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New Occasional Paper available

Mediating Identity Conflicts – Potential and Challenges of Engaging with Hamas, a new issue in the Berghof Occasional Paper series by Carolin Goerzig is now available online.
This paper offers some astute insights into the dynamics of one of the most protracted conflicts of the past century, namely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the specific perspective of its most controversial party, whose voice is very often excluded or demonised: that of the Hamas movement. Through her so-called “scenario interviews” with several Hamas members in Syria, the author convincingly demonstrates that identity-based conflicts cannot be transformed without the direct participation of their key stakeholders, and that lending such actors a voice with which they can express their grievances, but also their hopes and visions for a constructive path to “just peace”, might generate creative peacemaking options – in this case, opportunities for a mediated settlement.
Hard copies can also be ordered (5.00€ + postage).