On Saturday, December 5, the IRC sponsored a workshop and concert with the WhiteFlag Project, a band of Israeli and Palestinian street fusion musicians from Gaza and Tel Aviv. The event was co-sponsored by the Office of the President, the Berkley Center, CCAS, Program on Conflict Resolution, Diversity Action Council, GUSA, Georgetown Israel Alliance, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

In the workshop, entitled “Freedom, Respect and the Art of Musical Compromise: Tools for Conflict Transformation in Israel and Palestine,” the Israeli and Palestinian members of WhiteFlag shared the lessons and tools they have learned in creating music together over the past 11 years, and demonstrated how these same lessons must be applied to conflict transformation and social change efforts in Israel, Palestine and around the world.

The band explained how compromise in music provides insight into the power of compromise in all areas of life and demonstrates a method for achieving freedom, beginning with mutual respect, critical in the effort to heal tensions between people around the world. WhiteFlag invited members of the audience to participate in the musical dialogue. Georgetown Alumnus (COL ’05) and recent addition to the WhiteFlag Project, Aaron Shneyer, described how the tools learned from this musical experience can be applied to non-musical efforts for building change. Aaron and the rest of the band invited the audience to share their background and thoughts on the conflict, opening an opportunity for diverse members of the campus community to hear each other and deepen their mutual understanding.

In the concert, the musicians sang in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The uniqueness of each musician’s musical style and the outpouring of all their conflicting emotions created an innovative and original crossover of all the colors of the region.

- Eitan Paul

Comments are closed.