of knowledge the traditional responsibility of governments To enable people To gain the knowledge and skill To achieve success in life to provide them the opportunity for success in life so that they can become productive participating citizens In a positive economy and lead what people everywhere want I've traveled to most of the countries in the world a very large number I've been in every Arab country and in almost all Muslim countries In our country today we have Developing an attitude of a conflict between Islam and the west Which in my judgment is dangerous for all concern Because I believe that the vast majority of Muslims want what people everywhere want People in the united states and ireland or every place else A stable and a secure society a decent job A decent home and most of all everywhere a chance to get their children off to a good start in life And we have to recognize that if we are to achieve stability in societies That are now divided and have been divided by conflict I want to repeat something i said earlier And this is critical in the middle east You have to have At the ground level At the local level the kind of individual effort that organizations Are making now still in ireland and in the middle east the attempt to bring people together The attempt to assuage grief The attempt to recognize and to break down stereotypes and demonization But that will not by itself succeed in the middle east or anywhere else If there is not strong political leadership at the highest levels who are willing and able to engage Peace building must come from below and above One without the other cannot succeed And so that's a critical factor right now In the middle east I want to leave enough time for the panelists to say something So i'll bring this to inclusion On a different note This of course this week is st patrick's day. So it's a day of celebration for the irish and uh Uh I happened My mother was an immigrant from lebanon and my father was irish. So i have a Relationship to both these conflicts in one way But this being st patrick's day week. I just want to close with A few words about my irish heritage and my father And my father's parents were born in ireland and became part of What has been until recently one of the greatest human migrations in all of human history As millions of people left ireland in the 19th century Most of them for the new world seeking freedom and opportunity Many of them succeeded and Many books have been written about the successes. But the fact is that Very large numbers of them failed and have been lost In the midst of history My father never knew his parents Mother died and his father couldn't care for the children So my father was raised in an orphanage Where he spent several years Before he was adopted by an elderly childless couple Who are not irish from a small town in maine There he met my mother who was an immigrant from lebanon She could not read or write And they lived a very hard and very poor life But in their minds they were successful Because thanks to the openness of american society All of their children received The education They could not get And each of us has lived a life that my parents could not even have imagined My father was a Quiet man He said little and he never ever spoke about his upbringing We learned much of his history after his death From Some people who had helped him during his lifetime So when you don't speak often People listen when you do talk And so I recall And i'll close with this When I was about to leave home to go to college I'd never been away from home. My parents didn't own a car. We literally never went anywhere My father sat me down at the kitchen table for breakfast He was dressed in his work clothes. He was a janitor at a local school My mother worked a night shift In textile mills She had just come Home from the night shift at seven o'clock in the morning Back then the textile mills were booming in new england and there weren't Much in the way of health or safety Regulations so every morning when she came home she was covered with lint Because there was no lint reduction mechanism in these mills And also covered with the grease that they used to lubricate the machines So my father said to me He said you're a smart young boy I know you're gonna do well Wherever you go, whatever you do I want to say one thing to you Don't ever forget where you came from And I never have And it would be a good thing For every irish american today st. Patrick's day week To remember Where we came from A hundred years ago It was the irish Who were reviled demeaned Denied opportunity The signs all over america read irish need not apply The cartoons depicted irish as subhuman Human faces imposed on the body Of an ape or a chimpanzee Every group that's come to this country Has faced discrimination African americans the only group brought here involuntarily of course most of all The chinese the japanese The italians The catholics The jews no one No one in america has had longer or more discrimination Than the jews And yet Every one of them They got their hands on the bottom rung Of the ladder of success in america And they climbed up And on their shoulders the next generation climbed up even further And every single group Without exception Have made tremendous contributions to our society To enable us to be a better Stronger More diverse country So It's a good time Given all the discussion in our country On the celebration Of saint patrick For every irish american To remember Where we came Thank you all very much. Hope you have a great day So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen My name is michael loner and i'm the deputy chief of mission of the irish embassy I'm here very much As a john the baptist in place of a greater person because normally he should be our ambassador and anerson should be here But she's with the t-shirt in boston on saint patrick's day-related activities, unfortunately And they're just staying i understand about one inch ahead of the storm As they make the way down here to washington dc for the festivities later on this month But in in her absence i've been asked to come and say a few words and then to chair this next panel Which is a great honor and pleasure First of all, I wanted to say what an extraordinary privilege it is to share a platform and to speak after such a distinguished american as george mitchell And that was an incredible speech Particularly, I think the the last part which was so thought-provoking and reflective and indicative of of senator mitchell many wonderful irish americans and americans have made a huge contribution To ireland to the cause of peace on the island of ireland But I think nobody ranks higher in the pantheon than that of george mitchell and it's great to see him here today First of all, I should start by saying a very happy saint patrick's day to you all Saint patrick's day is not until friday, but here in washington it lasts a week When I lived in boston it lasted it lasted a month For those of you wearing green, thank you very much. For those of you not wearing green This is the color so get your acts together the rest of the week And I was lucky enough to be in the parade here in marchden dc yesterday, which was a little cold but glorious But much preferable some of the parades I attended when I was living up in new england near senator mitchell's part of the world I recall once parading in muster massachusetts where I stood under showers in ireland with lower water pressure And that which was falling from the skies At one point the green of my tie started to run and I realized that this this was really this really wasn't the Weather for for marching but that sense of parading and pride in irish-american in the heritage Which is so strong across all this country? And it's like such a privilege for all those who get the chance to serve here at the embassy or at the consulates And to take part in the the extraordinary festivities that mark saint patrick's day here in the u.s This is a great occasion. I think to come together Though as well this week on a topic of great seriousness And I wonder I think that there will be great profits from some of the shared experiences that we have We have two very very interesting panels. I think and I think this will be a great opportunity to generate some Some very good ideas. I want to thank First of all the u.s. Institute of peace our partners in this event particularly. I want to thank the president nancy linberg And I also want to thank lucy curtser elberg and the director of us Ip's arab-israeli conflict program and all of our colleagues who've worked with us closely to make this event possible in particular I want to thank serena razzul I don't want to say say too much because really the opportunity here is for the panel To give their brief presentations and what we really want to have there I think is an opportunity for a lot of questions from the audience And so that we have a lot of a lot of opportunity to have a real discussion Going um I would say that as many of you are aware Irish people are often very good at Asking questions and giving long answers and so I'm going to suggest that in the interest of getting through our questions I'd ask when people would stand to ask questions that they would first of all Identify themselves and by all means make an observation or remark But try to get to to the question and we will try and get through as many people as possible There's a famous story told that when governor alfred smith the first irish catholic to run for president of the united states Was once asked by president Franklin d roosevelt. He said al why do you irish always answer a question with a question to which governor smith said Do we now who told you that? Which is answering a question with two questions Which is particularly impressive But in any case my point is that we will try there'll always be more questions and answers But we will try certainly here in having some good questions answer A session I was very struck too by the remarks that senator michael made about the the parallels between the Northern Ireland peace process and the situation In the in the middle east and as he stressed and we would all agree every Every situation every conflict is unique and requires its own particular local solutions However, as one of our ambassadors and televieve used to like to say that All all these conflict situations are different But equally he used to say all car crashes are different, but the outcomes are very much the same And so therefore I think there's a lot of shared experiences and shared outcomes in both that I think we would be able to explore More more deeply and before I invite the panel To come On to the stage and I'll introduce them briefly as they do. I just want to remember briefly here in this setting A colleague of ours who was very involved in the good friday agreement Who was ambassador here in the united states when senator michael was appointed special envoy And who headed the irish government talks team at the In belfast and who would be a friend to none of people here in the audience German galler who passed away earlier this year. I know he had many friends here in washington dc And indeed president clinton kindly sent a message of condolence to his funeral And here today in the city where he served such distinction as ambassador I play such a key role in much of the good friday agreement I just want to recall his memory here for those many in the audience who knew him well Perhaps then on that note I might ask the panel to take their seats on the stage and I'll introduce them briefly as they do The first panel is the chairman of the international fund for island doctor adrian johnson And adrian will reflect on the funds contribution since it's established in more than 30 years ago Carol conningham of the unheard voices program in dairy will speak about how it provides a platform for women affected By the conflict in northern ireland Professor brandon hammer the university of ulster Will reflect on the role of civil society in fostering reconciliation and finally melanie greenberg Of usip will will seek to relate to the northern ireland experience to the israeli palestinian situation Focusing on the bottom up approach and the role of civil society each of our speakers will speak for approximately five to seven minutes And I think what we'll do is we'll take the four speakers in a row and then we will move to the questions and answer session So on that note then I might ask adrian johnson to begin Thank you very much Thank you michael and distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen It's an honor for me to stand here this afternoon or this morning on behalf of the international fund for island As has been said already today the fund has I reached 30 years of peace building And uh while we recognize that conflicts are different around the world It has been something of uh great importance to the fund over the last number of years to ensure that The lessons that we have learned In northern ireland can be disseminated as widely as possible to other areas emerging from conflict around the world Just make sure I can use this correctly apologies So the fund is uh is a unique organization in itself And it was born out of the desire of The international community and most notably the international community had a large iris diaspora To look at how they could help pragmatically within northern ireland and resolve the conflict And ultimately the the fund was uh co-created by the british and irish governments Uh around 1985 as part of the anglo- irish agreement discussions And they had agreed that economic investment was the foundation that was required To end years of stagnation and decay within communities in northern ireland to bring about the conditions for ultimately peace And at the time of its inception As we now know there were no no blueprints For the ifi and no blueprints of the uh the chart that we would need to take And operate in other ways that others simply hadn't done and we drew upon our international support to enable that to happen there were challenges in opposition and People will will talk about that and i'm sure throughout the session today We discuss some of the challenges But the fund itself very much in its early days Did face challenges in terms of skepticism of the role of the ifi and indeed within the international dimension of the fund But what was of great importance at that time was the independence of the organization independence was key during that period to ensure that we could Get an impartial sense across both communities in northern ireland And since 1986 the independence of the organization has been greatly protected our objectives Of the fund It struck me when president inderberg was was talking there that the missions of usip Are quite similar to the missions that were set out for the ifi But the core role of the fund was basically to assist the british and irish governments To secure a lasting peace on the island of ireland And from the outset we had three main objectives that all of our work would fall under Primarily creating economic opportunities Secondly to focus on disadvantage and need And finally then to promote contact dialogue and reconciliation across the island of ireland and early in the funds activity the board Had identified that the focus of our activity should be on areas that were formally designated as disadvantaged And this was obviously as a result that disadvantaged areas whether they be unionist or nationalist Suffered the most and the worst impact of the violence that had ravaged through the the region And they hadn't enjoyed a proportionate element of the peace dividend You'll see some figures there and i'll let you read through them yourselves, but characteristics of the areas that we worked in Included intergenerational unemployment Low educational achievement amongst our young people Low levels of skills and qualifications as senator michael quite rightly pointed out and also her health And due to these characteristics, uh, it was a breeding ground and there was often a history of paramilitarism within those areas Conflict is born out of inequality and positively transforming the Economic and social profile of these communities was deemed to be high priority for the board and for the governments in securing a peaceful and healthy society and by 1995 Less than 10 years after the fund was founded More than 70 of the funds disbursements during that time were invested in areas that were designated as disadvantaged You'll hear from carl and one of one of our project leaders this morning But there was a strong focus also in developing neutral enterprise space and economic activity Which would then lay the foundations for reconciliation work further in the future And throughout all of this work the fund sought to foster cross community and cross border relationships Exposing individuals and communities to new opportunities to learn to work together to create prosperous communities And assisting communities to chart their solutions out of conflict This approach was instrumental to helping the establishment of the conditions that would lead to The good friday agreement or the belfast agreement as senator michael said in 1998 and as you'll see from the The the program timeline here around the time of the good friday agreement the emphasis of the funds shifted directly away from economic activity and more towards activity that's centered around dialogue and reconciliation And the change in emphasis that we did there was also mirrored by external progress by society Moving from economic difficulties and conflict through to fragile political agreement and towards stronger economic conditions and reduced violence This was a sign of the fund's Flexibility to move from influencing community dynamics and addressing emerging needs And you'll also see most notably hopefully you can at the end of the timeline The fund has now moved into another phase looking at the harder issues that still exist within our society But that we mean the legacy of the past paramilitarism and peace waltz I did touch about the earlier on the independence of the i of i and our funding from the united states of america eu australia new zealand and canada was received with relatively few restrictions And as a result of that we worked with flexibility outside of government interventions And outside of political parties and we've been able to leverage significant support and funding through partnering with other organizations and statutory bodies And that gives us a unique standing Amongst community groups and a latitude to leverage other things that some others simply can't do The independent international dimension of the fund is a core attribute And that's why the fund works and why the work that the fund does is sustainable It has greatly helped to transcend political and community divisions disputes and tensions And allowed us to make the first significant interventions in areas where others just simply could not go And that's exceptionally important today as it was in 1986 Given the fact that we're going through a period of political instability in northern ireland We've maintained and sustained our long-standing support amongst communities by rapidly adopting our responses to their emerging needs The challenges and taking risks and partnership with communities And that is exactly what the dna of the fund is Risk taking the fund unlike others has been able to go into areas that were opposed to the political settlements Talk to those people and develop a range of interventions that would allow them to act positively and constructively within their society Much of our work takes place in areas where others were unable or unwilling to go Yet our success has continued opened new pathways for those communities to reconnect with statutory provision These projects have been critical in addressing the elements that have potential to undermine the peace process and stability And successful in resolving some of the most divisive issues that still remain within our society Obviously and this was touched upon earlier one of the most obvious similarities between northern ireland and Israel palestine is the bricks and mortar that separate our communities And ironically referred to as peace walls in northern ireland and these were first constructed in 1969 as a security measure as a military response due to security concerns over sectarian violence and disorder You'll see some graphics here. There were more than a hundred remain across belfast and they span 21 kilometers throughout the city In fact, many of these have lasted longer than the berlin wall had stood I talked about the foundation that work that we had done previously in the years and the foundation activity and capital bills and providing facilities Have been conducted in the early years the fund but had laid the foundation for projects like this to happen and launched in 2012 Our peace walls program supports supports communities to bring about the conditions where they feel that the peace wall can be removed It provides a range of confidence and relationship building initiatives within and between interface communities And assist residents to come to the point where they feel that it is safe and appropriate to remove peace walls from their area But the impact of the peace walls are stark We designed due to the the fund's extensive grassroots Reach and activity we can quickly identify when opportunities exist to address and drive communities forward through to some of these solutions Even challenging statutory bodies and government departments to address their responsibilities We designed the program for communities that expressed a willingness and an appetite and a readiness to explore the possibility of ultimately removing a peace wall It helps them take the first step On the journey that is unique and coordinates between ourselves other funders statutory agencies and the communities And indeed political investments so essential wider infrastructure and community regeneration can happen when the barrier is removed And it's important to remember that peace walls are not the symptom of division. They're rather the cause of it The majority of peace walls divide societies that were most Worse affected by the division in northern ireland And you can see from hopefully you can see from some of the the statistics that are there The vast majority of conflict related deaths occurred in the vicinity of a peace wall High level of social deprivation also existed and due to this we have communities with Higher levels of mental health issues and under achievement within their youth As I said earlier, they were erected as a security measure And by looking at these statistics one can only question if the peace walls actually achieved their objective You'll see a statement from 1971 here And briefly what it says is that peace walls should have no place in normal society But as we now know in northern ireland, they have become the norm in society But the real concerns that the early removal will negatively affect residents and communities Safety confidence and cohesion Are vital to unlock the physical barriers in interface areas and communities need support particularly funding but also As senator mitzvah quite rightly said political leadership The fund efforts are enabling us to for communities to consider removing physical barriers But that has been important progress, but not just the only progress that we have made Other highlights that we have achieved over the past 30 years We have changed education policy within the northern ireland executives so children from different backgrounds Can learn together in shared classrooms We have communities that have used our support to resolve complex and law-and-standing issues Like parading and legacy of the past and we're using our unique standing to improve the lives of so many young people And prevent a new generation from getting around again and drawing into violence polarization and paramilitary organizations You'll hear shortly from carl and project like carl's unheard voices Are giving marginalized women The opportunity who have suffered greatly in the con the conflict the opportunity to be heard and be constructive in the peacebuilding exercise As hard as it is to secure the end to violence and again Quite rightly as senator mitzvah said it's harder to implement These agreements within communities ensure that people don't turn away or become complacent about the peace that exists And the job of peacebuilding just doesn't end with a treaty The international backing of the united states of america and others Has given us the freedom from political and community interference and the flexibility to do our work more quickly To emerging need and to take important risks for peace Our independence of the international fund for ireland is as relevant today as it was in 1986 It's very difficult to condense all of the work that we've done into 30 minutes and I've tried to give you a whistle stop A whistle stop tour of some of the work that we've done you'll hear from carl here Just an example of some