In mid-September, we held a series of meetings for an outstanding delegation of fifteen rising Palestinian and Israeli young leaders with municipal officials, ex-combatants, and families of victims involved in “The Troubles,” the Northern Ireland conflict. The seminar offered our next generation’s leaders a deep dive into the achievements, mistakes, and ongoing reconciliation issues within a conflict context also marked by high levels of distrust and contradictory narratives. The group also met with Mr. Laurence Simms, Political Affairs and Reconciliation Unit Director from the Irish DFA, who discussed the diplomatic sensitivities of a conflict with so many different players and exchanged insights and comparisons regarding our own conflict with participants.
While the conflicts have many points of difference, there is one lesson from Northern Ireland that gave all of our participants new hope: even with high levels of despair and distrust, a peace agreement is possible.
