The Peace Project:
Americans, Israelis And Palestinians

The Peace Project was originally proposed by Allan Schiffer, PhD, after the 9/11 tragedy in the United States. The committee currently has 15 members and is co-chaired by Libba Wells, MSN, RN, CS and Jim Wells, MD. The group developed Communologue, which applies Imago dialogue principles—mirroring, validation and empathy--to group communication and multicultural communities. Communologue is an effective approach for safe group discussion of controversial issues because it facilitates listening and understanding in an atmosphere of safety. While not a conflict resolution technique per se, the process can build a foundation upon which those involved can work for acceptable solutions.

Peace Project members have led Communologue experiences or done presentations about the process at the Chicago AIRT conference in 2002; the Israel Imago Conference in July 2003; the Chapel Hill, North Carolina “Bridging the Divide: Towards a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine” conference in November 2003; the Toronto IRI Conference in June 2004; and the Istanbul Israeli – Palestinian Communologue meeting in January 2005 attended by 25 Imago therapists and partners. From these experiences the Project has refined their tool “The Norms and Guidelines of Communologue,” which is available in both English and Hebrew.

Libba Wells and Jim Wells also co-led a very successful Christian-Jewish-Muslim group for 6 weeks in the spring of 2004. And while Communologue has been used to facilitate many groups focused on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, it was first developed and used for bringing peace within the Imago community. Peace Project members believe that Communologue can be used for discussions on any number of issues and for such groups as Democrats and Republicans or Conservative Christians and Liberal Christians.

Peace Project members will be presenting a 3-hour workshop at the Atlanta conference in October 2005. For more information about the committee’s work and its conferences visit http://imagopeaceproject.org.