Transforming the Source of the Conflict in Israel-Palestine: An Interview with Jack Berriault

Introduction: In today’s interview I welcome Jack Berriault, the founder and Executive Director of The Israel Palestine Project. The mission of TIPP is to cause a major step toward an equitable and enduring peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by creating a common historical narrative. I have been a member of the Board of Directors of this project for several years and Jack is a personal friend of mine.

Q: Jack, why did you create this project? You have no ties by birth to the conflict.

JB: It started when I was 14. At the end of WW II I saw clips of the liberation of concentration camps in newsreels. I got that 6 million Jews had been exterminated. I became a champion of the Jewish people. I believed the Jewish people should have a place of their own where they could be safe. I’m 77 now. Ten years ago I began reading newspapers, and saw references to the Occupation. I felt personally betrayed by Israel. I knew somehow I was going to make a difference in this. I went to Israel/Palestine and spent 2 weeks in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. During a meeting with Uri Avnery, I clearly saw the source of the conflict as the mutually contradictory historical narratives of the two peoples. When I returned home I launched the Israel Palestine Project to transform the source of the conflict.

Q: How did the project start?

JB: I went to a Tikkun conference on Israel/Palestine in Washington D.C to present my ideas. I got an immediate endorsement from Cornel West, among others. While there I met Stav, a former major in the Israeli Army. When I talked to him he seemed really excited about a common narrative. We started conference calls and began writing the narrative. It was one-sided with an Israeli, so we sought and found Ata, a Palestinian journalist, and then began work in earnest.

Q: This project, to me, is deeply transformational in nature. Could a common narrative have been done outside of a transformational context?

JB: My first response is yes. What it would take is people who saw that this needed to happen and were committed to making it happen. The problem is most people don’t get the power of the past in the future, even in their own lives. The past determines the future for almost everyone. It isn’t surprising to me that Israel is doing what it’s doing, that the Palestinians are doing what they are doing. The narratives are very clear. If we are successful in creating a common historical narrative that is accepted by the mainstream populations of Israel and Palestine, a new possibility will exist that cannot exist now: a possibility for an equitable and enduring peace. That’s worth giving my life to—that possibility.

Q: TIPP has now created a new possibility—the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 2012, an idea, as you say, whose time has come. What is your personal vision of what Israel-Palestine would look like if that conflict were to end?

JB: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source conflict in the Middle-East. If you altered that one, everything around it would shift, the relationships between Israel and all the Arab countries. Israel could become part of the Middle East rather than a kind of western intrusion in the Middle East. Mutual prosperity for both peoples . . . expansion of culture . . . It seems limitless to me. God what a difference that would make in the world!