The ongoing war in Israel/Palestine has brought to the fore the urgent need for effective reconciliation strategies. In recent years, various studies have been conducted on reconciliation strategies that related to the relationships between Jews and Palestinians. Many of them study the effect of reconciliation strategies on the attitude of Jewish Israelis towards Palestinian citizens of Israel. For example, one study explored the contribution of Israeli Jews intra group dialogue to the acceptance of the Palestinian narrative. A second examined a professional development program aimed at supporting Jewish civics teachers in their efforts to promote empathy among their students toward Israeli Arabs. In yet another study, it was found that for Jewish Israeli participants, dialogue with Palestinian Israelis increased the legitimacy of Palestinian narratives and trust toward Palestinians, while decreasing hatred, fear, and anger.
In the challenging context of the ongoing war in Israel/Palestine, Future Problem Solving (FPS) programs, originally designed for K-12 education, are emerging as a promising tool in higher education. FPS programs are designed to prepare students for future uncertainties by enhancing their critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. These programs encourage students to anticipate future challenges and develop creative solutions, fostering adaptability and forward-thinking, essential for reconciliation and peacebuilding. Research shows that creativity and problem-solving are closely connected, with creative processes being essential in future problem-solving programs. Creativity, often celebrated in the arts and innovation, might seem like an unlikely tool for conflict resolution. Yet, creativity can be a potent force in healing fractured societies. In a study on the potential impact of an FPS program on perceptions of creativity, findings were encouraging for peacebuilders.
The program participants were required to address a contemporary challenge concerning the growing hostility between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel and propose practical solutions. The research employed a mixed-methods approach, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data. The study included 432 Palestinian Israeli students, who were involved in various creative reconciliation programs focusing on future problem-based learning. The tools used for data collection included structured interviews and surveys designed to assess changes in attitudes, levels of empathy, and willingness to engage in dialogue before and after participation in the creative activities.
Participants in the program (the treatment group) reported increased awareness of future social issues and ways to solve them after the intervention. This finding was not observed in the control group. The students in the treatment group also reported perceiving themselves as more creative compared to before the intervention. This finding can be explained from the analysis of the interviews, in which the ability to think creatively, and to apply mental flexibility in creating solutions, was seen in the students’ ability to imagine problems in a future reality.
A key finding is the program’s contribution to Palestinian Israeli students’ willingness to reconcile with Israeli Jews.
The empirical model showed that the creativity perception component was a key factor in both becoming more aware of future problems and finding ways to solve them and being willing to reconcile the other (Israeli Jews).
This perception improved only among the treatment group at the end of the program compared to the beginning. To understand this finding in depth, qualitative data of the students who participated in the program was analyzed. From the analysis, it is possible to understand how the program contributed to the students’ sense of creativity. According to the participants’ own words, the program developed a sense of creativity through examining social problems from different perspectives. Furthermore, the use of imagination processes as a component of creative thinking led to mental flexibility regarding the perception of the students’ current situation as citizens of the country, and to a change needed to improve their lives.
Due to the centrality of the concept of creativity component in the empirical model, and the emphasis that emerged from the interviews of the participants in the program regarding this component, our recommendation is to promote programs that develop future thinking in relation to social issues in order to promote innovation and creativity among the learners. The practice proposed in this study may contribute to this because for the purpose of solving a future problem, it is not possible to rely on familiar solutions, but new thinking is required on central ideas, customs, and values in order to change them and adapt to changing circumstances. This innovative learning requires skills that go beyond the known and familiar, while establishing a community of learners as a powerful tool to accelerate the development of innovation. The implementation of these programs in social contexts may yield a double profit: Increasing the creativity of the learners as part of developing thinking skills, and developing more positive images regarding the other group and the possibility to reconcile with the other group in the future.
The insights in this essay are based on the articles Promoting perceived creativity and innovative behavior: Benefits of future problem-solving programs for higher education students and “The Role of Creativity as a Mediating Variable for Reconciliation. The author of this essay is a contributor in these articles.
Yoav Kapshuk
Yoav Kapshuk is Senior Lecturer at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel; Head of Israel Studies Unit at the department of Multidisciplinary Studies. Former Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Center, and at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. Dr. Kapshuk focuses on peace research: peacebuilding, peace education, peacemaking and transitional justice, especially about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israelis and Palestinians relationships. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the Tel-Aviv University (2017). His studies have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Defence and Peace Economics, Israel Law Review, and Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.
