Civil Society Initiatives and Social Impact in Israel:
Should we invest in co-existence and peace projects?
Shimshon Zelniker
Head
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Thank you Rien.
It is indeed a great honor to be the first speaker in the Van Leer International Philanthropy Lecture Series. It is however an honor mixed with a heavy responsibility which I accepted with great trepidation – not to say outright anxiety lest I do injustice to this worthy cause which we all want to serve faithfully and effectively.
So, with angst and all, I would like to open my comments this afternoon with words of thanks to The Council on Foundations and especially to Steve Gunderson (and his predecessor Dorothy Ridings) and to the Van Leer Group Foundation and its chairman Mr. Ivar Samrén for sponsoring the series and for inviting me to launch it.
I would also like to thank the Jewish Funders' Network for their involvement and help in bringing this presentation to the attention of their membership.
The series is sponsored in honor of my colleague and very dear friend Rien Van Gendt - who as many of you know - was last year's recipient of the distinguished grant maker award. I regard the idea behind this lecture series as an expression of a deep seated commitment to a form of internationalism that is predicated on respect for diversity, the universality of human dignity and the indivisibility of social justice and development. This form of internationalism is led in recent years by the Council and is fully shared by the Van Leer Group (which I am proud to be a part of). The Internationalism I refer to stands in stark contrast and in total opposition to vulgar forms of globalization that are devoid of social empathy and of political wisdom.
Rien van Gendt, the Executive Director of the Van Leer Group Foundation, embodies these commitments in his work and in his personal, intellectual and ethical life. His example as a practicing humanist and as an international development advocate serves as a role model for his colleagues and friends alike. It is only fitting that the series should honor him, and I hope and pray that the modest wisdom that I can offer this afternoon does him and his work due justice.
Finally, I want to thank Marjorie Benton who is known to many of you present in the room and to scores of friends and associates in this country and overseas. Marjorie has served for years as a Trustee of the Van Leer Group Foundation and its subsidiary - the Bernard Van Leer Foundation that focuses on early childhood development. Her political wisdom, her boundless energy, and her moral courage have touched the lives of so many of us - in the world of Foundations and in the universe of field work. Marjorie exemplifies all that is good in the international-world-of-giving and her faith in co-existence, tolerance and peace sustained me and redefined my own commitment during periods of doubt. I want to thank her, Rien, and my Board for an unshaken faith in the role of society in the service of peace and social justice.
Before I turn to my subject, I think that a brief disclosure of some of my background and prejudices may be in order:
First, I was born in pre-1948 Israel and grew up as a subject of the Crown in what was then British dominated Palestine. Like so many of my generation who grew up in a mobilized society committed to national liberation, I was socialized to believe in the powers and ethical superiority of civil society. Civic self help was not some kind of intellectual slogan but the credo on which I and my generation were raised.
The second biographical note relates to the fact that for nearly 8 years I served as an adviser to a PM, and was exposed as a result to the realities of national decision making. There was nothing more sobering in my life than this exposure. It left me convinced that bold political action is something too demanding and far too serious to be left in the hands of politicians alone. Indeed, it is my view that in times of serious international or social crisis political leadership becomes rather scarce and hesitant. Sometimes it simply evaporates. The Nixon in China; or Sadat in Jerusalem, and De Clerk with Mandela models are the exceptions and not the norm. It is far more often the case that civil society itself is the engine that drives politicians and not the other way around.
One final note that may shed light on my biases is the fact that I approach civic work from the perspective of a grant seeker and not – as so many of my colleagues and friends in this hall - as a grant giver or maker.
The purpose of this bit of personal confession is merely to point out my bias in favor of the view that civil society can and should be expected to play a major role in all the critical domains where government normally seeks a monopoly for itself.
In Israel, civic involvement in public life is very extensive. It ranges the whole gamut from the traditional Jewish charitable support of the poor and indigent, all the way to modern (and in the Israeli context) far more controversial forms of intervention in areas such as civil rights, gay rights, minority legal advocacy, and, from 1967 on in co-existence work.
Although precise figures are not available, it is clear that US influence and direct American grant making - both public and private - has been critical in the development and the shaping of a modern, risk taking and politically alert third sector field in Israel. The Ford Foundation, to take one notable example, is behind the emergence and growth of the Israeli human rights community and a human rights climate. The Charles Bronfman Foundation, The Abraham Foundation, The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), The Goldman Family Foundation of SF, Danny Abrams and The Moriah Foundation - to name some of the most prominent American names in this field - have played a central role in the field of Jewish-Arab relations and were behind some of the most influential Israeli-Palestinian encounters during the 1990's.
