Hello, gentlemen. My name is Dr. Ben Malov. I'm a lecturer here at Bar-Ilan University
in political science and conflict management. And my particular area of expertise is in the
Jewish political tradition and political science, and particularly in terms of conflict resolution,
interreligious, intercultural approaches to Arab-Jewish-Israeli-Palestinian dialogue,
basically seeing religion as a bridge and not merely as a factor for escalation.
Now, that's a very important issue in terms of planting the seeds of a culture of peace.
I have heard about issues of inculcating a culture of peace in the Palestinian side. I'm not an expert
in that, but I would focus on the Israeli side. I think that there are efforts to do that within
our educational system, but there needs to be more, frankly, on both sides. There needs to be more
study of Arabic in our schools. There needs to be more appreciation of Islam. But in the university
situation, there is, for instance, here at Bar-Ilan University, a very strong Arabic
department, a very strong Islamic studies department. Jerusalem as a whole is the Islamic museum.
And I myself, in terms of my own work, I've been running a special MA course called New Approaches to
Conflict Management in Israeli Society, which sees Israel in terms of more of a, well, a Jewish and multicultural
society as opposed to everyone having to be the same. Multicultural expertise, multicultural sensitivity,
both within the different factions in Israeli society, everything from the ultra-Orthodox to
the more secular, to those coming from a Russian background, and the Arab-Israeli sector in relation
to the Jewish sector. And the students have had a wide-opening exercise, eye-opening exercise. Every
year we have finished our work, our culmination of our special program of study in which hundreds of
students have participated in a special inter-religious, intercultural seminar in the Arab-Jewish
mixed city of Akko, which I think is known in the Muslim world, involving the cooperation and
partnership between the chief rabbi, the chief sheikh, a municipality in which there is a Jewish
deputy mayor from actually a right-wing party, but also an Arab deputy mayor from an Islamic party.
And they cooperate very well on the local level. There are other examples of this. Unfortunately,
we're in a period in which the extremism gains most of the headlines and more of these elements
on the grassroots. I've only given a very small example from my own experience and involvement,
but there are other people who, colleagues, who were very much involved in these initiatives
and trying to develop a culture of peace. And we really need to elevate the consciousness and the
awareness of this from the micro to the macro. And we're not just, you know, following the headlines
of extremism. Well, I would say, I think you've hit something very important, that the Jewish people have
common heritages with many European countries. For instance, even Germany, there was a German-Jewish
heritage. The period of the Turkish Empire, and you're saying Turkey being a hospitable home for
the Jews after the Spanish Inquisition. I think that common heritage can be a very important bridge,
because this way it can remind us of the partnership between Islam and Judaism during the Golden Age of
Spain, for instance. And that can be the type of bridge-building and bringing Jews and Arabs
together, Israelis and the Muslim world, together under the ideal of the true service of God.