12 March 2008: There are three kinds of power in this world. The first is position and the second is wealth. They usually meld into a unique blend of privilege that is best viewed during presidential elections or diplomatic cocktail parties. The third type is more transcendental in nature, for it blithely disregards income and allies in favor of raw talent and passionate expression. Its name is the Written Word. With just a mere slip of the pen, its bearers have the ability to influence the world. As anyone familiar with the stories of Charles Dickens or Emile Zolas can attest, a brilliant manuscript can move people and policies in ways that entrepreneurs and politicians can only dream of. Sometimes the inspired change is great and awe-inspiring; other times, it is minuscule, though no less significant. The British playwright David Hare’s monologue “Via Dolorosa” and the informal Arab-Jewish “Peace Café” dialogues in Washington, DC that it has prompted fall into the latter category.     

Prior to its inspiring the Peace Café, “Via Dolorosa” was the testament of one man’s journey into a land of ethnic and spiritual turmoil. Hare wrote the play and briefly performed it in London and New York after a 1997 visit to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Its title is derived from the Latin term “Way of Grief” and refers to a street in Old Jerusalem that is held to be the path that Jesus Christ walked on his way to the Crucifixion. The play represents the voices of Israeli and Palestinian characters that Hare encountered during his travels. At its core is the fundamental question of how one whose faith is either untested or minimal at best encounters a “place where faith is absolutely everything.” Rather than frame his experiences through a theatrical lens that could separate the audience from the events at hand, Hare deliberately chose a monologue wherein he would be the “vessel” that directed others’ attentions to the material. Directors, actors, even the very artifice of fiction itself, represented the middleman that Hare wanted to cut out of the viewers’ relationship with the conflict and the souls that it affected on a daily basis. The play’s premiere in London had an oddly empowering tone, as many people found themselves more intimately connected with a subject that they had previously experienced only through books and news reports.

Inevitably, “Via Dolorosa” has provoked a great deal of consternation amongst some parties. After one performance, “Danny and Sarah Weiss,” a Jewish settler couple from the West Bank who had invited Hare into their home, confronted him over his depiction of their conversations about Arab-Jewish relations and Jewish culture. The portrayal was less than flattering, to say the least, as it showed the Weisses as ethnocentric and discriminatory. Based on what they perceived to be a negative representation of Israel’s Jewish citizenry, they accused him of being a “demagogue” and a “bad man” who abused their hospitality. Hare countered that they “could not challenge the truth of [his] report” even if they disagreed with its interpretation. He had changed their names to protect their privacy. Another time, an irate Palestinian accused Hare of ethnic bias for representing Arabs in what he considered to be a “flat, boring” style compared to the more multidimensional picture that he had supposedly granted to the Israelis. Unfairly, he drew this conclusion on the mere basis that Hare’s wife was Jewish. His companions immediately contended that they found the portrayal to be sympathetic. One man felt that the very notion that Palestine was being discussed on a stage to be empowering in itself. The diversity of these reactions illustrates “Via Dolorosa’s” ability to provoke the exploration and expression of a multitude of viewpoints. The play’s potential for transformation would later become the foundation for the Peace Café dialogues.  

The Peace Café is Born

After attending a Broadway performance of “Via Dolorosa,” prominent Jewish playwright and artistic director of Theatre J Ari Roth decided to schedule it for his theater’s November 2000 schedule. However, given the usually tumultuous nature of foreign affairs, the play presented certain challenges. Shortly after Roth made his decision, the Second Intifada broke out, creating a rather complicated atmosphere for the production of a potentially divisive work.

Roth would later comment: “As anti-Jewish sentiment was circulating [in different parts of the world] and the mood in the Jewish community was very much in support of Israel, I had to figure out as a producer what point there was [in performing this piece] if it was not standing in solidarity with the State of Israel. [In reality], the play [depicts] Israel [and her relationship with Palestine] as this tear-soaked mosaic of tragedy. So, [I decided] that the point was to take advantage of the security [we enjoyed] in the United States and form a dialogue to respond to the clash between Palestinian rights and Israeli security.” Using information provided by Mimi Conway, one of Theatre J’s Council members, Roth contacted Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American restaurateur and peace activist, for a possible collaborative project related to the play’s DC premiere. 

