Facilitation and Consultation for Conflicts in the Middle East

Susan Podziba has facilitated and consulted on issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conflicts within Israel since 1984. Ms. Podziba has facilitated dialogues among Israelis and Palestinians, provided training for Palestinian and Israeli facilitators who then conducted dialogues in their own communities, consulted on intra-Israeli disputes, and written teaching materials and analyses specific to conflicts in the territories. A paper Ms. Podziba wrote on water resources in the West Bank and Gaza became part of the database that supported Middle East multi-lateral negotiations convened under President George H.W. Bush in 1993. She also wrote a chapter on “Confrontations and Attitudes” for the 1987 West Bank Data Base Project Annual Report entitled, Demographic, Economic, Legal, Social, and Political Developments in the West Bank.

Examples of work undertaken by Susan Podziba related to the Middle East conflict include:

Development of a Middle East Conflict Resolution Project (MECORP)
Co-Facilitator Training for Partners in Conflict
Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University

Susan Podziba provided training on facilitating values-based conflicts as part of a program designed to train a professional team of Israeli and Palestinian cross-cultural conflict resolution experts.

The 11 Israeli and 11 Palestinian participants were trained to co-facilitate joint Palestinian/Israeli meetings, and to practice conflict resolution within their respective communities. Joint conflict resolution by Palestinians and Israelis was particularly emphasized as a means to create local facilitator capacity to reduce dependence on foreign facilitators. Participants went on to co-facilitate dialogues within their own communities and between Israeli and Palestinian communities.

Jerusalem Inter Cultural Center, Ramot Municipal Charter

The conflict between religious and secular citizens ranks among the greatest internal threats to the State of Israel. It is expressed in acts such as stones thrown at cars traveling on the Sabbath, questions about shekels spent to support religious schools (yeshivot), exemptions from military service for the ultra-orthodox, and the essential questions of the right, requirement, and wisdom of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ramot, a city just outside the boundaries of Jerusalem, was built as a “mixed” religious-secular city. However, as is typical in such newly built neighborhoods throughout Jerusalem, tensions between religious practice and secular activity quickly arose over dress and Sabbath observances, including prohibitions against driving cars and playing music. Susan Podziba provided advice and consultation on implementation of the Ramot Municipal Council Charter, which had been inhibited by endemic religious-secular disputes.

Middle East Fellows Dialogue
Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Susan Podziba facilitated discussions among Israeli and Palestinian health care professionals who were Middle East Fellows of the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government (Institute). The dialogue provided an opportunity for the Fellows to discuss their regional conflicts with mutual respect and understanding, and to build relationships to support joint health care projects in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Institute retained Susan Podziba to facilitate the discussions after unsuccessfully facilitated meetings had led to strained relations among the Fellows. Ms. Podziba designed a process that created a safe environment for the seven participants of the dialogue, which allowed legitimate concerns to be expressed and heard. The Fellows began to understand their own limitations and took responsibility for their word choices and manners of speaking. Following the dialogues, members of the group of Middle East Fellows developed and implemented a joint maternity care program on the West Bank.

Final Report (pdf)

Water on the West Bank Simulation, available through the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (may be purchased in English and German): The Water on the West Bank Simulation envisages mediated negotiations among the Mayor of Bethlehem, Chairman of the Board Directors of the Bethlehem Water Authority, Palestinian Landowners and Farmers Committee, Coordinator of Activities in the Territories of the Israeli Civil Administration, Deputy Commissioner for the Gush Etzion Region of the Israeli Water Commission, and the Project Manager of Mekorot, to try to develop a win-win agreement based on shared control and increased availability of water resources for all residents of the surrounding areas. The simulation is based on research Susan Podziba conducted on the availability and distribution of water resources on the West Bank for the West Bank Database Project, headed by Dr. Meron Benvenisti (former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem). At the time, a Christian American company proposed to dig a deep water well that would have increased the availability of water to all in the region. However, such a well would have likely caused the existing well controlled by the City of Bethlehem to run dry. Opposition to the new well became so fierce that the proposal for the deep water well was rescinded before any significant discussions took place.

Written originally for Ms. Podziba’s Master’s thesis, Water on the West Bank has been used to train officials from Israel’s Ministry of Justice, Palestinian and Israeli environmental mediators, students of negotiation around the world, and participants of numerous conflict resolution workshops and mediation trainings. It can be purchased from the Program On Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Its companion piece, Susan Podziba’s The Dynamic of Needs and Interests: A Mediator’s Response to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,published in 1986 as a Program On Negotiation Working Paper, is currently out of print.

International Workshop on Dispute Resolution, Tel Aviv, Israel, co-sponsored by the Israel Bar Association, the International Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, and others: This workshop brought together Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, and Europeans to discuss and teach basic mediation and conflict resolution skills and to learn about and compare various processes in use, for example the models used at Neve Shalom-Wahat-Al-Salaam (Oasis of Peace).

Susan Podziba guided participants through the Water on the West Bank simulation to introduce a mediation model for complex public policy questions. Ms. Podziba’s lecture and de-briefing of the simulation fostered a discussion on process design for mediation of “core issues,” such as identity and security.