Third Annual Givat Haviva Conference

On May 28, 2015 the highly recognized Third Annual Givat Haviva Conference was held at the Givat Haviva campus in Israel.  The lineup of speakers included a litany of highly important Israeli leaders from both the Jewish and Arab sectors.   Most prominent among the speakers was Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.  Additionally, a multiplicity of leaders from the Israeli Knesset, among others, attended the conference and discussed various topics related to the current inequalities found in Israel between the country's Arab and Jewish populations and how these issues can be addressed and changed effectively. 

More specifically, panelists began bydiscussing topics related to municipal equality, such as how the local-municipal level is the arena in which shared life occurs, whether or not the local-regional identity is different from that of the national Israeli identity and where the opportunities lie in this sphere for the creation of a shared, equal society. Further, speakers discussed the meaning of democracy, the relationship between democracy and the public sphere and the means by which all citizens can be included in designing the public sphere.  Next, panelists discussed issues related to economics/employment and how real high-quality integration in this area is needed to create a shared, equal society in Israel.  And finally, they discussed the place that the study of the Arabic and Hebrew languages hold in the creation of this society by means of enabling individuals to learn about the history and culture of the other group in a way they would not be able to otherwise.    

This, the third annual conference, is the culmination of a series of conferences which began with the launching of Givat Haviva's Shared Communities Flagship Program in May 2013 and was followed by the Givat Haviva Conference in Support of the Peace Process in February 2014 and the Second Annual Givat Haviva Conference in May 2014. The ultimate premise behind all of these conferences, including this years, is the belief that even though current efforts are being made to forge a shared society in Israel, these efforts have generally been ineffective in creating real change because they are being conducted in parallel to one another, with little cross-sector integration taking place.  It will only be when these efforts are conducted cooperatively between the Arab and Jewish communities that they will become effective. 

During the initial conference, Givat Haviva's management team presented their model for building a shared society in Israel which was (is) based on the belief that real societal change begins with the socio-political unit closest to the people – the community.  As such, the plan presented focused on building structured, mutually beneficial cooperation between pairs of Jewish and Arab communities. The following conferences continued to build upon and develop this theme and resulted in a set of recommendations to guide the cross-sector cooperation that is necessary to advance the shared society policy. 

Ultimately, all of these efforts culminated in this years' launch of a three-year "Joint Vision" program, led by Givat Haviva, and the presentation of a draft agenda vision for the creation of a shared society in Israel. The "Joint Vision" program is revolutionary, in that, it is the first Jewish-Arab joint vision for a shared society in Israel to be developed.  As a part of the "Joint Vision" program, the recommendations that were developed during this year's conference will be used in and followed by a subsequent two-year process in which measurable goals for creating a shared society will be developed and shared with wide sections of the Jewish and Arab publics in an effort to gain widespread community support for the initiative.  Additionally, it is hoped that the recommendations developed during this two-year period will serve as a policy framework which will be adopted by the Government of Israel in the future. 

Finally, as noted, a draft agenda vision entitled "The State of Israel as a Shared Society for its Jewish and Arab-Palestinian Citizens," was also presented at this years' conference. The "Vision," as presented, continues to build upon the theme of the previous three conferences, in that, its stated goal is the creation of a

,…shared society in Israel (that) will be a democratic society valuing and identifying the economic, social and political potential that lies within national and cultural diversity.  This society will act to promote the principle of equal partnership through mechanisms, practices, and government policy.  As such it will create opportunities and will unite its members around shared values, objectives and projects.

The society shared by Arabs and Jews in Israel will    be based on relationships (both individuals and groups) that are characterized by mutual respect, tolerance, openness and inclusion of diversity, pluralism, societal solidarity and shared responsibility (Givat Haviva 2015, 2).

What's more the "Vision" furthers the work of the previous conferences by going from addressing the need of cross-sector cooperation to specifically addressing inequalities in nine different areas in which "a detailed response needs to be provided for the inequality currently existing in Israel (for each);" cultural rights,  freedoms and political rights, land, economic and cultural rights, law enforcement, military/civilian service, symbolic space and public space, immigration and naturalization laws and historical restorative justice  (Givat Haviva 2015, 6) 

Deborah Sorrels