Sample of Data

This dissertation primarily rests on written documents by the organizations and interviews with leading personnel of ¹⁵these organizations. In addition I have made three trips to Jerusalem to gain an understanding of the work of these organizations.

The starting point for the sampling of data was to go through all the written documents published by the organizations. Most of the organizations have published approximately between 300 and 600 pages on their official webpages. Several of the organizations have also published books.In addition I googled the internet for more information and found several video clips on the You Tube. I sampled the written data during the period from spring 2008 until autunm 2010. The material has been available in English. Since the intention behind my choice of organizations was to understand the diversity each represented I chose a large number of organizations. By doing research on such a rich material and so many organizations I felt a need to visit the organizations in Jerusalem and conduct interviews with the leaders of the organizations after reading through their documents. By firstly reading through the documents I was in a position to ask questions directly related to the documents.

The interviews have also been conducted in English, since most of the leaders of the organizations in this dissertation have their origins in an English-speaking country.

The intervieews were conducted between April and October 2010 and were tape-recorded.

The informants were given an Interview Guide two weeks before the meeting took place, all with carefully open questions¹⁶. These three open questions were: 1) Can religion be a resource to fuel the conflict? 2) Can religion be a resource for peace? And 3) Who do you cooperate with? All the participants in the interview were asked to respond to a semi structured list of questions. I chose to do the intervieews after I had finished the sampling of the written data, and made two vistits to Jerusalem. Most of the interviews were conducted in Jerusalem in April 2010, but a few interviews were conducted by telephone in October 2010.

The interviews were open and structured thematically around the three questions mentioned above¹⁷.

16 Mishler, Elliot G. Research Interviewing – Context and Narrative, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1986: 66-75.

17 Ibid.

4 A Qualitative Research 91 The formal and written data were basically sampled from the organizations` webpages¹⁸. Since the information the organizations give on their homepage basically are about the research questions they have had the desired function in my research¹⁹. But before using the Internet it has been important to notice whether the webpage was active - that is by controlling that the information was actually related to the present time and not an old webpage unused for many years. The personal contacts with the leaders of these organizations in the process have been helpful to verify the accuracy of the documents found on the Internet.

During my research period I have made three visits to Jerusalem. Conversations with religious peace activists and visits to a number of workshops have been helpful tools to understand the reality behind the documents.

Another medium which has been helpful is Facebook. Two of the organizations, Interfaith Encounter Association and Rabbis for Human Rights have their own Facebook where they frequently give information. Both Interfaith Encounter Association and Jerusalem Peacemakers have posted documenatry self-made films on You Tube,which also have been helpful²⁰.

In June 2008 I attended an international conference in Jerusalem, held by the International Council of Christian and Jews (ICCJ), where five of the eight organizations in this dissertation held courses and workshops. The Theme of the Conference was “The Contribution of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue to Peace-Building in the Middle East”²¹. I attended a one-week conferance followed up by a second week post-seminar. The Conferance included a Women`s Conferance- where Israeli²², Palestinian²³, Australian²⁴and American²⁵women argued for the need of women to enter peacework. The Conferance included lectures by prominent Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilders like Rabbi David Rosen

18 Højsgaard, Morten Thomsen, Religion bak skjermen: Kvalitetskrieterier og kildekritkk i religionsfaglig bruk av internett” in Kraft, Siv Ellen and Natvig, Richard J. (ed) ”Metode i religionsvitenskap”, Oslo:

Paxforlag,2006:145-146. (Norwegian only).

19 Ibid.

20 See chapter 9 and 11.

21 The five organizations presented were Interreligious Coordinating Council, Rabbis for Human Rights, Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land and Jerusalem Peacemakers, the latter only during the post-conference tour. The sixth organization not presented was Interfaith Association. The Interreligious Coordination Council was the host of the conference.

22 Represented by Sarah Bernstein from ICCI.

23 Represented by Nadia Harhash.

24 Represented by Wilma Viswanathan from the United Church Interfaith Group in Australia.

25 Represented by Rabbi Amy Eilberg, from Jay Philips Center for Jewish-Christian Relations.

and Michale Sabbah²⁶. Rabbi Micahel Melchior gave reflections on the Alexandria Process and the decision of religious leaders in Israel and Palestine to draw up the Alexandria Declaration in 2002²⁷. The Conference also arranged for a number of visits to institutes engaged in religious-based reconciliation work. During the Conference I visited the Interreligious Coordinating Council, attended a lecture on ”The Arab Christians as a Double Minority and potential bridge between the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Muslim majorities”

by Danile Rossing at JCJCR. During the post-conference study tour, visits to the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Monastries and Churches in the Judean desert and visists to Christian Churches in Nazareth were included.

The lunch breaks and long bus drives also gave me the chance to get advice in more unformal settings. In January 2009 I attended a two week course in Jerusalem arranged in cooperation with the Hebrew University and two of the organizations in this dissertation²⁸. One of the lecturers was Professor Marc Gopin, whom I was able to have unformal conversations with about religious peace activism in Jerusalem. This course was conducted during the Israeli military campaign against Gaza, which also led to a special interest in the responses of specifically the Israeli organizations to this tragedy. This course also included a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher followed up by presentations by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch on the challenges Palestinian Christians outside Jerusalem faced when they wanted to visit their Churches in Jerusalem – based on Israeli security restrictions. We were also invited to the home of the Palestinian Muslim Sufi leader, Bukhari, to learn about his peacework in the Old City and the organization Jerusalem Peacemakers²⁹.

The third visit was in April 2010, where I in addition to making several of the interviews also visited two different dialogue forums. One was a dialogue group between Palestinians from Abu Dis and Jewish settlers from Maaleh Adumim. The meetings were held in Abu-Dis, close to the so-called security wall separating the Palestinian communities from Jerusalem³⁰. The other was participation in a dialogue forum for Christians leaders at Tantur³¹. Tantur is a

26 Both are central in the work of CRIHL. See chapter 12.

27 This is also mentioned in the report by Yehezkel Landau, in 1.2.1 and further described in the introduction to chapter 12.

28 The course was arranged by Hamline University Law School, and held at the Hebrew University. For description of the course see oneline: http://law.hamline.edu/study-abroad/study-abroad-jerusalem.html Retrieved January 7, 2010.

29 See chapter 11.

30 This group is one of IEAs groups, see chapter 9.

31 I was invited to join this seminar after the interview with Daniel Rossing and Hana Bendcowsky at JCJCR.

The interview is partly presented in chapter 10.

4 A Qualitative Research 93 Christian eucumenical center which encourages dialogue between the different Christian denominations in Jerusalem³².

The sampling of informal data was gathered and categorized in fieldnotes and became central in the interviews conducted with members of these organizations later. The understanding I had gained from the informal data was then translated into small questions used in the interviews. In this way I decided to do the interviews as late as possible in my research in order to verify that my perception of these organizations was correct. In this way the informal sampling of data could form reliable sources and documented through the recording of these interviews. During my research I was unable to get in touch with the director of Sabeel, Naim Ateek. But since Naim Ateek has made several publications and since Sabeel has a supportitative organization in Norway- whom I have been in contact with – I find the sampling of data from Sabeel to be sufficient for the purpose of this study.

The sampled data has been categorized and is presented in the following eight chapters (5-12). The data give information on each organization`s mission, motivation, activities and cooperation. A brief outline of the sampled data is also given in the introduction to each of these eight chapters.