Processing the Personal Narrative Exchange: This section includes activities and exercises to help participants process, reflect, and engage in a discussion with each other about the PNEs.

Resources and Appendices: This section includes additional resources, maps, a glossary, and a bibliography.

Guiding Principles

1. Challenge a binary way of thinking

Continuous, violent conflicts make it difficult for parties to listen, understand each other, and imagine an end to the conflict. Intractable conflicts last many years, are violent, and have many casualties. Both sides often believe the conflict cannot be resolved due to its long history, lack of resolution, and the perception that the other side won’t stop the violence.

This “zero sum game” mentality, where one side’s loss is the other’s win, is rooted in binary thinking. Understanding the dangers of binary thinking is crucial for conflict resolution.

Rooted in tribalism, binary thinking creates an “us vs. them” lens. Social media amplifies this by forming echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and limit exposure to diverse perspectives. This exacerbates polarization and hinders societal unity.

To move beyond binary thinking, we need to develop self-awareness, embrace diverse perspectives, and recognize the complexity of human experiences. This approach encourages intellectual openness and empathy, which are essential for genuine dialogue.

2. Humanize the “other”

Stereotypes are entrenched perceptions shared by members of a society, often stemming from faulty generalizations and lack of exposure between groups. They deeply influence how individuals view others. Perceived intractable conflicts arise from and perpetuate fear, danger, and violence felt by both sides. People rely on stereotypes to seek clear explanations for safety and stability, but stereotypes worsen the situation, deepening distrust and hostility.
Stereotypes are driven by “us vs. them” beliefs, portraying each side with positive and negative qualities. Each side justifies its goals while negating the other’s. During peak conflicts, most people support these stereotypes, which decrease in calmer times.
Participants in this program will learn to understand groups on a human level, breaking down stereotypes. Humanization and recognizing the “enemy” as a fellow human, fosters empathy and reframes the conflict constructively. Knowing the “other side” makes it harder to rationalize stereotypes and violence. Humanization promotes cooperation, trust, and constructive dialogue, laying the groundwork for respectful engagement and honest communication.

3. Embrace Multiple Narratives

From stereotypes, negative emotions, and the collective memory of past events, a national narrative is created—the story of the conflict each side claims to own. This narrative organizes facts, history, and a collective explanation.

When entrenched in mutually exclusive narratives, where each side views its perspective as the sole truth, conflicts persist. This rigid adherence to one side’s narrative creates barriers to reconciliation, fueling animosity and perpetuating hostilities. Each group becomes entrenched in its worldview, unwilling to consider alternative interpretations or acknowledge opposing viewpoints. Parties prioritize defending their own narrative over seeking common ground. By engaging in empathetic listening and recognizing the complexity of human experiences, we can allow for multiple narratives to coexist.

4. The personal narrative is a powerful peacebuilding tool

The Personal Narrative Exchange (PNE) relies on honest disclosures of personal stories. Bereaved members share their experiences, opinions, and fears authentically. This demonstrates that people from the other side have legitimate histories, beliefs, identities, and desires, existing beyond binary agreement. Listening to these stories fosters an atmosphere of empathy and understanding, contrasting with the tendency to argue about “facts.”

When individuals share their personal stories, they highlight the broader national and historical contexts that shape their lives. A Palestinian may refer to the Nakba of 1948, reflecting displacement’s impact, while an Israeli might evoke the Holocaust, underscoring persecution’s deep scars. These references highlight individual suffering and historical traumas shaping both Palestinians’ and Israelis’ collective narratives.

Personal narratives reveal shared history, cultural norms, and societal forces influencing individuals and their communities. Thus, personal storytelling becomes a powerful vehicle for understanding human complexities within the broader scope of history and culture.
Reconciliation is a process, not a finite event, spanning from building trust and empathy to truth-telling and amnesty. Reconciliation is challenging to build during an ongoing conflict.