Upon reading a copy of “Via Dolorosa” that Roth had given him, Shallal concluded that the play “set the stage for a very rich conversation” and agreed to the proposed partnership. Both men were united in the common goal of establishing linkages between the Arab and Jewish communities in Washington, DC who, in spite of their strong representation, usually have very little interaction and are often subject to the stereotypes and biases that mutual isolation nurtures. 

From the beginning, they agreed that their objectives would be limited only to these two communities. Shallal said, “We don’t espouse a bigger mission than [people coming together and sharing their stories]. We don’t have lofty aspirations to change the landscape of the Middle East; this is about personal transformation. Each person gets out of it what they want.” At the Peace Café’s inception, it was agreed that a dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be held after every performance at Shallal’s restaurant Bus Boys and Poets. 

For guidelines on achieving civil discourse, Roth and Shallal solicited advice from the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University. The format for the Peace Café that resulted from their training is simple but manageable: six or more tables participate and provide feedback in a dialogue that Roth and Shallal facilitate themselves. All discussants are expected to abide by ground rules mandating respect for each participant’s right to share his story, dignified treatment, and “the airing of parallel narratives” as opposed to direct contradiction.

For example, the statement “1948 was a great year” cannot be countered with “1948 was not a great year.” Instead, the dissenting party can say something like “1948 was Hell for my family. We were kicked out of Palestine.” All conversations abide by the concept of appreciative inquiry, wherein participants look beyond the statements they are hearing to understand the speaker’s reasons and emotions. Mutual empathy is the expected end result. In contrast to traditional alternative dispute resolution forums like Seeds of Peace and Peace Players International, the Peace Café operates without a board of directors or donors to ensure that it remains free of external influence and under no obligation to pursue a specific agenda. 

To Shallal and Roth’s delight, the Peace Café discussions were a great success. With each performance, the number of attendees grew until they had before them a thriving dialogue. In like manner to the experiences and views expressed during Via Dolorosa’s initial productions, each dialogue carried with it a spirit of empowerment. People who normally never got a chance to share their stories of fear and dispossession were finally granted the opportunity to relate an account of their tribulations. According to Shallal, both Jewish and Arab participants have realized common fears, aspirations and experiences. Pain, both real and imagined, is always a linchpin in the discussions. No one can ever say that they have not endured discrimination or never felt deprived at some point in their lives. As similarities emerge, barriers of distrust and isolation fall away. The Jews and Arabs who have actually lived in Israel and Palestine are finally able to express what their lives in these places were like to their American counterparts, a privilege that frees them from being objects of discussion to actual stakeholders in the dialogue’s content.   

Granted, conflicts are inevitable. Occasionally, someone with an agenda has tried to dominate the conversation. A few participants have shouted or stormed out. In one incident, when a Holocaust survivor tried to recount his arrival in Israel, a Palestinian student angrily expressed his belief that he and his peers were being punished for Hitler’s sins. Usually, the groups themselves are responsible for settling the conflicts by informing an overly aggressive speaker of his improper behavior, giving an overshadowed participant another chance to speak, or bringing the discussion back on topic after lengthy digressions. At no point, is anyone made to feel endangered. Consequently, all participants are allowed to feel that what they had to say, no matter how contentious, is important. Argument is not necessarily an end to interaction. 

Through the eight years the Peace Café has been around, the dialogues have attracted prominent guest speakers like Dr. Akbar Ahmed and Middle East Envoy Ambassador Dennis Roth, as well as panelists from Americans for Peace Now and The New Israel Fund. We are all familiar with the old adage that knowledge is power. But dialogue spurred on by new discoveries and contrary viewpoints can also be quite powerful.

By its very nature, the Peace Café is a passionate call to listen and to be heard. The capacity to overcome the twin obstacles of stereotypes and relative isolation to create relationships unburdened by fear and hatred is an empowering gift. While they may never change “the landscape of the Middle East,” Shallal and Roth’s singular vision of free dialogue and respectful dissent remains a viable alternative to communities traditionally divided by invisible boundaries and tangible evidence of art and literature’s enduring power to inspire change.