of the work that we've done But I I would just like to emphasize that this is an exceptionally important exercise for the ifi in sharing the learning of 30 years Our door is always open. I hope to talk to as many of you as possible here today Um to ensure that we can reach out and share the lessons learned from the fund I look forward to answering some more of your questions here Later this morning, but in the meantime, thank you very much for your attention And enjoy the rest of the session Hope I get this to work as well Distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen Good afternoon. I'm carl cunningham project coordinator of the on-haired voices program A program run by craig and enterprises in darien northern ireland I'd like to thank the united states institute of peace and the international fund for ireland For inviting on-haired voices to share our experience of helping people to emerge from the conflict in northern ireland What we refer to is the troubles and to consider any lessons or implications For the israeli palestinian conflict For a quarter of a century craig and enterprises has been to the fore in my community In championing dialogue inclusion and peacebuilding Decades of research testify to the fact that there is one of the most disadvantaged areas in northern ireland If not the most disadvantaged The city has a very per has very per health outcomes It has the second highest unemployment rate in the region It has the highest youth unemployment And it has the highest long-term unemployment These facts lead and affect to social exclusion and poverty And also feed into the conflict resulting in many awful events including bloody sunday On 30th of january 1972 Finding ways of combating these issues and dealing with the legacy of the conflict Conflict has exercised the minds of many groups including ours The international fund for ireland has supported craig and enterprises Since 1991 helping us to establish a more inclusive and more peaceful community Craig and enterprises would argue that if others in local and regional government committed themselves to following the example of ifi A neutral and risk-taking organization in supporting and working in partnership with the communities such as craig and We would all benefit and see the full potential of our peacebuilding process Our experience demonstrates that the job of peacebuilding is almost always slow, usually challenging And often dangerous Nevertheless, we have found that policies which involve marginalization Demonization and exclusion do not work. They're counterproductive Throughout my experience as practitioner and a number of successful projects I have found that community development and self-help initiatives will always be a core part Of any solution for peacebuilding They're both integral to the rebuilding of local economies emerging from conflict In 2013 we set up the on-herd voices project And have always maintained that women are essential to peacebuilding in our community because they play a central role within the home And in our families The experience their experience their empathy their intelligence humanity and compassion Can ripple out into into the wider society Influencing others for the better Of the three and a half thousand people who lost their lives in the troubles around a tenth Were female but overwhelmingly The people who deal with the fallout from conflict who pick up the pieces afterwards Her left was the challenge of repairing broken families and rebuilding shattered lives of the woman Their efforts have been heroic heroic, but largely unacknowledged This is what the on-herd voices project sought to address The on-herd voices project provides a unique platform for local women whose voices have never been hired We've engaged about two thousand women Giving them the space and the opportunity to examine the recent history of which many of them were apart and to share their experiences Many of the women are now realizing that they have much more in common than they first thought One key strand of on-herd voices Its oral history program led to the publication of the book beyond the silence It's also an e-book Which details the harrowing and intensely personal stories of almost 30 immensely courageous women from very diverse backgrounds It reveals the diversity of their circumstance, but also the parallels between their stories Critically for us each of these on-herd voices has written the woman into history The woman's testimonies provide us with important insights They reveal the devastation that the that the violence of the troubles caused and the trauma that had left behind Many of our on-herd voices are still living with the consequences In most cases the women were grateful that someone simply asked to hear their story Many benefited from speaking to us. They found the sharing cathartic For many it was a turning point helping them to deal with their heart and pain and to move on with their lives The focus of the book was quite straightforward and the invaluable assistance of trusted key women who play important roles Mostly voluntarily within their own communities enabled us to identify women who were willing to speak about their experiences Without the help of these key figures many interviews could not could not have taken place Beyond the silence which has now been adopted as university text of Yale Grew out of quiet meetings which we facilitated involving previously voiceless women from all sides of the Northern Irish conflict By providing a safe shared space And an informal non-judgmental forum the discussion for discussion and common activities We encouraged women to share and then write about their different experiences of the conflict What emerged was a realization that loss Grief pain exclusion have had a devastating effect of all those affected by the troubles Regardless of their particular circumstances By sharing their experiences the woman gained a whole new insight allowing them to empathize with one another Bones developed leading ultimately to friendship Quiet diplomacy and discretion has always been the focus of craig and enterprises peacebuilding work Therefore it was through such diplomacy that we were able to involve the women and recruiting them to take part in events Where they could safely witness witness the other sides traditions They developed a trust and a confidence and confidence in one another This then allowed them to explore what had divided them And the circumstances that had caused them pain and grief It was enlightening to see that all participants including former paramilitarists security personnel and civilians Sharing a human empathy that left them wanting to talk about their own experiences openly and honestly But they also wanted to understand the experiences undergone by their fellow participants And learn from those who had suffered like they had Many of these women who had never met before the program are now lifelong friends And importantly they are taking their new learning and sharing it within their own communities and families I'll single the cases of two of our participants Marie Newton and Sharon Cross Whose innocent relatives were murdered Marie and Sharon had never met before engaging on the program Today though they are as close as mother and daughter Neither woman has ever received justice for their loved one's murder But having their story committed to print Having it told has helped heal some of the wounds Senator Mitchell's success in brokering the Good Friday Agreement was due in no small measure to his skill and experience as a diplomat But also to his understativeness And trustworthiness he got great results through quiet diplomacy Craig and enterprises unheard voices program also strives to work discreetly and respectfully and to earn the trust of participants We're never going to match the impact that senator Mitchell had That required governmental buy-in and presidential intervention But we can help create a society in which there is respect and tolerance There has been much talk of building walls of late We and our community have it far too many of these They're built to keep people apart when we ought to be bringing people together It isn't walls we need to build we need to build bridges I'd like to finish with a short video of some of the craziest women who took part in Beyond the Silence. Thank you Well, thank you very much. It's not that easy to follow on from that But I appreciate having the floor and it's fantastic for me to be here again at the US Institute for Peace And so thank you very much for hosting us Um, I'm going to in my very short time Maybe step back a little bit and raise some sort of slightly broader issues About the role of civil society the role of funding organizations the role of community groups in peace processes And some of the challenges that have emerged from the Northern Ireland context. I'm going to try and do that in seven minutes I am originally from South Africa Have been living in Northern Ireland for 15 years So between my African time and my now Irish time That's an incredibly difficult challenge for me In some senses, I'm going to pick up on some of the issues actually that senator Mitchell Mentioned some of the ongoing struggles that happen post the peace process and some of those issues that are Are facing the society Let's see that works. Okay So I'm going to try and restrict some of my comments to civil society focus and I think that adrian has covered A fair amount of that in terms of some of the work of of ifi. So I'm not actually going To repeat much of that But to really note that a lot of the work that has taken place has been at the levels of socialization social cohesion Facilitation and service delivery using faffenholzer's seven functions of civil society so a lot less focus on issues of Monitoring advocacy. There's been elements of all of that but much more actually in trying to transform sets of relationships Within society and and within communities and as adrian pointed out a lot of the earlier work focusing much more On economic issues and then moving towards what one could very broadly call Call reconciliation and what i'm going to do in the rest of my talk is outline some of the challenges And to my mind a very simple analogy of thinking about it at this point in time It's a bit like a really difficult stain that you're trying to remove In some senses you can remove some of the issues when you do the first Clean of it, but then there's the sort of corbit the really hard But that adrian mentioned the harder pieces that become incredibly difficult Incredibly difficult to remove and I think the society when northern island is at the moment Is in that position And part of that could be and there have been various reports that have mentioned this Seeing the process to some degree is a negative piece Where a lot of the issues and in terms of violence have decreased In terms of some levels high levels of political cooperation, but a lot of the underlying issues around Economic development around social division remain and this creates some of the tensions within the within the within the peace process What i'm going to do in my In my brief comments is really build a little bit on some work that a colleague and i grogna kelly did in northern island We developed a framework for reconciliation that was used By the peace program in a lot of the in a lot of their funding And i'm not going to spend a huge amount of time talking to you about the framework because we don't have enough time to do that But essentially we think of reconciliation as the process Of trying to deal with conflicted relationships And this is difficult because you're often having to not just rebuild relationships You have to build relationships in the first place So the notion of reconciliation is slightly misleading because you're not really reconciling sometimes you're actually conciling Issues in the first place and we talk about five activities that you generally need to do developing a shared vision Of an interdependent and fair society acknowledging and dealing with the past building positive relationships significant cultural attitudinal change And substantial social economic and political change and i won't go through in detail what we mean by each of those But just to add that for us also many of those tasks are actually contradictory In peace processes. So for example Acknowledging and dealing with the past as senator mitchell mentioned You might have to release ex-prisoners and releasing prisoners for some people is actually going to be An injustice, but at the