These initiatives include *cross-border people-to-people (PTP) dialogue; * Informal behind the scene, or "track II" negotiations; *and an assortment of bi-national training projects that ranged from joint Israeli-Palestinian women empowerment to local government training and high level "knowing the other" seminars. These projects were carried out in the vacuum created by government indecision and its de facto withdrawal from this field and from other areas of peace related activities.
Now, it is precisely on work carried out in these areas that I want to focus my comments and draw on the Israeli civil society involvement in them over the last decade or so.
To put things in perspective it is essential to bear in mind that Israeli civil society groups ventured into the sphere of Palestinian-Israeli relations long before governments in Israel ventured to consider such option. In fact, The Oslo Process itself was driven, managed and fueled privately and secretively for years before it was adopted as a feasible option by the late PM Rabin who eventually signed the Oslo Agreements.
With the success of the Oslo Process, it was only natural that Israeli civic organizations in ever growing numbers would jump into the 'emerging markets of the peace business’. In fact, the Oslo Agreements themselves tried to assure such involvement by stipulating that a people-to-people mechanism be incorporated as an integral component of the Accords.
It cannot provide the exact number of civic organizations that became involved in the literally thousands P2P projects or the amount of money that went to support this activity but I can assure you that the figures were quite high. But the whole impressive field came to an abrupt stop in the year 2000.
The breakout of the second Intifadah in 2000 and the trauma of 9/11 were turning points in the life of Israeli society in general and in the self perception of community activists in particular. They eroded the collective will to regard Palestinians as bona fide partners to the peace process and thereby weakened the moral and political credibility of the entire Israeli peace camp. The crisis led to serious soul searching among civic groups and to a re-examination of the premises of co-existence work itself. It also led to a greater selectivity in dealings with the Palestinian counterparts.
As could be expected, the crisis did not skip the donor side of the equation. Sustained regional violence, the growing disillusionment with the PA and the widespread concern with resurgent fundamentalism led to a significant slow-down in the flow of philanthropic support to the field of co-existence work. It also led to demands for more careful monitoring of projects and recipients. This has been the trend since the onset of the second Intifadah and the election victory of Hamas a few weeks ago is not likely to reverse the trend in the immediate future.
Now, it should be clear that the demands for effective monitoring and better disciplined peace-related projects were and still are timely and justified. So is the understandable caution - in the selection of partners which the presence of Hamas dictates to donors and civic groups alike. But over protectiveness can at times be dysfunctional and stifling.
My point is that while remaining cautious we must not lose sight of the political importance of back-door civic diplomacy - which is what these programs a re all about. And, we must not lose sight of the added value which civic organizations bring to this very murky field. Civic organizations are faster to identify opportunities; faster to seize them; and are far better than governments in creating a climate of candor in the interactions with all ranks on the other side. So, while caution must be exercise, there is plenty of room for action and more risk taking than is currently the case.
I learned these lessons years ago in South Africa, under conditions not dissimilar from those existing in the Middle East today. I did my apprenticeship in the early 1980s duringthe darkest and most testing days of Apartheid. I was asked by Shimon Peres, the Head of the Israeli Labor Party at the time, to explore the possibilities of establishing ties between Israel and the organized black community in South Africa. To remind those of you who may not remember – relations between Israel and sub Saharan Africa in those days were at an all time low, and relations with the liberation movement in South Africa were even worse. The ANC had a close affinity to the Palestinians and had adopted a formal rejectionist stand towards Israel. So, on the face of things, the mission was totally surreal or – to use project jargon: It was not entirely feasible.
And yet, in clear defiance of ANC national policy, the project received the backing of major political figures within the Liberation Movement who were quick to see the virtues of the program and was bold enough to join it.
With the open endorsement of dozens of key political and civic figures – whose “official position” on Israel was not dissimilar from the one held by Hamas’ today,we were able to run a massive training program that functioned with great success for more than 12 years. In the course of that time more than 1200 young trainees left South Africa for a month-long training course in local governance, public administration and community management. An additional 1000 participants were trained inside South Africa in a briefer version of the training program that focused on rural development.
