Enter the historians, finally

Timothy W. Ryback
Timothy W. Ryback co-directs the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation at the Salzburg Seminar.

Published: November 23, 2006


Excerpt

In addition, the Arab Thought Forum in Jerusalem and the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv are currently preparing, with support from my institute, a joint Palestinian-Israeli atlas of the 1948 war. During the last two years, I have attended several meetings of such groups. There is little discussion of peace or reconciliation but frequent reference to historical truth. Both sides have been willing to sacrifice their own myths and to accept uncomfortable facts in their search for something that approximates historical reality, in the belief that truth ultimately leads to justice and to meaningful and lasting peace. Similar joint Palestinian-Israeli projects are under way that will provide shared narratives of key holy sites and the Palestinian refugee situation.

The head of the Arab Thought Forum, Abdel Rahman Abu Arafeh, notes that when respected Palestinian and Israeli historians reach consensus on any set of facts or events, no matter how modest, it becomes something that no bomb attack or military incursion or derailed peace process can undo. He describes these projects as the building blocks for future peace.

When the politicians in the key capitals of the West, as well as those in the Middle East, finally muster the political will and moral leadership for attempting to resolve the Middle East crisis yet again, they can be assured that this time history will be waiting for them, literally as well as figuratively.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/23/opinion/edryback.php

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By Bracewell

Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation

This is their thumbnail of Yugoslavia
http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ihjr/si/si/Team9BulletPage.pdf


Their main page
http://www.salzburgseminar.org/ihjr/index3.cfm?Page=About


The IHJR is directed by Professor Elazar Barkan of Columbia University and Dr. Timothy Ryback of the Salzburg Seminar.
The Advisory Committee is chaired by Justice Richard J. Goldstone of South Africa


IHJR Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee provides guidance and oversight in the selection and implementation of IHJR projects

Richard Goldstone, Chairman
Co-chairman of the International Bar Association's Task Force on International Terrorism; and former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia .
Zeid Raad AL-HUSSEIN
Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Scope of Legal Protection under the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel; Coordinator for the Non-aligned Movement on Peacekeeping, and Permanent Representative to the United Nations from Jordan.
Alex Boraine
President of the International Center for Transitional Justice, New York; former executive director for the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa; and vice chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa.

Radhika Coomaraswamy
Director of the Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo , Sri Lanka , and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence. Member of the Global Faculty, New York University School of Law.

Mark Ellis
Executive director of the International Bar Association; and former executive director of the Central and East European Law Initiative. Served as legal advisor to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo.

Hisashi Owada
Judge, The International Court of Justice; and president, Japan Institute of International Affairs. Former Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations.

Sonia Picado
President of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, Costa Rica . Former ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States and chair of the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor .