Hitchhiking to ’48: Reflections on the Oral Histories of the 1948 War and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This Capstone inquiry was an attempt to understand the role that personal histories have played in informing the attitudes, desires, and hopes of six Israeli and Palestinian individuals. These individuals personally witnessed the events and movements that have sustained and defined the ongoing regional conflict. The analysis was based upon the questions: What role did the events of 1948 play in shaping the identities of a select group of Israelis and Palestinians that experienced them first-hand? What hopes and challenges might their conceptions of Identity pose for intercultural dialogue and more inclusive notions of Self and Other? At its heart this inquiry was an attempt to understand how a handful of real people have related to the origins of the ongoing regional conflict, and how their unique perspectives, attitudes, and feelings might suggest avenues for future dialogue, understanding, and peaceful coexistence