same time you're saying we also want to build positive relationships Those issues are paradoxical or if we think of south africa We're saying we want to build positive relationships But we have to change the economic and political structure Which means some people are going to have to lose power whilst rebuilding relationships with people at the same time These issues are sitting in intention With each other So i'm not going to go through the model in great detail, but to say that this is a framework that we have used And i'm going to use it Now just to finally give a little bit of a diagnosis of where i think the current process is In in the northern island in the northern island context and when adrian saw this he said to me I'm really interested to see what you actually meant by this picture and I think what i what it firstly demonstrates is my complete inability to actually use powerpoint and to make Fancy diagram, so that's probably the first lesson that you can take from that But i'm going to try and explain what all those little wiggly lines actually mean And the first is that at those first two levels developing a common vision What we mean by a shared vision is not that people have to have the same political aspirations Not that everybody has to agree what the constitutional solution is to the northern island context But they have some sense of where they feel they're going which might be we want a better world for our children We want an end to violence and what Our sort of diagnosis of the current political context is that actually although there was a great increase in that sense around the The development of the agreement actually over time that the sense of a common vision has got less and less Now some of that might be that the early parts of the agreement some people have called it a constructive form of ambiguity It meant that everybody could actually buy into it because they felt it was either protecting the union or Actually moving one closer to a united island and over time. Maybe it's become clear that now Exactly what's going to happen is becoming more and more difficult And so actually that's sort of rather strange line of going up and coming down is to say actually this common vision Is becoming harder and harder to maintain in the current context Dealing with the past in all our research around the issues of reconciliation It continually comes up as the issue that has still not been dealt with in the peace process in the northern island context The hurts of the past how to deal with issues of truth justice Reparation and that still remains an undone piece of the peace process some 20 years ago So that terrible wiggly lion has meant to show so it's somewhere Still going down and not actually being dealt with In the other two areas building positive relationships and significant cultural attitudinal change What we see there is actually where the significant investment in civil society has actually been And on those two areas that's actually where we have seen some of the greatest shifts But what I should add as a caveat to that is some of those shifts have not been dramatic So we've been able to track through the northern island life and time survey attitudes in the society over 20 years and we can safely say that attitudes are improving But very very slowly So when we ask people how do they do they feel relationships have improved between communities? It's steadily been going up, but only a percentage or two points each year So there's no sort of dramatic Shifts in in those attitudinal changes But that's really where civil society has put most of its energies The reality of the social and economic picture is that it has improved and actually that line is probably not good As it's sort of going up because it's sort of gone up and down at different points in time But increasingly there is a perception that the new institutions are maybe not delivering what people actually want So in uh, I think 2002 when we asked people Um Do they feel the assembly has has contributed a lot? I think the statistics were round about 20 25 percent of people saying that in 2015 only 10 percent of people are saying that So there there's a sense that maybe they're not getting that full delivery Some of that is perception and some of that is reality Underneath all of this remains a lack of well social division within the society six percent of children going to integrated schools Housing and communities still remaining segregated So these are the underlying issues that that still create some of the the negative piece So to conclude within my very short period of time. I wanted to conclude By mentioning Senator Mitchell in fact had also talked a little bit about this sort of said you cannot Simply build a peace process at the civil society level and that you needed to take place at all levels And I wish I had thought of this, but I'm going to use the work of inter piece And they've started to talk about what they call track six And what they mean by that is not that track one is what happens at the political level and track two is what happens at the civil society level And track three happens at the community level What they mean by track six is how does number one two and three add up to six? And I think that that's really helpful and they're interested in the connective tissue between levels one two and three And I think that remains the challenge in northern ireland that we've had a significant investment In that track two and track three level and adrian and carol of outline some of that But there still exists a gap between the political reality of the delivery of that and what's actually happening At that at that community level. So I know that that's perhaps slightly broader But for our discussion, I maybe just wanted to outline a slightly wider Framework for us to be thinking about. So thank you very much Thank you for my fellow panelists for Making my job so easy by having described so many of these dynamics in such a vital and interesting way. So thank you And great thanks to the u.s. Institute of peace To the embassy of ireland to lucy for bringing us all together It is such an honor and privilege to be here because over the last 20 years of my career I've worked closely in both the northern ireland and the middle east context at a civil society level So I don't have power points today, but I was asked to give a bit of historical perspective about the civil society experience in these conflicts And to compare some of the trends between northern ireland and the middle east in seven minutes, which I will try to do So I could not agree more with senator mitchell that Both the political aspect and the reconciliation aspect neither is necessary or neither is sufficient both are necessary I would also agree about the track six. I never quite heard that formulation I think it's very good. I almost think about it as an estuary where the fresh water and the salt water come together Where that area is both a place of great growth and nourishment But can it also be a swamp and a morass? And how do we try to make the best of that interaction between what we might call the track two and track one Track one and a half public peace processes So first, let's look at the reconciliation aspect And some of the most moving times of my life have been sitting in rooms with Israelis and Palestinians with Protestants and Catholics from northern ireland And to hear how they work themselves out of their own pain to understand the other side And these this is tremendously tremendously moving where you can see those dynamics of a peaceful future start to happen Some of what goes on in those rooms are about Acknowledging pain of being a good listener to understanding the loss and the trauma that people feel You know 20 years ago, we didn't understand the neuroscience of trauma and how we know now that it can actually be epigenetically Transferred to the next generation But we did see we're courageous people willing to say I'm going to share my story, but I want to hear yours so we can imagine a more peaceful future together There is a lot of time spent interpreting history And we tend to think about peace processes at the civil society level as moving forward coming up with creative solutions But a great deal is also understanding the past and reinventing narratives of peace and justice And who was grieved and a joint understanding that there are grievances on both sides Senator Mitchell talked about the role of paramilitaries prisoners and the difficulties that they created for these processes I actually found that the role of ex-combatants could be extremely positive And whether you're looking at paramilitaries or militaries or at people who take enough arms in any way Often the most credible peace builders were those who had fought Who had been imprisoned and had a change of heart Because they were instantly credible within their own societies And there's a feeling that if someone with blood on their hands could make a conversion And could now be a soldier for peace or a speaker for peace that that had great credibility So I think we have to understand not only the negatives But also the positives of bringing people with those with violence into these conversations And finally understanding that the role of civil society in terms of reconciliation Doesn't end with a peace agreement and that in fact often the times after the peace agreements are the bloodiest times in civil wars So one thing the civil society can do is to think about implementation That often you have a three-way handoff civil society works at track one level You have the peace agreement and then it's handed off to another set of implementers But the role of civil society of women of academics of religious leaders of ordinary citizens to support a process Has to be designed so that there's full inclusion within the process I think northern ireland was very special in making sure it included women And some other groups working more at the civil society level But then making sure they're integral to the implementation It can give a directness a sense of momentum a sense of continuity I would say one major difference at the civil society level between northern ireland and in the middle east Was a sense of a movement In the middle east especially the earlier days of the crisis 20 25 years ago There was a sense that both sides had to gather together to change the environment on the ground Through movement building through very dramatic acts One example somewhat more recent was People who had both lost children in the conflict coming together for a joint blood bank And then having a public interest of kind of documentary coming out of that The understanding that you can share blood if you can be blood donors that there's something that brings you together across the lines of conflict So I think that idea of movement building didn't take hold quite as much in northern ireland where we saw a great emphasis on relationships on reconciliation But in northern ireland what we saw was more engagement of civil society in institution building and especially around policing Of how does civil society Perceive the police are there ways to change the relationship between the police and citizens To think about power sharing agreements and how that would affect citizens So I think that northern ireland could learn from the middle east in this movement building But that the middle east could learn from northern ireland in terms of how to bring citizens into the institutional negotiations Now moving on to the political this is where we get more complicated Because it's integral for civil society to help create a new landscape on the ground Where top-down leadership can exert its influence And so in both cases we saw Wide spread dialogue about well if it went in this direction, could you accept that if it went in that direction Would that be a non-starter? I'm trying to change public perception about the other side The other side is not demonized. They become a force that you can negotiate with So there is a great deal civil society can do to create a new political landscape There's also a lot that political society can do in engaging with track one Both in the oslo process, but also the good friday agreements There was almost daily contact between civil society leaders and government leaders who are working on the peace agreements So that kind of um escape valve or steam vent creative idea making testing ground Is very important in that track six estuary kind of landscape What's dangerous though is when you start asking civil society to