Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace

For this organization, the significance of Lifta goes beyond its cultural landscape or heritage. Lifta is used as a key site where the group hosts walking tours of Lifta under the Parallel Narratives program.

This program takes both Palestinians and Israelis through a guided tour of Lifta and helps to facilitate in peaceful dialogue between both sides. It is a complex and complicated journey, full of pain and challenges. The graduates of the program, Palestinians and Israelis, end the program with a new understanding of the conflict and the other side, with a belief in the possibility of reconciliation, and with a desire to maintain contact with each other and work together to promote change in the difficult reality of conflict. 1 https://www.theparentscircle.org/pcff-activities_heb/narrative-pne_heb-2/

While this group does not propose any architectural intervention. However, its impacts seem to be more sustainable in the long term efforts towards resolving conflict from both sides. At the end of this program, both sides are able to develop mutual empathy and respect.

At this stage of research for this thesis, the main takeaway was how through Lifta, one is able to witness how Israeli civilians are able to question and confront their own dominant perspectives which have been skewed by the Israeli government.

In the webinar hosted by Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace, an incident had happened to one of the Israeli participants.

She was misinformed by one of her Israeli friends that she can eat the plant Arum Palaestinum in its raw form. However, shortly after that, she had experienced a poisonous reaction which caused her mouth to become numb.

While she was waiting for help to arrive, she noticed that the Palestinian participants were foraging excitedly for Arum but were not consuming it in raw form.

After the incident, she started to interact more with the Palestinian participants and they had taught her the proper way to cook this plant to remove its toxins.

It was at this moment that this lady admitted in the webinar that this was when she knew that the land in which they were on, truly belonged to the Palestinians.

Hence, it might seem a daunting task to challenge the Israeli government who has been having an upper hand in this Israeli Palestinian conflict.

However, it is in this small moments that occur in Lifta whish is able to influence the thoughts of everyday people without the need for violence.

Hence, the symbolism behind Lifta and the plant Arum Palaestinum is truly an important one in the fight for Palestine.