Dennis Sandole

Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University

Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003

This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

We don't just get people to agree to be nice to each other, having them then go home to the ghetto, that doesn't do much. In fact you might put them at risk, they have to go home to their parents, wives, neighbors, and say they're not so bad after all Traitor. The Israeli and Palestinians who come home and says that those guys aren't so bad, those guys are the first one killed by their own side. One example of this is Rabin, who was killed by an Israeli zealot settler, a bible student, who felt that the occupied area were Judea-Sumeria and part of ancient Israel that the Old Testament gives Jews the right to have. The African American comes home and says I just met some white boys and they are great. He may be knee capped by their own brothers. That's something else we don't spend that much time on, the ethical part of reentry. Sending people back home after we have intervened with them and they have learned all of this stuff from us but they go back home and we have not brought any change. This is sort of a cheap criticism because there is very little I can do to bring about social change as a one-person third party but it is something we should be aware of. We send people back to unchanged structurally, violent social political economic conditions so we have got to think about that one and somehow work on that.

It is not just bringing people together. If you bring them together and don't do the other stuff then you might be sending them back into harms way. Know yourself.