Analyse von familiengeschichten in einer jüdisch-arabischen gruppenbegegnung in Israel

In the years since October 2000, there has been a great increase in tension between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Recent surveys show that approximately forty percent of Jews in Israel support the prospect of removal of Arabs by their government from the State of Israel. It is clear that the media contributes to a negative and polarized presentation of Arabs and Jews in Israel through its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The present article shows that when a suitable context is created, this polarized negativity still exists but is not the sole model of discourse between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. The article will describe patterns of dialogue that developed in a group of eight Jewish and nine Arab students who met together during the course of a year under the framework of a workshop course titled, "Life Stories as a Means Toward Co-Existence," which was led by the first and third authors of this article. Each student interviewed two individuals in his or her family; one from his or her parents' generation and one from the generation of his or her grandparents. The discussions in the seminar fluctuated between mutual inclusion of these stories and political confrontations. Both within- and between-group variances among the Jewish and Arab participants emerged while listening to the stories. Two basic types of stories were created: those that were "good enough" to be accepted by most of the other groups participants, and those that were "bad enough" and thus rejected by the other side. In this article, we will present a categorization of the stories told in the group, and we will analyze the components of both a "good" and "bad" enough stories. We will then examine the contribution of life stories and the attendant model to the creation of intra-group dialogue and how it relates to the threatening and violent external context.