Equitable Spaces 1

RUNNING HEAD: Equitable Spaces

Equitable Spaces: Can a Co-Cultural Perspective

Redefine the Palestinian / Israeli Conflict?

Jack Turner
George Mason University
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Equitable Spaces: Can a Co-Cultural Perspective

Redefine the Palestinian / Israeli Conflict?

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to use Orbe’s co-cultural theory and related inter-

cultural communication theories to examine the discourse and communication relationship

between the Palestinian and Israeli cultures. I use co-cultural theory along to examine the

communicative relationships involved in the hostile cultural environment created between

these groups. I then propose that incorporating the values, beliefs, and communication

channels common to public health agency cultures may help create an equitable space for

communicating peace between Palestinians and Israelis. This exploration of a co-cultural

framework for conflict resolution may offer additional tools to political negotiation

methods used in the past.

First I will practice some self-reflexivity concerning communication research and

personal experiences to identify my standpoint regarding the Palestinian / Israeli conflict. I

will then discuss the organizational culture endemic to public health organizations like the

World Health Organization (WHO) and how this culture’s values and beliefs may

contribute to constructively redefine the communication relationship between Palestinians

and Israelis. I will present some of the history shared by Palestinians and Israelis and offer

examples of various personal experiences from both sides of their conflict. Finally, I will

discuss the opportunities and implications of using the theories of co-cultural and

organizational culture communication as a framework for peace negotiations.

Previously, I have been comfortable with an objective, quantifiable research

method in regard to communication research. I developed and administered a health

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communication experiment for my Senior Capstone Project last year that required Human

Subject Review Board (HSRB) authorization and 120 undergraduate participants. The

experiment measured participant’s responses to a manipulation in a health promotion

message. The experiment was based on quantifiable methods and used SPSS (Statistical

Package for the Social Sciences) software to translate the resulting data into ANOVA

statistics. I had no personal interaction with participants beyond explaining the actions

required for the experiment and administering the forms necessary for human rights

protections.

I am now interested in taking a broader, more qualitative perspective and using

Orbe’s co-cultural communication theory to organize a research study into the cultural and

communication conflicts demonstrated by the Palestinian / Israeli. In doing so, I will

interact more with the research process than I have in the past, and my personal

exploration, discovery, and standpoint will be part of the process. Personal disclosure and

transparency will be a necessary part of the co-cultural model, and this will be an entirely

new research behavior for me. I am not yet certain that I will prefer this method to others.

An important part of this research process is my attempt to understand the hostile

nature of the Palestinian / Israeli relationship. My opinion in the past has been more

supportive of Israel while I winced at the media accounts of violence they have inflicted on

many innocent Palestinian civilians and their families. I became more sympathetic to the

Palestinian people’s perspective after reading personal accounts from peace activists and

Palestinians. At the same time, I have been shocked and angered by the support of terrorist

acts, particularly suicide bombings, and the martyr worship of suicide bombers encouraged

within the Palestinian culture.

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My Standpoint: Identification and Growth

My personal interest in the conflict came about through family and friends. Many

years ago, my kind and generous mother openly expressed her support for the Israeli

people and anything they had to do to maintain their steadfast hold on territory. She would

say things like, “Well, if they have to kill a lot of Palestinians, it’s God’s will. The Israelites

are God’s chosen people. One particular evening, my mother expressed her open support

for Israel in the presence of a Lebanese man at a dinner party they were attending. “He

gave her an ear full about Israel that gave her a lot to think about,” my father said with an

ironic chuckle.

A Jewish couple has been close to my wife and I for over twenty years. Since one

of them has had siblings living in Israel for about the same time, we have often discussed

her family’s well being in Israel. For example, when Iraq was launching Scud missiles into

Israel during the first Gulf War in Kuwait, our friend told us there was a fifty-foot deep

crater near her sister’s residence. “It happened while she was away from home. She saw

the crater and heard the stories about it from her neighbors when she came back,” she said.

Hearing about attacks in Israel on the news is one thing, but being personally connected to

it, even vicariously through a friend, is an entirely more frightening experience.

