• Introduction

• Partner Institutions
  1. THE PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (PASSIA), JERUSALEM
  2. THE MOSHE DAYAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN AND AFRICAN STUDIES AT TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY, TEL AVIV
  3. CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JORDAN, AMMAN
  4. ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE STUDIES (RUSI), LONDON
  5. INTER-UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR ARAB STUDIES (ICAS), AT McGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL
• The Project

• The Workshops
  1. WORKSHOP 1: Domestic Constraints on Middle East Negotiations
  2. WORKSHOP 2: The Opposition and its Role in the Peace Process
  3. WORKSHOP 3: Religion and State
  4. WORKSHOP 4: Economics and Demography
  5. WORKSHOP 5: State-Building, Identity, Pluralism and Participation
  6. WORKSHOP 6: Palestine, Jordan and Israel in the Middle East
  7. WORKSHOP 7: Government and Civil Society
  8. WORKSHOP 8: Political Trends and the New Elites

Introduction

Three players at the heart of the transformation process the Middle East is under-going are Palestine, Jordan and Israel, and despite the importance of internationally applauded agreements reached between them during 1993 and 1994, the real process of achieving durable peace among the people has only just begun. There are many obstacles which could prevent the peace process from reaching the conclusions broadly aspired to: moreover, misunderstandings and mistrust generated by decades of conflict still exist in the general outlook of each of the societies involved.

Against this background, three institutes - one Palestinian (PASSIA), one Jordanian (Center for Strategic Studies) and one Israeli (Moshe Dayan Center) - consulted together and decided that a significant contribution can be made to resolving differences and promoting understanding by pooling their resources and their expertise through a program of dialogue, presentation of position papers and workshops.

The three institutes found that the comprehensive amount of knowledge accumulated on each of the entities independently, regarding their separate identities and existence, their histories and their relationship to others in the region, too often remained the exclusive preserve of each individual country. The workshops were designed to address particular subjects and to develop a forum for open, multilateral dialogue which promotes an analytical approach to the relevant issues.