make political decisions that they are not empowered to make So it's very tempting and this happened in the pre oslo civil society discussions that I was involved with Where each side says well we could accept this as a two-state Solution we can accept this Where you have people making very hypothetical um agreements at tremendous personal risk Because they're they're often then kind of seen as being exposed and vulnerable or having given too much away So where do we draw the line between? Giving new ideas of testing Ascenting perhaps, but then actually trying to take the role of policymakers So I think there needs to be much more exploration on both of those sides And finally, I'd like to say one thing about the role that academia played in both of these conflicts in terms of some civil society processes Um that I personally was involved with efforts at stanford university to bring Participants to california, but also to bring stanford on the road both into the middle east and to belfast And the dynamics were fascinating First from a legal perspective when it was still illegal to be dealing with the plo or with uh with shen fasion fein We could give the fiction of an academic conference where people could be under one roof together and actually engage But the second was to see how academics could take frameworks And to try to put the conflict in a context, you know much as we did um earlier today To say this is what this dynamic looks like. This is how you might get around it in a way that's less threatening because it's academic But you also had people like amist fursky and if any of you have read the book the undoing project by michael louis He's completely changed the way we think about how people make decisions in an area of loss and how losses can loom larger than gains So to have professors talk about how you're receiving concessions How you think about negotiation in a space of sacred values There's a way of bringing it to a somewhat more objective level While still very dealing with these very deeply held principles and history and pain So I think it's been a somewhat understudied role of of how universities can serve as safe spaces But I saw it play out in very interesting and engaging ways So i'll look forward to the rest of our conversation Again, I want to thank all of our colleagues here who have thought so deeply And spent so much of their lives working on these two very very difficult conflicts and giving us real space and sparks for hope Thank you Thank you very much Melanie and to all the the panel we we have a little bit more More time than we thought so I think what we will do Is that I will ask a couple of questions here to kick off the discussion and then we move Very very quickly to the to the audience So perhaps Adrian if I might start with you. I mean senator Mitchell in the past has talked about the the Palestinian and israeli has not been ready for peace With what extent do you think the ifi helped prepare the ground and the period between the Angovirus agreement and the good Friday agreement to to get parties peace ready as it were I think one of the one of the things we talked about earlier was the The need for community engagement to believe that they were developing the solution Like any other change process Giving ownership to those who are going to be most affected by that change makes it more sustainable and the possibility of actually working And and what the fund had done was was to work very closely at grassroots level as senator Mitchell talked about To identify what the emerging needs were for communities and help to address that And they own the solution so they they knew it was community-led solutions at a time when And What you were trying to do was get them to a point where nearly take peace Out of the equation say you know, what is a peaceful society? Well, I think as melanie said what what's the What what is it you want for your family? What's the the better outcomes you want for your family for your children? Is it about education? Is it better employment? What is it that you want? And the fund very much engaged at that level identifying what the needs of the community were and nearly took the Peace aspect out of the equation And once you start building that momentum behind change about how life could be different and how life could be better Ultimately, it's hard to stop that momentum At a community level. I think that's where we where we found ourselves getting to the point where yes, it needed political leadership around the good friday agreement To make that happen There was certainly a momentum behind that and post 1998 the community nearly surpassed the expectations of Of politicians of the politics of northern ireland and that's that's what kept them Okay, thank you Irwin And carl you spoke at some length about the role of women in civil society. I mean, we've just had an election in In northern ireland. I mean two positive aspects I think are the 30 percent of the new assembly is not female and the three of the four party leaders are women but Nonetheless in the whole area of of civil society and peace building perhaps women have been have been under represented How would you feel coming through this perspective you're coming from in dairy on that? Well, I think if personally Well, I agree with politics at storm or not I think it's great to see women rising up and taking a lead role Because at the end of the day they're mothers And they've no doubt been affected by the troubles The woman that I would work with At grassroots ground level or ground at community level The way they have been largely unacknowledged for many many years And I don't think their roles have been recognized enough You know during during the worst times when their loved ones were murdered or their husbands went into prison and Just the mothers that kept the visits going they'd be up to the prisons and they just they just Kept life going kept families going they kept homes community streets I mean women really are the backbone of community And they're not you know, they really weren't looking for praise and they still don't continue to look for praise But really just what they really do want is maybe three our project is They receive some recognition Of what they've actually gone through because no one has ever asked them ever You know about the hurt and the pain. They were just expected to get up and get on with life There's still a lot of psychological trauma that exists with a lot of the women that we work with And we provide a lot of support for them through the program So You know, I think that's you know, it's a vital vital importance as well I think women just want to be included And as I said, you know, they really do need to be recognized And their rules valued Because without women, you know It's real Thank you. And maybe there's a good way to segue into Melanie and your own experiences to build on that in terms of civil society and the broader aspect of increased female participation So we found in the work that we did that women were absolutely central in both processes And they just as carol said that they formed the backbone of their communities They often were the early warning systems When they they could sense the trouble was happening because they saw their sons or their husbands kind of taking up arms or having having meetings They could be had that early warning function They're able to speak with one another in a kind of common language across boundaries We also found they did very well and this is part of I think a larger trend in civil society Is that as moderates because many of them were moderate who's talked to it's not to say there are no women at the extremes But the groups who worked with were moderate They often found more in common with each other across the divide They did with their own extremes And they're able to build coalitions across the divisions In a way that then were almost more of a silent majority And so when things started to get difficult when the extremes started to to turn to violence They had that core it could bring other people in with them. That was very important But one thing I really am scared about right now in the Middle East Is that ability to come together across that line I mean for women for anyone is vanishing Because as the societies cannot work together with the peace efforts are really happening within each community We're missing the opportunities to have the de demonization the humanization and actually what women have done so well It's we're being cut off now thank you and Brandon you talked at length about the prism of reconciliation. I'm Sort of sort of challenged and trying to figure out the drafts and the direction of lines But what I was what I wanted struck by is in the international context. How does that Rate of reconciliation compared to similar Areas of conflicts around the world? I mean is the experiences you've seen polling over the last 20 years It does that tally with what we've seen in other places or is it particularly unique to northern Ireland? Yeah, it's a good question I mean as everybody says every context is really really different We like to use that model as a way of trying to make a very macro analysis of different Context so it's not meant to be a micro analysis more of a sort of macro analysis So if we think of say South Africa and northern Ireland needless to say they're massively different Context I was interested that senator Mitchell said that he thought The Middle Eastern problems were more difficult to deal with in northern Ireland And I often think that northern Ireland is more difficult to deal with in south africa because in the south african context Is basically you had two sets of nationalists. They just didn't agree on who belonged in the nation So once you could get an agreement that everybody belonged in the nation you could create new symbols you could create a new New nationalist agenda that everybody could buy into whereas in northern Ireland You have two people who want to go to two different nations and so for me I often think that's a more difficult Problem to deal with and then you essentially have an agreement rather than a settlement We had a settlement whereas now you just have an agreement which is sort of postponed the ultimate Problem and so all the challenges I was mentioning there But if you use that model as a macro form of diagnosis and you compared northern island in south africa What I would say is on those first two dimensions building a common vision and dealing with the past south africa was much more effective That sense of the rainbow nation all that big language where we might be going It was actually a lot less effective on the relationship building and changing attitudes and that was largely because We used a sort of structural mentality Which was that if we changed the structures and the constitution And we got different people into business and into boardrooms that somehow the relationships would just Start to work So we had no investment in actually building relationships between black and white south africans In the way that has taken place in northern ireland And then of course the biggest weakness in the south african context is that level of equality You know the sort of un Solved economic problems So in a weird way if you compare the two societies together if you almost stuck the two Reconciliation process together. You almost got the perfect reconciliation process You know if you had certain leaders not that northern island hasn't had moments of visionary leadership It just hasn't had it in a sustained way And if you had that dealing with the past with the investment at the relationship level and the change to the economic base You know, so that that's how I would often use it I mean, that's a very broad analysis But I find it a useful way to sort of think well, where do we put our Where do we put our energies right now? And if you look at northern island the energies clearly need to go into those top Those top two. Yes, I think that that's the kind of answering the prompts 10 of the questions But we if you go to the audience So if I can ask people to identify their Who they are and and but I always take a shorter observation But do try and keep it brief so it gets many people in as possible. I see a lot of hands I'm going to start with Norman Houston's northern island bureau Sorry, I should say there's moving mics Thank you very much. Could I ask a question particularly to to carl and adrian about the issue of division And you're working in communities that don't generally mix with each other at