An important influence for my continuing curiosity about the situation in Israel was

the chance meeting of two Israeli brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where I was

vacationing with my family. The older brother of the two told me an insightful story about

his personal experience in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). This is what he said:

“We were sometimes called on to do house to house searches in Palestinian

neighborhoods in the middle of the night. One time we were told that explosives
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were being stored on a certain street, so we went down there and pulled families out

of their homes at rifle point at two o’clock in the morning. Most of the people my

team dealt with looked pretty scared, and I don’t think any of us were very proud of

what we were doing. But then later on a friend of mine on another search team said

they found the explosives in a home two blocks down the street from my team’s

location. So you see, it is difficult.”

RATIONALE

I am looking for a communication perspective and method that can help create an

equitable environment for voices on both dominant and non-dominant sides of a cultural

conflict. The ideas presented here use contributions from co-cultural communication

theory and organizational culture research in a study of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict.

My primary purpose is to see if this combination offers anything new and useful to the

study of cultural domination and discourse, power influences related to inter-cultural

communication and the peace negotiation process between cultures.

Orbe’s co-cultural communication theory deals with communication strategies

employed by members of a non-dominant culture in relation to members of a dominant

culture from the perspective of those without power and voice. He includes examples of

life experiences from African-Americans, Hispanics, gay people, and women in the U.S. to

explicate the communication relationships they have developed to keep their voices and

identities from being muted by a dominant white male culture. Non-dominant co – cultures

are described as under-represented groups who must struggle to be heard and seen within

the context and communication processes of a dominant culture. (Orbe, 1998)

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I will take Orbe’s concept of adaptation of non-dominant cultures’ communication

practices to dominant cultures and demonstrate its usefulness in viewing the power

relationship endemic to Palestinian / Israeli communication. Even though the conflict gets

plenty of media coverage, the Israelis still maintain power and control over public

discourse within their borders. For example, many places with Arabic names familiar to

generations of Palestinians have been re-named by the Israeli government with Hebrew

names. This communicates new ownership, territorial rights, and power. For the

Palestinians, it symbolizes another aspect of losing territory, and a challenge to their

cultural identity by taking power over their connection to place and ethnic history (Peteet,

J, 2005). Orbe’s theory suggests that members of the dominant Israeli culture would be

prevented from seeing this by the blind gaze of power and privilege typical to dominant

culture (1998, p.3).

Dozens of Israeli and Palestinian peace groups, listed on websites like the “Middle

East Dialog and Peace Organizations and Political Parties” demonstrate peaceful intentions

and attitudes between Palestinians and Israelis, often in opposition to the Israeli

government and Israeli Defense Forces. Connecting all of the smaller, individual peace

groups together into a broader coalition with more political power may be one way that the

organizational culture of public health programs could positively influence the peace

process. This perhaps one of the opportunities that co-cultural theory could open up for

inter-cultural conflict resolution.

Organizational Culture and Healthy Communication

Public health agencies like WHO bring a unique organizational cultural that

embraces communication and cooperation across disciplines, government organizations,

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and local communities. They are based in, and depend on, the assistance and cooperation

of the communities they serve. In the public health point of view, community groups and

organizations are equal partners working toward solving problems. The CDC and its

cooperating partners are driven by one primary goal: primary prevention of public heath

threats, preferably before they are out of control (Hammond et al, 2006).

Hammond et al say public health agencies follow a four – step approach: 1.define

the problem, 2. identify risk and protective factors, 3. develop and test prevention

strategies, and 4. assure widespread adoption of prevention principles and strategies.

(2006). This approach also includes a working philosophy in which a method’s successful

results against a health problem, and not the method’s ideology or political appeal,

determine if that method is used.

Ideally, the public health approach could encourage a respectful, equitable flow of

communication between hostile parties such as Israel and Palestine, and it would focus

only on what proved to be constructive. Figure 1 on page 14 demonstrates a possible

communication flow and the relationships WHO could utilize with Israel and Palestine. It

shows the characteristics which could enable WHO to facilitate constructive

communication between Israel and the Palestinians. It also shows shared values and

experiences between Israelis and Palestinians compared to conflict issues that contribute to

their hostile relationship.

