The House of Wisdom Institute for Conflict Resolution and Governance organized a workshop entitled
“Conflict with the Occupation: Examples of Reconciliation in South-Africa and Ireland, lessons learned for Palestinians”, the workshop was attended by a number of political and academic figures representing the civil society.
Dr. Ahmed Youssef, Head of HOW, welcomed the audience, and spoke about the efforts conducted by HOW in achieving a national reconciliation and uniting the Palestinian house. He also confirmed on the importance of learning from the experiences of other nations who suffered divisions.
Dr. Ghazi Hamad, Deputy of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke about the current status of the Palestinian cause on the local and international levels as a result of the bitter division. As well as, we as Palestinians, our dispute is political, and we do not have any complications as was the conflict in South-Africa and Ireland. At the end, he called on all parties to do their efforts to re-unite Palestinians, he added.
On his part, Dr. Haidar Eid, Assistant Professor in Al-Aqsa University, reviewed the experience of South-Africa in achieving national reconciliation and fighting against apartheid through his paper “Lessons learned from the South-African Example”.
In addition, Mr. Oliver McTernan from Forward Thinking Institute, and Dr. David Mitchel from Trinity College Dublin at Northern Ireland, gave an overview of conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland under the Protestant and Catholic Para military groups fight, which left thousands of victims behind.
The workshop was followed by an open discussion, the attendees recommended again to end the internal rift and unit the Palestinian parties, engaging the community members without any discrimination for political reasons.
