2007年VOA标准英语-Israeli, Palestinian Scholars Team Up to Teach

By Kane Farabaugh
New York
01 May 2007
 

Middle East Fulbright Scholars Israeli Dan Bar-On and Palenstinian Sami Adwan

As the United States works to renew flagging peace efforts in the Middle East, other forms of diplomacy¹ are also at work.  One such effort takes place in the classrooms of Monmouth University in the Northeastern state of New Jersey², where a Palestinian scholar and an Israeli psychologist are teaching a class on peace-building efforts.  VOA's Kane Farabaugh attended some of those classes, and talks about how two men from different backgrounds are hoping they can be the example for future generations.

They are an unlikely pair.

One, a former soldier in the Israeli army, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt during the 1967 war.

The other, a former member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

But like magnets, these opposites attract.  Now, in this interview, as in their lives, Israeli psychologist Dan Bar-On and Palestinian scholar Sami Adwan are side-by-side in an effort to promote peace.

"I think that we needed time to get to know each other,” says Bar-on. “And we used our first encounters to build trust. I think there is no trust between Israelis and Palestinians, so you need time to work that through, and I think we gave ourselves that time, by doing some joint³ projects, by meeting at some conferences."

Meeting at those conferences in the 1990s helped create a lasting⁴ personal friendship and professional collaboration⁵ between these two men -- a collaboration that has now found its way into the curriculum at Monmouth University in New Jersey.

They are members of the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence program, partly funded by the U.S. State Department. It enables professionals from abroad to lecture in the U.S.

Here at Monmouth University, they present different perspectives from opposing sides of a bitter conflict that is older than they are.

Despite the differences of their communities, Dan Bar-On admits that he and Sami Adwan make a natural pair. "The understanding that came later in our life that by just thinking of ourselves without the other would not make sense… in this region."

The bonds they have managed to form in the middle of a conflict have been tested many times in the last 12 years as events in the Middle East unfold.  But Sami Adwan looks at their work as a vanguard for peace in the Middle East.

"Sometimes we feel that we are working on a minefield, or walking on eggshells. We don't know what will break, or happen when we step into an area.  In that sense, I think it is a peace building under fire, or under conflict.  It could be a very modest model of being the vanguard in this situation," Adwan says.

The sparks of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fueled many wars in their lives. It is that very conflict and danger of future war that drives these two scholars to help subsequent generations understand the difficulties that divide their two people.

As founders⁶ of the Peace and Research Institute in the Middle East, or PRIME, one of their major projects was to create narratives⁸ of the conflict for middle school students in both Israel and the Palestinian territory.

Each narrative⁷, one on either side of the page of a textbook, gives a perspective on history as told from each point of view.

Adwan tells us, "The value of this work came out after a deep analysis of both Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks where each side does not teach the others or does not include the others.  It only teaches their monolithic⁹ narrative.  So that is where we come from -- to allow both sides to realize that this other narrative exists, and it could be completely opposite to them."

As a political science professor, Saliba Sarsar helped get Adwan and Bar-on on the curriculum at Monmouth University this spring as part of the university's sixth annual Global Understanding Convention.

He hopes their lectures are the first of many such encounters for a student body that is now more aware of the dangers of conflict in the world.

"To bring people from India, Pakistan, from South Africa, from Ireland, and other war zones,” says Sarsar, “to enable people who really feel very deeply about peace-building to have a safe zone, a safe environment, in which they can actually discuss and practice, and also teach others how to practice peace-building."

When their lectures this semester wrap up at Monmouth University, Bar-on and Adwan return to their work in the Middle East. 

There, tensions continue to run high as Hamas militants¹⁰ announced an end to a five-month-old cease-fire.  The announcement comes on the 59th anniversary of the founding of Israel.

1 diplomacy   

n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕

参考例句：

• The talks have now gone into a stage of quiet diplomacy.会谈现在已经进入了“温和外交”阶段。
• This was done through the skill in diplomacy. 这是通过外交手腕才做到的。

2 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

3 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

4 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

5 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

6 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

7 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

8 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

9 monolithic   

adj.似独块巨石的；整体的

参考例句：

• Don't think this gang is monolithic.不要以为这帮人是铁板一块。
• Mathematics is not a single monolithic structure of absolute truth.数学并不是绝对真理的单一整体结构。

10 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。