History and memory of the other: an experimental encounter-programme with Israeli Jews and Palestinians from Israel

Every encounter relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is characterised by the phenomenon of “competing memories”, in which one side evokes the memory of the Holocaust, the destruction of European Jews and the fear of history being repeated, while the other strives for recognition of the Nakba, the memory of the destruction of Palestinian society. The issue dealt with in this article is the crucial role played by collective memory in intergroup conflicts, and in conflict transformation.