Yehudah Paz

For three decades, Yehudah Paz has been bringing peace to the highly conflicted area of the Middle East. Yehudah links human cooperation with economic development and focuses on civil society as the vehicle for successful social transformation. Through fostering collaborative Arab-Israeli grassroots enterprises with an emphasis on sustainable growth, he is providing developmental opportunities for conflicted communities, so that peace is sustained through clear prospects of improvements in living standards and hope for the future. Yehudah’s work is now spreading globally.

Yehudah realized early on in his career that peace cannot be achieved without improving the welfare of those living in adversity and conflict. He also discovered that the conventional “aid” model of development, along with official peace negotiations, is flawed in its top-down and paternalistic approach within societies in transition. In addition, the lack of training, resources, and support limits the potential for these societies to become emerging markets. Through a combination of social, economic, and human development, Yehudah addresses these aspects of a community’s complexity and distinct identity. Instead of using the traditional “foreign aid” or the Western development model, Yehudah’s approach is collaborative, combining outside expertise with cultural wisdom in a way that is effective, comprehensive and non-threatening. In addition, Yehudah’s approach and methodology can be applied to other high-potential conflict situations across the globe.

Yehudah’s model for societies in transition bridges the fields of international development and conflict resolution by linking human collaboration with economic development. As an early pioneer of the “people-to-people” development approach, Yehudah places high value on the role that people play in the development process in partnership with, rather than dependent upon, governmental and international agencies. Yehudah brings groups of people together from across the barriers of hatred and conflict, promotes understanding and knowledge of each other, and engages them in joint endeavors that improve their collective socioeconomic well-being.

In 1998 Yehudah created the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development (NISPED) in the effort to combine education and training with practical demonstration projects. NISPED plays two primary functions: A training institute that conducts courses, seminars, and study tours to educate and equip the next generation of peacemakers and also an orchestrator of local activities that promote, initiate, organize, and evaluate concrete economic and social projects using the tools of small and medium business enterprises. Yehudah’s work spans across three geographical spheres: Locally in Israel and the Palestinian Territories; regionally in the Middle East; and internationally in any locale experiencing movement along any or all continua. The combination of his efforts has demonstrated that societies in transition can and will sustain peace and have clear prospects for growth, improvement of living standards, and hope for the future.

Muslim countries in the Middle East experience serious conflict between tradition and modernization as their societies grow and develop. One of the most difficult social transitions exists in the heart of the Middle East, in the contested strip of land called Israel. In Israel, the conflict between traditional and modern perspectives is magnified by the greater conflict between Arabs and Jews: Disputes over land and culture are dictated by bigger questions of identity. At the same time, little progress has been made to help traditional societies adapt to the modern demands of the market. Negligence causes frustration, and in a place such as Israel, frustration quickly translates into violence, crime, and abuse.

In Israel, the Arab community constitutes 20 percent of the population, and the Arab-Bedouin community, which is centered in Israel’s southern Negev, makes up a similar proportion of the regional population. While Israel’s laws guarantee full equality of all citizens, there are still large divergences in the standards of living, education, and general well-being between the majority and minority groups in the country. One cannot think about sustainable human development in Israel’s Negev without involving the Arab-Bedouin community as a full and active partner. Yehudah’s innovative and ground-breaking contributions derive from conceptual insights linked to concrete, on-the-ground activity relating to sustainable human development. In thinking about peace promotion, he was among the first to develop the concept of a person-to-person peace process. This approach fills in gaps that exist between varying ethnic communities across Israel.

The Bedouin community is suffering both from the lack of practices and tools to improve its economic level, together with alienation and distrust from society at-large. Yehudah has managed to rebuild connections between people by giving them simple but critical tools for their own growth. By participation in his workshop, Bedouin women and men learn basic economic skills, and at the same time are exposed to Jews and learn how to tie counter ethnic social knots.