This entire package was supported financially by the National Endowment for Democracy and soon after by USAID. Both organizations were not impressed by the conventional wisdom which held that the white regime was invincible and that successful overhaul of apartheid was decades away. Both organizations were willing to provide considerable financial resources in support of a project that on the face of it was ahead of its time politically risky and logistically shaky.
As it turned out, the pay-offs to this naïve project were spectacular: within 10 years from the start of the Program, South Africa held its first free elections and the Program was dramatically vindicated as a very good investment. About half of those trained (some 500 or more) won elected positions in local, Provincial and national offices. The Mayors of such major metropolitan centers as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Grahamstown and dozens others – were all graduates of a model project that was based on 3 elements: 1. Risk takingdonors, 2. civic initiative and courage, and 3. a good project concept. While all 3 elements are hard to come by, it is donor risk taking which is becoming scarcer and scarcer these days.
It is a winning model which we at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute have applied both inside of Israel (involving Israeli Arabs and Jews domestically) and in our relations with Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. It is a model which illustrates how cross-border civil society initiatives should be perceived in times of political uncertainty, and how they can be designed to work during times of fundamental instability and violent tensions.
I want, with your permission, to describe briefly one of many impressive projects that deal with some of the most central and sensitive issues at the heart of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. The Project I want to describe was carried out together with Palestinian political prisoners who were released from Israeli prisons after long periods of incarceration and were organized in prisoners' associations in Gaza and the West Bank. As in the case of SA, this project too offered training for municipal governance, public administration and management for grassroots activists.
Nominated by the Prisoners Associations (and screened individually by the project managers) the participants represented a broad range of political opinion and party affiliations within the Palestinian Liberation Organization - the PLO. The majority came from the dominant Fatah group and its affiliates, but others came from rejectionist fronts, and some from non-political groupings such as the Red Crescent and other smaller NGOs. Many participants joined the project despite the fact that they would have normally rejected any notion of dialogue within the Oslo framework of People-to-People, and many opposed normalization or recognition of the State of Israel. Still, they attended the course, and have opened up not only to the Israeli training staff, but to Israeli families who volunteered to host them in private homes for encounters with Israeli families.
The project ran for over 4 years and ended only because of the logistical difficulties created by the Intifadah. It trained over 500 Palestinians who today are occupying a wide variety of positions in the PA; Fatah and civic formations on the west bank and Gaza. Many of the graduates have kept a close link with us even during the difficult times of the Intifadah
It is impossible, of course to assess the value of this, or similar projects in Israel or elsewhere. None of the projects helped delay or avert the eruption of violence in 2000.But should we evaluate projects of that kind in terms of their immediate contribution to concrete foreign relations objectives?I think not.
Quite like traditional diplomacy - civic peace activities may, if successful, have positive impact only in the long run. In that respect these projects, like traditional diplomacy, are exercises in "casting bread upon water". They are be predicated on the belief in the intrinsic worthiness of the effort itself and not on short term gains alone,
The lessons that those of us still active in the field is that the quality of the participants in projects, the ability to sustain the demand for the service and the manner by which content is embraced by the other side are the most critical achievements that will have long term effect on the recipient side even if the short term is disappointing.
Fortunately, this lesson has been in internalized by a number of committed civic organizations that continue to work in the field. Their work is carried out in an atmosphere of suspicion, without official feedback and with shrinking financial assistance from abroad but it still goes on
Ironically, what sustain their work is Palestinian willingness – and often eagerness to continue with the work. And so, projects examining life in contested cities like Jerusalem, teacher training projects, exercises in writing joint text books, and political dialogues persist despite the hardships. The levels of candor, ingenuity and daring (which some critics of the peace camp may regard as detrimental to the official course of negotiations) are light years ahead of what goes on in official channels of Israeli-Palestinian interaction. It is through the informal channels that the limits and contours of the cultural and social boundaries between the two sides are discovered and openly discussed.
It would be naïve and dangerous to suggest that civil society institutions can or should supplant government in negotiating a peace settlement in the region. They do however have the critical role of keeping the notion of negotiation alive. At a time when unilateralism is embraced by a growing number of players on all side, it is the unique role of civil society to keep open channels for civic, cultural, intellectual and technical relations with the other side.
So, in conclusion, I would like to say that the lessons of the Van Leer work, and that of dozens of similar institutions in Israel and elsewhere is that in the final analysis governments can sign treaties and agreements, but it is up to civil society initiatives to create the fabric and the content that transform such agreements into living and breathing arrangement.
Shimshon Zelniker
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Jerusalem