• About

    Marc Gopin is the Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC), the James H. Laue Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, USA. Gopin has pioneered projects at CRDC in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Palestine and Israel. Gopin directs a unique series of overseas educational and practice experiences ranging from conflict and peace intervention in Palestine and Israel, to support for Syrian activists and refugees in Turkey and Jordan.

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Recent Posts

  • An Important Conversation on a Palestinian Child poisoned by Israeli Military Waste

    An important conversation on mepeace.org between Palestinians and Jews is developing on Israeli military waste on the West Bank and its destruction of a child’s leg. In response to this shocking tragedy people inside Israel, abroad, and in Palestine are trying to draw attention to this by working together.

    Yesterday (Monday) we went with Iyad to search for and photograph evidence to document the military waste and dangerous materials that the IOF leaves in the area of the Jahalin Bedouin in the south Hebron hills. Iyad took us to visit a family whose child’s leg was badly burnt a month ago when he was playing in the desert with ammunition remains left behind by the Israeli military. Nothing could have prepared us for our meeting with the boy, whose name is Jabar, even though he had received medical attention at Yata [a nearby city]. The condition of his leg

  • Obama turns Dobson’s attack on its head

    Yes We Can

    Jim Dobson has this to say about Obama:

    I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,” Dobson said, adding that Obama is “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.” Responding to Dobson’s comments Tuesday evening, Obama sharply disputed the suggestion he was distorting the Bible.

    Obama responds:

    “Someone would be pretty hard pressed to make that argument,” he told reporters aboard his campaign plane. “It is a speech that affirms the role of faith not just in my life but in the life of the American people, that suggests that we make a mistake by trying to push faith out of the public square.”

    “I do make the argument that it’s important for folks like myself, who think faith is important, that we try to translate some of our concerns into universal language so we

  • New Treaty for Iran and Israel

    Published: June 25, 2008

    Middle East Times

    It is often said in the Arab world that the road to Jerusalem goes through Washington, with the implicit assumption that only the Americans can bring the Israelis to the negotiating table. But there is a distinctly different dynamic emerging from the waning days of the U.S. presidency of George W. Bush. The road to Washington may in fact pass through Jerusalem.

    Increasingly, countries in the Middle East are initiating peace talks with Israel directly, without U.S. assistance. The recent Syrian and Israeli negotiations are but one potentially promising model, and this route may be the best hope the Iranians have to prevent a cataclysmic confrontation over their nuclear program.

    The Iranian government asserts that its nuclear enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, but suspicions still abound. The rhetoric coming out of Iran, coupled with fears over the nature of its nuclear ambitions, …

  • What exactly is pro-Israel?

    WASHINGTON – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobby groups in the United States, just concluded its annual Washington conference. It drew a long line of administration officials and the presidential candidates to its doorsteps, all touting orthodox lines on what it means to be pro-Israel – messages carefully crafted to please the lobby. Now is a good time to ask, what exactly does “pro-Israel” mean, and who is pro-Israel in the United States today? The ones who twist every arm in Congress to be silent, to suppress what they know is right to do in terms of a fair Israeli-Palestinian deal? We have before us now a hair-trigger set of confrontations from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf, with long-range missiles, chemical and nuclear capable, aimed at Israel from a country in the Persian Gulf that has no business in Gaza. And yet, due to …

  • Israelis are Talking to Hamas

    First published in Middle East Online

    2008-05-26,

    WASHINGTON—There are Israeli Jews who have been talking to Hamas for years, especially Rabbi Menahem Frohman. In fact, there are more Israeli Jews, official and un-official, who would be talking not only to Hamas, but also to Syria and Iran were the White House not pressuring them against dialogue with enemies of Israel. This is unprecedented: a third party, supposedly mediating for peace, that forbids two parties from talking to each other.

    Sober intelligence analysts at the highest levels in Israel have been arguing the virtue of negotiation and a process of offers and counter-offers—not because they are nonviolence activists, but because they are realists seeking the path of least resistance to a more stable and safe Middle East. They have every intention of confronting the military threat from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, but through a subtle combination of approaches, not the least

  • A Mufti, A Christian and A Rabbi

    In the West, A Mufti, a Christian and a Rabbi is often how a good interfaith joke begins. But I live inside this reality. I am a rabbi and my Syrian colleague, Hind Kabawat, is a Christian Arab. We have worked for four years with the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, in both Damascus and Aleppo. [Note: this has been moved down.] The three of us, along with many others of courage, have put on public events in Syria for four years that no one thought possible. No one believed Protestant, Catholic, Sunni, Shiâa, and Jewish clerics would sit together at a table, in front of cameras, working out the foundations of a tolerant civil society and making commitments to peace in the heart of Syria. We did this not only in the shadow of American neo-conservative efforts to attack Syria but also surrounded by militants in …

  • Books

    My latest books: Healing the Heart of Conflict (Rodale, 2004)

    “Psychologically and spiritually grounded, compassionate, and compelling” — Publishers Weekly starred review Drawing on his rich experience in the field of international conflict resolution, Marc Gopin applies what he has learned about clashing cultures and beliefs on the world stage to the more personalbut no less painfulstruggles involving families, friends, and coworkers. In Healing the Heart of Conflict, Dr. Gopin identifies the measures we can all take to make peace in our own troubled lives. His powerful 8-step plan includes careful coaching in the art of listening, the art of observation, and the delicate process of addressing the deepest emotions of others under circumstances that could turn explosive at any moment. He then applies these steps to practical examples from the workplace, in romantic relationships, and in our communities. Whether you are clashing with a spouse, a relative, or a

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