Yehudah’s work is able to address several problems at once, impacting both the Middle East and the world more broadly. First, it addresses the great need in these communities for training, project initiation, and networking. Second, it revamps the flaws of the conventional aid model that traditionally applies a top-down and government-driven approach to change. Finally, Yehudah connects local and global development through personal relationships, partnerships, and social and economic integration, which helps to promote a reciprocal and collaborative process for sustainable change. These realities of the Arab-Jewish conflict resonate with the patterns of conflict in other parts of the world where ethnic divides also persist.

By studying the context of the Israeli kibbutz community and the region of the Negev (the southern desert of Israel), Yehudah came to understand in the early 1970s that linking person-to-person collaboration with economic development was the key to achieving peace. To pursue this, he founded NISPED in 1998. His agenda for the organization was to provide hope, guidance, and initiative for development, by using personal collaboration as its main tool. Under his leadership, NISPED has become one of Israel’s largest citizen organizations, with a staff of over 120 employees and more than 450 volunteers. NISPED conducts more than 100 programs, projects, and training activities each year, reaching over 15,000 people in Israel, the Middle East, and around the world.

Yehudah’s organization uses the tools of small and medium business enterprises (SMEs), cooperatives, and educational training programs to strengthen the connection between peace and development. He views SMEs as both engines of economic growth and engines of social change. NISPED works locally in Israel to foster better communities and better relations among Jews and Arabs. It works regionally, within and between countries in the Middle East (e.g. between Israelis and Palestinians). Finally, NISPED has a global reach, with programs on five continents, involving people from at least forty countries.

NISPED’s focuses on four main strategies: (i) empowerment, equality, and collaboration (ii) the promotion of small and medium enterprises (iii) cooperative studies and (iv) spreading the model.

Empowerment, equality, and collaborationYehudah supports the transition of minority citizens from a position of weakness to one that is strong, confident, and integrated, while not being assimilated. Minority status is an issue he became aware of when he first lived in the Negev and was exposed to its Arab-Bedouin citizens. Palestinian Arab’s constitute the largest minority group in Israel—21 percent of the population—yet are often not fully respected in society. In an effort to promote social and economic integration, Yehudah created the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Collaboration (AJEEC) in 1999.

Yehudah’s activities (through AJEEC) focus primarily on the needs and concerns of the Negev Arab-Bedouin community, a once nomadic but now mostly settled population of some 160,000 people, about a quarter of the population of the Negev region. This focus arose from an awareness that in no other sector of the Arab-Israeli community are the needs and the challenges so acute. The impact of the AJEEC has been profound. For example, the Joint Jewish-Arab Year of Volunteerism Project (started 2001 and now in its eleventh year) enables young Jews and Bedouin Arabs to work together on programs benefiting both Negev communities, such as extracurricular activities for children in primary school, beautification of Bedouin villages, and Hebrew or Arabic language tuition, where Hebrew or Arabic is the minority language. This project typifies the bottom-up approach involving individuals from conflicted groups, particularly Arabs and Jews, in concrete profitable ventures that are jointly designed and carried out, and mutually beneficial.

Another project bought together twenty Bedouin women from the towns of Rahat, Lakiya, Tel Sheva, Segev Shalom, Kseifa, and Rachma to participate in a course on sewing for fashion design. A result of this economic initiative was a cultural shift: A step toward the empowerment of women in a community in which they are particularly disadvantaged. Bedouin women have also had the chance through this program to learn wedding-related skills, such as photography and disc-jockeying.

The joint Jewish-Arab approach is also reflected in the structure of Yehudah’s organization, which is both Arab and Jewish. The most active director was an Arab-Bedouin woman, Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, who is a community activist educated at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and who not only seeded the new concepts, but also served as a personal model for change. One half of each course is held at an Israeli venue and the other is held at a Palestinian venue, keeping in line with the idea of a partnership of equals. Through such activities, starting almost ten years ago, Yehudah began to attract business, governmental, and foreign attention to the challenges of the Negev Bedouin community, and thus put it on the map, giving it a voice in Israeli society.