all And you're part of the process of trying to break down those barriers But before those people meet the other person, do you do anything to try and Help them before they have that early initiative that early engagement. How actually do you Prepare people for engagement well We I work through a lot of trusted networks trusted Key people in the communities in particular the Protestant unionist community Um, I have strong networks well established from many years ago These individual key women who have tried to keep their communities together And they would they are able to identify and signpost me personally To women that they failed who could really benefit from engaging on this particular program When we get there when I kind of get past that It's really about building up trust with This particular individuals or a small group of individuals with the key person that I will be working alongside Um, and that just could be a series of informal meetings cup of tea Nothing very structured at the beginning. It's very slow and it can be very challenging The women may not want to turn up. They may not didn't know me I come from a different background. I work in craig and which is a national republican nationalist area A predominantly catholic So why would they want to talk to me? So it's really about me trying to build up the trust And an iron trust I suppose that once we can surpass that I Do the same. I have this key woman as well. We have key women in the the The Catholic nationalist areas as well. So I have bring them together Three facilitated informal meetings as well And you're kind of and when you're doing that, you know, you could you tend to be a bit creative You end up maybe bringing the catholic women across the peace bridge over into the water side area And that is for a lot of for a lot of the women that could be the first time in maybe 10 15 years that they've ever crossed over So it doesn't happen overnight There's been quite a few of that those those type of those setups that We work towards some of the women told me Had said to me there's I don't want to know anything about peace just like what adrian had said, you know, when you enter when you say you're Running a a peace unpack program. They do not like a lot of the women do not like to hear the word peace. So You know, they'll kind of maybe shut the door and ask a kind of come back another time if something better going but You know, I don't kind of give up too easy Because I know for a lot of these individuals and I would have been told us that you know, these women have suffered hugely immensely So I suppose it's really about bringing the women together through different Very creatively and quietly diplomatically as I had said so And we would maybe embark on some what's called What's termed a single identity work bringing women together from their own community They look at maybe some history from their own community and then very slowly You know gradually under just another the other women from other communities And then when they get to know each other they realize that there's a lot of common issues here And they just tend to locally enough they've tended to click so It really depends project to project or or indeed Program to program what it is. We're trying to achieve If you look at the the end of the timeline again where we're talking about the Hard issues that we're trying to resolve We do quite a bit of preparation work and the way that the fund is set up to work with groups such as carols Is that we have managing agents On the ground across northern Ireland who have a network across northern Ireland Who would identify groups and have early discussions with groups about the potential of working a project That conversation could last for 12 months Before they even get Funding understanding what their needs are understanding what the difficulties might be in addressing those issues and quite recently over the past three four years The fund has redesigned looking at single identity activity And what we mean by that is either working solely With the unionist community or solely with the nationalist republican community To the point where they feel it's ready to engage across community and it's not it's not necessarily Required at the beginning of the program ultimately you want them to get there But like like any other conflict what we're trying to achieve with those groups and a great example I think of it is around parading with the londary bands forum Which is a project that we funded and it's it's about A single identity project taking a step back In a very safe environment not not not having conflict within the the project itself Take a step back and having a look at Where the other issue is coming from where the other side is coming from can you understand Their thinking from with respect to the problem I'm working from that starting point So single identity for us has been Previously important over the past number of years ensuring that we can set set the foundations for those groups They look at themselves to look at the preconceptions and maybe the misconceptions that they have outside of their own community And address those first before they can start to move forward. That's been extremely successful for us over the past number of years Thank you very much. I think what I might do is I might take three questions together I think just in the interest of getting as many people in as is possible. So I'll start maybe here Hi, my name is Mindy riser. I'm vice president of an NGO called global peace services We work on peace building and conflict resolution for professor hamper The macro question the media in northern ireland over these decades What has happened in terms of programs in terms of encounters in terms of call ins in terms of stories And how has this impacted lives? Surely there's media research on this and people's perceptions of what the media is doing well or not So that's the question. Thank you and gentlemen here in the center Thank you. I'm paul smith. I'm a youth worker from balfast part of the ambit study visit to the u.s. At the moment that's funded by ifi and and organized through the washington ironing program and one of the The focus of our visit is looking at programs for youth at risk and one of the sort of legacy issues of the conflict that We're trying to deal with is the ongoing brutalization of young people by paramilitary organizations And we're having attacks on individuals within communities two three times a week A lot of those are shootings where people are shot in the knees or elbows Or beatings where people are beaten with with different kinds of cudgels and it's a practice that was developed during the conflict by the the competing Organizations, but it's carried over and it's a mechanism that Organizations are now using to hold control over those communities So i'm interested in hearing what the panel think about how we start addressing that issue and and in particular We need multi systemic approaches because a lot of the young people themselves Are extremely vulnerable even before They suffer one of these attacks. Thank you. Thank you. I'll take one more question We'll go back to the to the panel. Perhaps this is going to appear on that. Am I right? Thanks, chris bowman national defense university question primarily for melanie since you've been in both contexts In the irish context clearly many women's voices have gone unheard My question number one is that even worse in the israeli palestinian context and if that's true Is that contributing to it being more difficult to resolve? Thank you very much. Maybe we'll start with the media question and professor hamper I feel my colleagues can probably answer that as well as myself I mean if I try and answer them in a short way, I think that the media Has really struggled to report on the piece They find it much easier to report on the conflict and past violence And have struggled to find a new set of language for articulating some of the issues into the present Um You know if I give you an example, this is a number of years ago. I was on a talk show Um, and there were two people on the talk show two former ex-prisoners And they'd actually been involved in a program that I'd been involved in a dialogue program for a number of years And at some point the the person running the program sort of said to the one guy Well, what do you think of this and then he turned to the other person said well I presume you think the opposite And then the the guys said no, I don't I sort of agree And then I could actually hear the person speaking to the guy in his ear You know, he's got the little earpiece in his ear and you could hear that they didn't really know Where to take the discussion because now they were in agreement rather than being in disagreement And I think it's a really a genuine it's it's a genuine issue And so, you know, it's hard to engage the media right I do I'm on the board of an organizational healing through remembering And we did a report looking at the role of the media and when the when we finished the report We invited a whole lot of journalists to come and talk about it and how they might engage in some of these discussions None of them came they didn't want to talk About how they might report on these sorts of issues differently, you know, so So I think it's that struggle to report the piece when there's a sort of standard mantra That's much easier to go back to in the past. I'm not saying all journalists are like that But but it's still it still is an ongoing issue in the current crisis For example, I was up at Stormont recently, you know, there was almost a sense of delight for some of the media that the institutions were collapsing If there was a sense of Pulpable enjoyment about the fact that they were going to get lots of column inches Out of the fact that people would disagree. I don't know if I'm being unfair my northern land colleagues can Chip in but uh, I think that learning how to report the piece is a really important Issue if I find the media in Belfast defining politics that are a bit too dull They can come over here for a few months. It's a pleasure to keep them entertained here I would suggest maybe in the first meeting the agent unit just just just a point on that On the media. I think that you know, good news doesn't sell especially in the northern Ireland context And you know, it's certainly a frustration with a lot of the groups that we would would fund and support It's very difficult to get a good news story out there about reconciliation But the the first aspect of Of bad news as really said brandon said, you know, the media will jump on it And there's a there's a number of journalists who are trying to do a good job of holding people accountable Especially around some of the most divisive issues In northern Ireland and try and bring it out into a public debate But as as carl could probably tell you better than I can You know having those debates in a very safe environment can be very problematic And when it gets out into the media It's very difficult to control having these very Public debates within the media whether it be radio or television Can be can be very very hard to to control and ultimately can harm You know the medium term reconciliation effort that you're trying to trying to achieve And it's certainly something I think the media are struggling with In northern Ireland at this moment in time about how do you do how do you hold people accountable in a public forum? But also ensuring that it's not detrimental to the world peace project that you're trying to achieve How do you learn to manage it through my experience? Um, I think it's good to try and manage it as best as best as possible It's really at the end of the day when you're working with people who've been so badly affected that's you know There are there there's a priority And as Adrian says you really you can't afford to damage them anymore By putting them in front of media, you know and maybe improper reporting or inappropriate questions been asked So, you know as project implementers I feel very strongly about protecting the woman from the media And using and you know having the right platform To start showcasing their stories and the project in a positive way So I suppose in a way when I talk about managing it We've you know, we would be very selective as to what will we try to be selective about who's going to report On the issues Just because it links to Paul's question because Yeah, I mean, well, you know a lot of this pool I mean you're more of an expert on that than me in terms of the youth