Israel / Palestine

A meeting in 2004 at the Salzburg Global Seminar laid the groundwork for cooperation between the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and Palestinian and Israeli scholars, to underscore the shared history of the region and to promote a mutual understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. These initial deliberations laid the foundation for four projects, which were  completed throughout the year 2011.

The IHJR projects in the Middle East aimed to engage Palestinian and Israeli scholars in researching and writing distinct narratives of the contentious events in the history of their region. By juxtaposing these narratives the IHJR aims to foster a better understanding of the commonalities of their past.

War of Independence, Nakba
In the project ‘War of independence, Nakba’  two historians conducted research on the different narratives of the War of 1948, which  remains one of the most contentious events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

 

Sacred Sites
The Sacred Sites project represents a narrative examining historical and religious perspectives of three religious sites that are sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

 

 

Palestinian Refugees of 1948
In this project, a team of  Palestinian and Israeli scholars collectively explored multiple contemporary narratives on the Palestinian refugees of 1948, by analyzing people’s reactions on photographs taken from Israeli archives concerning the events of 1948.

 

Historical Memory Project on Haifa 1948
The ‘Historical Memory on Haifa 1948’ project encompasses a series of joint research initiatives whereby Israeli and Palestinian scholars focused on actual events of the period surrounding 1948 and how they affected the lives of Jews and Palestinians in Haifa.

The IHJR Middle East Project was funded in part by the Ford Foundation, the Arcadia Trust, the MacArthur Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and the European Commission Partnership for Peace Programme.