Approach and History
Human ideas
about conflict are as old as the phenomenon of conflict itself.
Different 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 resolution technique locally known as “Sulha” has been in use
for centuries because 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 Palestinian 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, negotiation 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,
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