Relationship Transformation between Israeli Settlers and West Bank Palestinians: The Case of "Roots"

This paper will be a continuation of earlier work on the analysis and evaluation of Israeli-Palestinian inter-religious dialogue efforts primarily as purported by the work of the Israeli Interfaith Encounter Association (Mollov, 2011; Mollov and Lavie, 2006, 2015; Mollov, et. al., 2007) which has focused on religion as a bridge and basis for dialogue. In this work, a further stage of field research on the interreligious level will be undertaken, through an analysis and evaluation of a relatively new Israeli-Palestinian initiative known as "Roots" or Shorashim in Hebrew. "Roots" established in 2014 focuses mainly on interactions between Israeli Jewish settlers and local Palestinians in the Gush Etzion area located due south of Bethlehem on the way to Hebron. The background of this initiative and the authors' research plan will be presented along with an analysis of the implications of "Roots" for Israeli-Palestinian peace building.