Getting Ready for Trauma

I'm currently in Istanbul, on the way to the Long Term Conflict and Trauma class that is being offered through the SMU study abroad program. This class will be an experiment for me and for SMU, because this is the first time it is being offered, and because it is cross listed between Dispute Resolution and Counseling, and because I am team teaching it with a specialist in trauma counseling.

As I head for the class next week, there is unrest on the Israeli/Syrian border, the Israeli police/military have come under criticism for riot preparation that is too life-like, Hamas and Fatah are trying to reconcile (with some internal controversy, of course), Egypt has opened the border with Gaza, and in September Palestine will petition the UN for recognition. Oh, and there's this thing called the "Arab Spring." In the background all the usual is going on - checkpoints and confrontations, with noise about restarting the "peace" talks.

This course will concentrate not on the Track 1 issues that have yet to follow the "roadmap" - instead it will look at the lower level, day to day stress and conflict found in any society, but which is exacerbated by the existence of long term, deep rooted conflict such as the one with which the Israeli's and Palestinians have been living for five decades.

As the class progresses I'll update this blog with entries from Jerusalem, Haifa, Neve Shalom, and, I hope the West Bank.