work But I mean in terms of linking the issue of the assaults of young people By paramilitaries and I'm trying to pick my words here because my comment I want to make is exactly that There has to be a reframing of some of these issues and the media has a role to play in that so Every morning or not every morning some mornings you hear this report that there was a 16 year old injured in a paramilitary style attack Now that is massively problematic 20 years on from the peace agreement a young boy is shot in the kneecaps and you report it as a paramilitary style attack Which gives it some sense of legitimacy It has no legitimacy whatsoever And so there should be a reframing of the language for me is one of the first steps in which we say You know a child was assaulted You know, that's a completely different way of framing That issue and I think until we find a new set of language for expressing these issues Um, it's going to be really hard And I think that there has to be a concerted effort not just for paramilitaries, but across the societies whether it's churches Business communities academics how we start to reframe some of the current problems 20 years on from the peace process I mean the latest northern island peace building report, you know paramilitary violence has largely decreased But paramilitarism has not gone away And so that has to be for me a massive reframing of the language around that and the media is Really critical Melody recently about the last question which I think was due with the role of women particularly in the middle east context So I'd like to address that and very briefly the violence against young people as well So I would push back to say a little bit on what I think the assumption was is that somehow the role of women is Somehow less important or less visible in the israeli-palestinian conflict I've seen very powerful women on both sides doing amazing work within each of their communities recently What we're not seeing and where women often shine where they get the media attention is on the cross community work Because they can't build the kinds of bridges that carol talked about because that work is so curtailed right now We're not seeing as much of that But I would really argue against that the fact that there's less engagement by women at least in this stage of that process On the youth issues I would like to highlight the work of some one of our members called cure violence And they've been working with gang violence against youth in chicago But now expanding throughout the world and they take an epidemiological approach to violence that it's contagious That young people are often the victims and there are ways of interrupting it That it might be a kind of fresh approach that frames it differently from what's happening in the media now Thank you very much. I think we have just time for one more round of questions So I'll take three more questions And that's a pattern to be brief so we can squeeze them all in We're starting this gentleman here in front and then this lady in front And I'll take what the back there so starting Here this gentleman here Yeah Okay, so we have the microphone. Yeah, so I would go ahead with this gentleman has the microphone here and then I move to you That's okay Thank you. I'm howard sumka. I was With us aid for a long time. I was the director of the west bank gas mission and director of the bosnia mission and some other things To take this back a little bit to the comparison or to the relevance of the the Experience in northern ireland to the experience in israel palestine It struck me when senator mitchell was talking and he described the good friday agreement As setting a framework within which peace could be pursued non-violently And it struck me that oslo was about the same thing And the the good friday agreement is now 30 years old oslo is 23 or 24 years old It was at a panel here at usip last week Described as a failure and I wonder if you look at oslo and the good friday agreement in the same Framework that is to say they set the context for making peace. How would you evaluate them and and compare them and and related to that? A sub question Not a second question a sub question The objective as I understand in northern ireland and I've never worked there Is that you you have two religious groups Living in a relatively small area and the objective is to try to integrate these groups into a functioning society The dominant paradigm in israel palestine is actually quite the opposite. It's to separate into two states So that you have the israelis on one side and the palestinians on the other and you avoid the conflict How does that difference in paradigm societal integration versus separation affect how The experience of northern ireland informs that in israel. Thank you. We'll take this lady here Yes, I feel that The palestinian israeli situation is much closer to what's happening in south africa than to northern ireland The palestinians are considered second class citizens. They can't run for office for prime minister All those on the west bank in gaza can't vote They have no say they have no nationality. They have no passport I I find that The situation is very different from northern ireland and a lot closer to south africa Thank you. And I think this lady here in the center Oh Yes, me is it on? Yeah My name is joey schwarz and i'm with a civil society group in the u.s New story leadership, which brings israelis and palestinians together here in the summers And my question is sort of a macro question We've talked about the divisions between people And how the media can exacerbate that but I worry a lot when I look at the world and I see how Countries line up on the israeli palestinian question So you have a place like the u.s. Which is very pro israel lots of countries in europe, which are very pro palestinian And I wonder how you all think that might be affecting the issues there that Involvement of other countries around the world. Thanks. Thank you I think this lady here for one last one literally very last question And I will ask the panel in very brief because we are literally out of time. Thank you very much My name is marina jannis. I work for echo piece Which is an environmental peace building organization that grew out of jordan palestine in israel for the past 23 years and my question really relates to very much similar but more on a Government perspective and and the local leadership How do you break that? Capacity for them to feed off Each other so that that one becomes stronger by demonizing the other And and really start creating also that top-down peace building Because we have a lot of success for them from the grassroots and and but we're having a bit of a challenge We're getting that in yahoo into a room and really start seriously negotiating here Thank you very much. So that's four questions. I'll ask them if you're very very brief and starting maybe with the the odds look good and The odds of leaving is a good fragile human point. Maybe brendan or melanie. Do you want to grab that one? Um, I don't know if I can answer all of those questions. So to me it feels like that's a really good segue into the next session Yeah I mean, maybe I'll just I maybe come at things in a slightly in a maybe a slightly different way Building a little bit also on the south african issue I mean, I think that one of the things that's often understated in Well, I mentioned two things that I think are often understated in peace processes And I'll leave it up to experts this afternoon to decide if they have any relevance because I'm not sure if they do But you know, the one is how when you build a negotiation do you create a sense of dignity Place respect for people in a peace process. How do you actually Do that the people who even if they feel somewhere unequal have a sense in that negotiation that there is some sense of Of a level playing field between them And I think that that's a really underestimated part of peace processes It's one of the reasons why the current northern island context is not working because there's a perception Between people that they're no longer respecting each other on certain levels So, um, you know, I think that that's one of the the challenges and it'd be interesting to hear how people reflect on that This afternoon the the other thing which maybe links a little bit to the to the last question Is that it sounds a little bit airy-fairy, but I think we underestimate the importance of the relationship building component at the political level So we can talk a lot of time at the sort of community level But actually the relationship building at the political level is hugely important Part of the reason why northern island worked was because Different politicians up to 1998 have been taken to south africa to other places to get to know each other It was actually an active process Then we went into this phase of assuming that if they were working in office things would actually Just improve without actually building on those relationships And what we've had is a fundamental breakdown In trust because we didn't actually invest in building Building the relationships between people so it's a long way around of maybe trying to say that The key to the northern island peace agreement was that people agreed that they would pursue their political aims by peaceful means and i'm not sure How close or far The the the middle eastern context is from that and probably quite Quite far but to get to those two places I think you needed that relationship building and you needed Those very active processes of how people felt that they were somewhere had a sense of dignity and respect of one another Otherwise they weren't actually gonna go anywhere And now actually in northern island. I think we've reached a bit of a fork in the road Where this idea of pursuing by peaceful means Where's that now gonna go in the past? That was the game in and of itself now It's like where's that actually gonna go so that's way beyond I think You know if you think of oslo and northern island, I think that that's where they've sort of maybe diverged Well, I I fear I don't even want to take on your question howard and hope that that will come come out in our discussions I would very much emphasize what you just said brandon about the need for relationship building among political leaders And I think the best mediators do that if you read george mitchell's book Holbrook's book even yana liason's work Latte at the sorry They talk a lot about the hours they spend in the room Helping political leaders discuss many of the same questions that we do at the civil society level It's just done in that more formal process But I wonder if I could speak very briefly to your point About the role of the kind of international megaphone And I think it can be extremely unhelpful because every Constituency within the peace negotiation has a champion that feels it incentivizes bad behavior And I think some of the more successful agreements have come about because we've been able to quiet those voices Or to have enough voices say you need to be at the table and knocking some of those heads together And I think it's very dangerous to see even on our college campuses here in the u.s how the israeli palestinian debate is happening and We're not showing the kind of dignity in those discussions that we actually need to be happening at the table Just on the second point on the first question Just around about Whether integration was required and I think in the in the northern ireland Peace process was really the only option was was integration Of the of the two communities Yeah, you could separate but that's avoiding conflict. It's not it's not resolving the overall problem It's not identifying the problem and putting the solution in place around that And religion in northern ireland Was not the issue. It was about identity and about territory Religion just happened to be the demarcation line between the two communities, but it was never about religion So it was about identifying the way that integration could happen That's exactly why the fund looked at various aspects like shared education and shared housing and shared communities and trying to ensure that there's Core integration at a community level To remove that the prospect of conflict Um For me, I think it was only solution that we had in the northern ireland context Yeah, Jean-Claire. I'll give you the last word Thank you Um, I think just uh following on from brandon's point about promoting reconciliation and communities I really do strongly believe it's the way that Projects are