Approach and History

Human ideas about conflict are as old as the phenomenon of conflict itself. Differ ent cultures developed different ways of dealing with conflict: juridical ap­proaches, traditional approaches and religious approaches sometimes seem to be at odds, but they are quite similar in many ways because they all deal with the profoundly human wish to live with justice and in peace. Even in the Palestinian context of perpetuated lawlessness, Palestinians man­aged to preserve some traditional ways of conflict resolution. The conflict resolu tion technique locally known as “Sulha” has been in use for centuries be cause it is a very flexible concept. Its wisdom is recognized by communities across all religious or ethnic divides all over Palestine. Since Sulha is part of the Pal estinian culture, reaching back to ancient times, it comes as no surprise that elements of the traditional Palestinian conflict resolution practice differ from the conflict resolution techniques applied in other cultures, e.g. the Western way of dealing with conflict.

When new and extra-juridical methods of resolving or transforming conflicts were developed at some US Universities in the mid-seventies, a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers raised the question of how conflicts on multiple levels could be tackled in smarter ways. They also investigated as to how it could be possible to create an atmosphere that would allow for direct encoun­ters and win-win-situations. Many of their approaches (such as mediation, negotia tion or facilitation) proved successful. Today, methods of alternative con­flict resolution often complement the classic conflict resolution strategies world­wide. Peace education and conflict resolution training make the more classical programs like health education or trauma-recovery more sustainable. Palestinians working in the field of education and peace were watching these developments closely: Facing the lawlessness of the occupation, professionals working in the educational sector as well as peace activists started to think about complementing Sulha with methods of alternative conflict resolution in 1999.