The visit is part of a project that aims to improve the situation concerning the Israeli-Palestinian relationship through constructively rehabilitating historical narratives. Historical narratives are constitutive elements of every nation, and in the case of Israel and Palestine, they seem to be contrary and not compatible with each other. The history books on each side often ignore the historical suffering of the other side and depict the incidents in a partial way. The project is based on the awareness that the knowledge of the other’s narrative needs to play an essential role in civil conflict transformation in the Middle East.

The 20 participants of the tour, who already attended a visit to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in July, arrived from all parts of the West Bank. With the tour through the villages Lifta and Deir Yassin, which were destroyed in 1948, they now addressed one of the most sensitive issues of Palestinian history, the Nakba. The walkabout started in Deir Yassin, where the remains of the village can be found amidst the Jewish-Orthodox neighbourhood of Givat Shaul (Jerusalem). After that, the participants were taken to Lifta, a well-preserved ruin town in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Towards the end of November, a group of Israeli students will also visit Lifta and Deir Yassin and learn about the Palestinian narrative.

Despite the sombre atmosphere in Lifta, the discussions held afterwards were very lively. The project will be continued in the beginning of December with a workshop on the topic of “National Trauma”, where Israeli and Palestinian attendants of the tours will come together for the first time.