delivered. Um, and I think of people Projects are delivered and with humanity and dignity You will inevitably get people to engage women and other participants to engage And for me, I think that's been, you know, that's a key learning point Um, I think if you talk directly to them, um and treat them with respect Um and really try and understand what they've been through Um and show about a humanity in your work. Well, I think you'll get results Thank you god. Well just remains me to say thank you all for coming along today and for Taking such an active part in the discussion and to thank our task you join me in thanking our four panelists And now I think if you if you enter out that way, there is much needed coffee and tea outside I was like, oh Let's do it right now Actually Oh Oh Oh Oh Do I just uh Well Yeah, yeah, uh, dear guests Greetings, we're about to start the second panel. So I would Ask for your attention, please Welcome back everybody. Um, I hope everybody enjoyed, uh, the short coffee break and Had time to think about our earlier panel discussion and I would also like to reiterate, uh, thank you to, um, our partner the embassy of ireland for providing, um timely refreshments Um, so I hope that now that we're back here. We're feeling energized as We get into our next conversation which will focus on the um on israeli palestinian peace building And try to kind of Tie the strands of the previous Discussion we had on the ifi in northern ireland To what can be done in the israeli palestinian or what has been done and looking at the lessons learned in the israeli palestinian case I'm rami dajani. I'm the moderator in this session and in addition to Working with, uh, tony blair as an advisor on the middle east on middle east politics I'm currently a senior fellow here at usip Um, so I've had a bit of experience Myself looking at the issues of peace building both from the top down and bottom up and I will be looking forward to Asking a couple of questions myself to my Panelists here and I think based on the previous conversation that That we we listened to earlier today some of the issues that stand up have to do with um the the The Fundamentally the issue of the the political horizon or where the politics is going in a particular conflict And how that impacts ultimately the ability of civil society and other actors to Do a real grassroots top-down effort? Sorry bottom-up effort In in peace building and in the case of the israeli palestinian case and it goes to level beyond The the northern irish Case I believe in the sense that there is a very heightened animosity By many people on the palestinian side and differently in the israelis on the israeli side to issues that are known as Normalization or having normal relations with one's enemy before there is a peace agreement And so this is an important issue that I I hope will come up in in the discussion today on this panel Secondly, I think there was an interesting discussion earlier on about the difference in peace building between efforts at integration or integrating societies that have suffered through war and conflict and between separating and whether you know in the case of Attempting a political separation Requires a different set of tools or efforts as one where you're trying to put together societies that have been Internally divided and I think that's an important distinction that came up in the question and answer And I would be interested to see how further we can explore that And finally the issue of the regional Environment in the northern ireland case we had a very different As senator michel I think pointed out earlier on today a very different set of regional players and a regional context Then we have in the middle east today And I think one of the questions in terms of peace building and developing this Thinking and the israeli palestinian cases to ask that question is how can we You know, do we how do we deal with the fact that we have these Intrusive issues that come in that interweave through the conflict and whether that can be Used as a way to actually move forward on peace building rather than Seen as a detrimental factor So with these short comments in mind, I would also like to introduce the the panel to you The first speaker today is dr. Sara Yerkes Who is a non resident fellow The center for Middle East policy at the brookings institution And adjunct professor at the school of foreign service at georgetown university She served in both the pentagon and the state department most recently as a member of secretary carries policy planning staff Previously she was a foreign affairs officer in the state department office of israel and palestinian affairs And during the 2013 negotiations. She was responsible for outreach to a civil society in support of the peace process Second speaker just to my left here Joel brown old is the executive director of the alliance for middle east peace A contributor to haritz jerusalem post his work has been published in national and international publications Including new york daily news the guardian huffington post The hill and the daily beast Our third speaker is father josh thomas. He's the international executive director of kids for peace And a member of the all map board of directors. He has over 15 years experience leading interfaith education and peace building programs for youth in the u.s balsnia hartogovina and jerusalem During his seven years as a executive director kids for peace has grown rapidly to become the largest and most diverse youth youth movement in jerusalem and the first national network of interfaith youth programs in the u.s Our final speaker is lucy curts are ellen bogan She's the director of arab-israeli conflict programs at usip where she focuses on the role of israeli and palestinian civil society and peace building efforts And the interplay of grassroots and track-to-efforts with official diplomacy So We're off to i think a second Great discussion. I've asked Each of the panelists to share their opening comments before we move to More of a conversation and then open the floor to questions to you Our audience Thank you. Thank you So i'm going to start with a few words on the relationship between civil society and the political leadership And i want to point out three challenges The first is that i see this as a chicken and an egg question You need civil society to push leaders to the negotiating table Once involved in negotiations civil society and the public at large need to make it clear to the political leadership That stepping back or walking away from the table would be more politically risky than staying there And at the same time civil society cannot be too far ahead or too disconnected from the political leadership We've heard many critiques and these i think are growing in recent days That these realities and the palestinians are not quote ready for peace So the leadership will not force peace on a public that's not prepared for it But in my mind, this is really just an excuse on behalf of the political leadership because they themselves are not ready for peace And are not ready to take the risk necessary for it Furthermore this line of thinking it has a very poisonous impact on the prospects for peace It both paralyzes civil society and gives government on both sides on the israeli and the palestinian side An excuse to refrain from real efforts at peace A second challenge this comes from my own experience working on these issues in the us government Is that governments tend to be focused on governments At best they forget about civil society or at worst they intentionally disregard the publics that they are supposed to be working for So while i agree with the comments that senator michel and many others have made that civil society is certainly not sufficient for peace What's clear and i think we saw this in the case of northern ireland is that grassroots efforts are crucial to sustain a peace process The third challenge is an information asymmetry between civil society and government Particularly during negotiations civil society and the public will necessarily have very little information regarding the substance of the negotiations We saw this play out in the 2013 2014 negotiations most recently This makes it extremely difficult for civil society organizations themselves to assist in supporting the peace process How do you design a campaign around a subject you don't know about with content you don't know about? And how do the negotiators are unable to benefit from a positive public or critiques from the public Feedback on the peace process itself if it's secret Moving today unfortunately, I think we're in the worst of all scenarios First there's a tremendous disconnect between pro-peace civil society groups and their political leadership in both the israeli and the palestinian context On the israeli side prime minister netanyahu's far-right government has enacted a series of laws and continuing to enact a series of laws That discredit left wing civil society groups and discourage international support This is both rhetorical support as well as financial support for civil society On the palestinian side the anti-normalization campaign Continues to discourage palestinian groups for engaging in cross-border activity and in pro-peace activity in general I'll note that we did see a boss meet with rabbi rick jacob's just last week I believe who represents the largest denomination of american jewelry, which is a good sign Maybe there is some movement on the palestinian side But a boss is hardly seen as credible by all palestinians And there is a big difference between a boss meeting with an american jewish group and an israeli jewish group Which he was able to do just a few years ago The second reason i'm worried is that where we are today is that pro-peace groups are weaker in their losing momentum While some groups are growing particularly among younger generations And i'm sure josh will speak about the work his group is doing First generation groups and their political backers have been steadily declining in influence In addition to the israeli government's attempts to limit their influence that i've mentioned Funding is also under threat in the united states Just last week senator lindsay graham reintroduced the taylor force act Which would threaten to cut off all us assistance to the palestinian authority And the trump administration's desire to cut a third of the state department budget is not a good sign for this sort of work Now neither of these directly impacts civil society work And hopefully they would leave civil society efforts alone. I hope joe will give us good news But but at the same time i think we should not be under the illusion that any funding in this climate today is safe So i think you know and we'll get into this more in our discussion But an international fund for israeli palestinian peace might actually be both more necessary than ever to fill in the gap left by dwindling funding sources But also more difficult than ever to achieve The third reason for worry is that the status quo is not only sustainable But it has contributed to a growing physical and psychological divide between israelis and palestinians When i was at the state department trying to create a civil society engagement strategy long before the negotiations Our mantra was improving the quality and quantity of contact between israelis and palestinians In the absence of negotiations We felt that in order to prevent either a low level Recycle of violence or an outright roar and to create the conditions on the ground for peace in the long term It was essential to encourage interaction between israelis and palestinians as well as amongst israelis and palestinians of differing ethnic political and religious backgrounds And if you haven't seen the monologue by israeli tv commentator asaf herel I encourage you to do so because he makes this point much better than i will But the basic point is that it's much easier to hate someone that you've never met In this current situation that we're in is not only allowing but encouraging israelis and palestinians to completely separate from each other Which is a recipe for continued conflict of cycle of violence and not peace So this has been very depressing i'm sure but let me end with just a few lessons I think that i learned today from the from the northern ireland conflict that i think Applied very directly and from our experiences that we've had in our own conflict that we deal with So first a fund or any sort of other civil society effort needs to be a true bottom-up endeavor It will lack credibi