On June 6, 2008, IIIT hosted Dr. Paul Scham, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute to address the identity-based issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

 

Dr. Scham started his presentation with a critical review of the current “political” approach to negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis and their failure to provide solid grounds for sustainable peace, a failure he attributed to the fact that these approaches do not take into account the historical narratives of the Israelis and Palestinians that informs - and in a decisive way - responses to any suggested solutions.

 

Dr. Scham then defined the traditional Israeli narrative constituted between 1882 and 1949 and the traditional Palestinian narrative constituted around the same time.

 

He concluded by stating that any meaningful movement towards peace should involve a qualitative change in the historical narrative beside a concrete intervention by the United States (the U.S. administration) and goes beyond the traditional stand of unconditional support for Israel.