While the organizational culture of WHO would openly promote respectful and

constructive vertical and lateral communication flow (bottom to top, sideways intra-agency

and inter-agency), it is the acknowledged power from Israel that might be the deciding

factor in peace negotiations (O’Hair, O’Rourke, & O’Hair 2001). A respectful flow of
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communication between Palestinians and WHO might result from the health care provider

and emergency / crisis management relationship for which WHO is known and respected

(WHO, 2005)

Some Standpoints from Both Sides

Alice Rothchild, a Jewish – American activist, describes her experience with the

physical barriers which now separate Palestinians and Israelis:

“As we traveled through the West Bank, every day we encountered some of the

over 700 physical barriers or obstructions that make up the system of checkpoints.

These range from highly militarized terminals and guard towers to piles of dirt,

ditches or stones. We joined Palestinians who spent hours waiting for permission

from Israeli soldiers to cross from one town in the West Bank to the next. In

contrast, Israelis travel through the West Bank on bypass roads which are modern

unobstructed highways, linking the many Jewish settlements on the West Bank with

Israel. ” (2007).

These “obstructions” and physical barriers are mirrors of the power and control

Israel is privileged to have and they also directly reflect the acute distance that the Israeli

government is determined to put between its people and the Palestinians.

Rothchild travels with a Palestinian friend named Seema. She relates her friend’s

humiliating experience with Israeli security:

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“Seema went with a Palestinian medical student, ST, to pray at the Haramal-Sharif,

Noble Sanctuary, (or Temple Mount), in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site for

Muslims. Here is the Dome of the Rock, an important Islamic shrine at the

Sanctuary. At the checkpoint to the Mosque, the Israeli police were abusive and

humiliating towards Seema and she later recounted how painful as well as enraging

that experience felt, contrasted against the exquisite beauty and spirituality of the

religious site.”

My literature review on Palestinian life experiences quickly found many personal accounts

similar to Seema’s. I do not think there is any doubt about who controls most of the

territory in and around Israel, and the power of the dominant culture is easily perceived

with anger by Palestinians.

David Grossman, an Israeli writer and peace activist, has written accounts of his

personal experiences taken from his journals, which he wrote at the time of his

experiences. He says” First I remember the noise of the gunfire, heavy machine guns, and

explosions” as he describes the frightening noise he cannot ignore coming from a battle

between Palestinian militia groups and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Grossman says at

the height of suicide bombings during 2002, “Everyone I knew, friends and relatives,

would call me whenever another suicide bomber blew himself up. The phone would start

ringing as soon as the report was on television and the radio. We had to find out if anybody

in the family took the bus that was blown up that day. Grossman says he knows that

Palestinians have many of the same fears that Israelis have, and asks, “Why must we fear

violence from each other so much?”

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Palestinians and Israelis started a continuing war in 1948, when the United Nations

granted the right for Jews to establish their own state in what was formally known as

Palestine and Transjordan. Palestinian fighters tried to force the transplanted Jews and

native Israelis from what had been their land, but the land’s new rulers fought back with

courage and determination, sometimes with Nazi death camp tattoos visible on their wrists.

After loosing millions of their people in the Holocaust, these survivors fearlessly pursued a

“Jewish homeland” where they could protect their own borders against annihilation.(cite)

Palestinian’s call the events leading up to Israel’s victory as al nekbah, or “the

catastrophe”, while Israelis call 1948 “the year of independence.” The difference in words

the winner and the loser, the dominant and non-dominant, the powerful and powerless, the

privileged and the under-privileged. Peteet says that Israelis have re-named many places

known for generations by Arabic names to Palestinians. Peteet states that re-naming places

assumes ownership and power over those places, and also acts destroys the collective

(2005).

Conclusion

WHO may have more influence with dominant Israeli culture through a mutual

recognition of political and organizational power and show more respect to non-dominant

Palestinian culture. In this way, an empathetic communication channel may be established

in a different, creative way unexplored in the past. Israeli government culture may identify

with the power and size of the WHO organization, while Palestinians and their government

may be influenced by the helping hand of health care providers. This not some kind of

cure-all for the troubles, but an additional communication channel and supplementary tool
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for influencing exploration of commonalities, providing a space for listening, and seeing

the “others” perspective.

