Finding Peace, Sustaining Peace

How do we find peace and how do we make peace last? It's easy to become cynical and lose hope when faced with conflicts that seem intractable and have lasted for so long. But there are people working on solutions, even reaching across divides that seemed insurmountable in the past. On this edition of Peace Talks Radio, we talk with Noga Harpaz, an Israeli, and Raed al-Hadar, a Palestinian, who are part of “Combatants for Peace”. The group is committed to nonviolence and was launched in 2006 by former combatants who believe the cycle of violence can only stop when Israelis and Palestinians join forces. Their work was the focus of the documentary film "Disturbingthe Peace." We also talk with Peter T. Coleman, a psychologist with the Teachers College at Columbia University and director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation & Conflict Resolution. He and his team are studying peaceful societies in a quest to understand how peace is sustained, a very different approach from the typical strategy of studying peace processes after conflict. It's akin to medicine focused on promoting wellness, versus treating illness and pathology. Megan Kamerick hosts.