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A Co-operative Inquiry Experiment

There can be few more divisive issues than the Israel-Palestine situation. Conversations at all levels frequently founder on apparently irreconcilable perspectives and generate animosity between people who hold different views. Such polarisation often obscures the complexities of real life, damages relationships and reduces the possibility of managing conflict creatively. The Israel/Palestine situation reverberates around the world and influences, for instance, inter-religious relationships in the UK. We need to find better forms of conversation about this dangerously divisive issue.

St Ethelburga’s wishes to conduct a practical experiment into whether the concept of “disagreement success”  offers a way of creating a better conversation about the Israel/Palestine situation. We’d like to test out a way of talking about such difficult issues which avoids traditional patterns of conflict in which communication and trust are destroyed.

The St Ethelburga’s Co-operative Inquiry project

We wish to create an inquiry group of 12 people - Jews, Christians and Muslims embodying a wide spectrum of views about the Israel/Palestine situation - to engage in a three-month co-operative inquiry about how fundamental differences of understanding can be expressed creatively in a group.

The Co-operative Inquiry will address the question: “How can we create a constructive conversation about the profound disagreements on the Israel-Palestine situation?”  

The inquiry will not seek agreement or common ground. It will not assume or require that participants’ positions on the Israel/Palestine situation itself will change. Rather it will attempt engender curiosity amongst participants about people (in the group and on the ground in Israel/Palestine) who hold radically different positions to them and explore what kind of relationships might be built with them.

The Inquiry project will involve:
•    a series of dialogues in Sept/October 2010 to create the agenda for…
•    a week-long study visit to the Holy Land in November;
•    followed by 3 further dialogues back in London to draw conclusions.

For further information download background info and an application form.  If you have any questions please email  Justine