Dialogue in Palestine: The People-to-People Diplomacy Programme and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Since 1993, various international donors have poured money into a People-to-People (P2P) diplomacy programme in Palestine. This grassroots initiative – still funded by prominent external donors today - seeks to foster public engagement through contact and therefore remove deeply embedded barriers. This book examines the limited nature of this ‘contact’ and explains why the P2P framework, which was ostensibly concerned with the promotion of peace, ultimately served to reinforce conflict and power relations. The book is based on the author’s own experience of the solidarity activities during the First Intifada and her first-hand involvement as a coordinator of the P2P projects implemented during the 1990s. It provides a much-needed critical account of the internationally-sponsored peace process and develops new theoretical analyses of settler colonialism.

Nadia Naser-Najjab is a Senior Lecturer in Palestine Studies at the European Centre for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter, UK. Previously she was Assistant Professor at Birzeit University, Palestine. She is the author of Dialogue in Palestine: The People-to-People Diplomacy Programme and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (I.B.Tauris, 2020). Her research is based on first-hand experience and original data collection and focuses on the Palestine-Israel peace process, Palestinian education and Palestinian resistance