The promotion of small and medium enterprisesYehudah realized in the early 1990s that spreading his model of collaborative enterprise would require improving training, education, and networking within communities. He promotes his model of enterprise by conducting a range of workshops, seminars, courses, and study tours for people and groups around the world concerned with and responsible for the advancement of SMEs and entrepreneurship. These are organized through his International Center for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (INCEP-SME). In 2009, for instance, the center focused on the theme: “Elimination of Rural Poverty: the Israeli Development Experience.” Fifteen senior government officials from Sri Lanka formed one of the groups that participated in this event. More locally, in the spring of 2009, a new project called “Joint Ventures for Peace” paired up female artisans/entrepreneurs from the occupied territories and from Israel. Centered in Beersheva, Israel and Beit Jalah, an Arab-Christian town in the West Bank, the program hopes to improve the lives of scores of Israeli and Palestinian women, their families and communities; its intake is now being increased. By using local examples, the center makes the human dimension of its economic work tangible. Since its inception, INCEP-SME has conducted dozens of training programs around the world, in English, Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese (for Brazil). INCEP-SME has established a permanent connection with the World Association for Small and Medium Enterprises (WASME).

Cooperative studiesCooperatives have been an important part of social thought and development in civil society for over 150 years, especially the grassroots ones which do not depend on an overbearing state apparatus or coercion. The umbrella organization of the world’s cooperatives, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), has more than 750,000,000 members, from almost every nation of the world. Yehudah was aware of the importance of cooperatives from his kibbutz background, and carried the idea with him into his collaborative enterprises. To promote cooperatives, he formed the International Center for Cooperative Studies. The center conducts educational and training programs for cooperative leaders, trainers and managers in Israel, the Middle East and around the globe. For example, in April, a workshop held in Shandong, China, was attended by forty-seven business and financial managers of Chinese agricultural cooperatives. The center initiates and manages sustainable human development projects and offers consultancy services in these areas. The fact that it is based in Israel—a country whose development is deeply rooted in the cooperative movement—adds to the expertise it offers to its course participants and global partners.

Spreading the modelThe core of Yehudah’s vision is to better connect local and global development through personal relationships, partnerships, and social and economic integration. Yehudah has created educational programs in peace efforts, conflict resolution and post-conflict development to help promote expertise in the linkage between peace and development. These programs reach out to men and women from dozens of countries on five continents, and are conducted in a variety of languages, including English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. The time frame for courses is generally twenty to thirty days. Workshops for shorter periods are also held. The courses provide participants with an understanding of the role of civil society in general, and of youth and student organizations in particular, in conflict resolution and post-conflict development. They provide participants with relevant skills training in such areas as communication methods, democratic leadership, and the use of information technology in their activities. The FutureBy 1998, a majority of Yehudah’s projects were aimed at building relationships and initiating projects between Arabs and Israelis. By 2000, the focus on Israel/Palestine accounted for 65 percent of operations, while its international arm accounted for the rest. This trend toward a mix of regional and international collaboration has continued, especially after Yehudah’s organization was involved in disaster relief and reconstruction in Sri Lanka (2004/5), and in China after the devastating 2008 earthquake. Currently Yehudah works through NISPED, with six ministries of the Israeli government, including Social Security, and with the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. It also works with many foreign governments, among them those of the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada. With a current annual budget of 15 million shekels (about US$3.5M), thirty-five full-time staff, and seventy freelancers, NISPED is well-positioned to expand as a global actor.

Yehudah sees human society as complex and interconnected. This perspective on human society stems in large part from his early kibbutz experience. Born in New York in 1930, Yehudah immigrated to Israel as a young man in 1950. In 1951, he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim in the Negev, which marked the beginning of his deep concern with that region. Due to his early experience with the formation of Israel’s kibbutz movement, he became drawn to a focus on collaboration and cooperatives. The person-to-person aspect of social transformation became very clear as well, in particular how one person can affect collective failure and success. On both the kibbutz and educational centered activities he served in many leadership, managerial, and educational roles from the early fifties to the late sixties which allowed him to develop his entrepreneurial qualities. These experiences provided a strong foundation for him to later launch NISPED.