When the subject of peace in the Middle East comes up in casual conversation, I

have often been told that “There’s no hope for peace over there. Those people have been

fighting for thousands of years. They don’t want peace. They have that Holy War and

martyrdom thing going on.” In my mind, nothing in human nature is that simple, and the

idea that people prefer violence and hostility instead of a fulfilling, peaceful existence is

abhorrent.

Using co-cultural and organizational culture theory as a lens may reveal previously

unexplored spaces for communicating commonality and shared experiences among

cultures in serious conflict with one another. More constructive and holistic

communication terms, enhanced by mindfulness and respect for the perceived “Other,”

may result from a co-cultural perspective. I would like to pursue this combination of

theories along with having an exploratory life experience with co-researchers. I believe it

may contribute to co-cultural research and provide a starting point for future endeavors.

The weaknesses I see in this research approach are in getting “too close” to the

research participants and emotionally choosing sides in a hostile, dangerous cultural

conflict. Also, Palestinians and Israeli participants in such an exercise must be convinced

to provide self-disclosure and be self-reflexive for the model to work. Trust, therefore, may

be the most precarious element in the success of this kind of study.

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References
Behar, DM (2004). Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome variation in Ashkenazi Jewish

and host non-Jewish European populations. Human Genetics. Mar; 114(4):354-65.

Benvisti, B (2000). Doing Their Own Thing. The Palestine-Israel Journal. Retrieved

from database April20, 2009.http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=290.

Gordon, N (2008), Nowadays Israelis and Palstinians lead very separate lives. The

National Catholic Reporter. August 8, 2008. Retrieved from database on April2,

2009. http://nrconline.org/print/1540

Grossman,D (2003). Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years After Oslo
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York.
Hammond, R., Whitaker, D., Lutzker, J., Mercy, J., Chin, P. (2006). Setting a

violence prevention agenda at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Aggression and Violent Behavior11, 112-119.

Middle East Dialog and Peace Organizations and Political Parties (2009). Retrieved from

database April 22, 2009. http://www.mideastweb.org/peacelinks.htm

O’Hair, O’Rourke, & O’Hair (2001). Business Communication: A Framework for

Success. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western.

Orbe, M P. (1998). Constructing Co-Cultural Theory: An Explication of Culture, Power,

and Communication. SAGE Publications, Inc. Thousand Oaks, CA.

Orbe, P M, Spellers, R E (2005). From the margins to the center: Utilizing co-cultural

theory in diverse contexts. Theorizing About Intercultural Communication,

Gudykunst, W B (Ed.). SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. 173-191.

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Peteet, J (2005). Words as interventions: Naming in the Palestine: Israel Conflict. Third

World Quarterly, 26.1, 153-172.

Rothchild, A (2007). Checkpoints: Crossing the Line. Broken Promises, Broken Dreams:

Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience. Pluto Press. , London,

Retrieved from website April 18, 2009. http://alicerothchild.com/?page_id=64

Sagy, S, Orr, E, Bar-on, D, Awwad, E (2001). Individualism and collectivism in two

conflicted societies :comparing Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Arab high school

students. Youth & Society. 33. 1, 3-30.

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13, 2009. http://www.who.int/hac/network/interagency/news/iasc

_guidelines_mental_health_checklist.pdf.
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↔ Shared: Land, Sense of Loss, Fear of Violence from the “Other”, ↔

History, Collectivist Culture, Martyrdom, Foods.
↑ ↑

↓ Foundation of Foundation of ↓
Communication Roles Communication Roles

ISRAEL ↔ Acknowledged ↔ WORLD HEALTH ↔ Acknowledged ↔ PALESTINE

Power ORGANIZATION Respect

Government Organizational Culture: Government(s)

Defense Forces Respectful, Interdependent Communities
Health Care Agencies Partnerships. Health Care
Diplomats Diplomatic Experience. Providers.
Media International Cooperation. Media
Multi-national.
Multi-Cultural.
Inter-Cultural Communication.
Emergency and Crisis Management.
Community-Based Health Care.

ISRAEL PALESTINE
↑ ↑
↓ ↓
Conflict: Ownership, Power Differential, Domination of Land,
Religious Beliefs, Language, Growing Individualist Culture,
Deaths from Warfare and Terrorism.

FIG. 1 Turner, J. 04/2009