Yehudah has served in various leadership positions in the kibbutz movement over many years, including as the head of the major kibbutz leadership training institution, and a term as Chairman of the United Kibbutz Movement’s Division of Higher Education and Leadership Training. Yehudah introduced the first studies of long-range planning techniques and methods for kibbutzim, led the development of managerial and financial systems appropriate to the kibbutz structure, brought the first computer programs into the field of kibbutz planning and management, and developed and introduced mathematical and statistical tools for the management of both production and consumption-focused kibbutz economic activities. Over the years, Paz has turned down offers to become part of Israel’s diplomatic world, as an ambassador, to move to a political career leading to membership in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset; to lead public bodies and educational frameworks—and even to enter the world of business.

One of Yehudah’s first tests of entrepreneurship outside the kibbutz came when he was appointed Director General of the Jewish Agency’s Youth and Youth Movement Division immediately following the Six-Day War in 1967. As the world rallied to Israel’s support in a variety of ways, a segment of this population went even further, and took it upon themselves to come to Israel as volunteers, to help in non-combatant roles, such as assistance in hospitals or replacement of workers who had been called up for military service. These were highly motivated persons, almost all young (less than 30). The swift end to the war left 80 percent of the 150,000 volunteers without work but with a desire to stay, do some constructive work, and to experience more of the country.

The problem was given to Yehudah as the Jewish Agency’s Youth Director General. Yehudah found the answer in the kibbutz movement, which, on his urgent request, agreed to work with him and his team to find places for these thousands of volunteers. Through Yehudah’s efforts, the first program was created in which volunteers would be given room and board by the kibbutzim, would have use of all the facilities there, could meet with kibbutz members (particularly the younger ones), and would even be given a few days of tourism in organized trips. In exchange, the volunteers would work in the kibbutz for 6 hours each day.

Yehudah’s idea was revolutionary because the kibbutz movement had never hosted volunteers before. Under his leadership and that of his team, more than 150 kibbutzim took in groups of volunteers for a mutually agreed period of time (between one and two months), agreed to supply all the conditions noted above and really did welcome the visitors.

Yehudah also demonstrated a long list of entrepreneurial activities during his time at Maale Habesor Regional Secondary School, beginning with the very establishment of the first integrated kibbutz secondary school. The previous educational system was divided between three national kibbutz federations; although their ideologies were similar, the prevailing thought was that their differences necessitated different frameworks. Yehudah pioneered the idea that a regional secondary school for all of the students from all the ten kibbutzim would better serve both the needs of the kibbutzim and, more importantly, the students, and the reality of their essential similarity across the fences of differing federation membership.

To turn his idea into a reality, Yehudah endured lengthy discussion and debate with each of the kibbutzim. He conducted preparatory work in educational methods, curriculum content, and school management which had to be mutually agreed upon. Yehudah persisted and the Maale Habesor School came into existence, which not only proved to be a success, but has also served as a model of secondary education. As the main initiator behind the idea, he was called upon to be their founding principal. In this role he introduced a number of educational innovations. These included the introduction of advanced skills-training (particularly in agriculture-related areas) to the curriculum; the opening of a music conservatory and a plastic arts training center to the school; and the inclusion of the handicapped and challenged members of the school-age population in as many of the classes and activities of the school as possible. Once more, as in the other areas of his work, Yehudah linked concept and value to practical innovation and change.

Yehudah has also been a leading figure in the Israeli cooperative world and internationally as he became the first Israeli ever elected to the eleven-member International Board of ICA, the roof organization of the world’s cooperatives and “cooperators.” One of his most significant achievements in this role was leading the creation of the Cooperative Learning Center, an online portal and framework, which provides access to research material and studies on cooperatives in tens of universities.

The central turning point for Yehudah came when, in 1998, he drafted a report highlighting the need for more citizen-initiated development projects around the world, based on the centrality of human development in establishing peace. Soon after, Yehudah founded NISPED to bring together an innovative combination of training, project development, and consulting services to strengthen the connection between peace and socioeconomic development. Since then, Yehudah’s work has spread as a reference in people-centered peace building in the Middle East.