For over two decades the School for Peace at Neve Shalom/Wahat al‐Salam has been bringing together Jews and Arabs for dialogue workshops. This article examines the unique approach that the School for Peace has developed over the years in the light of existing theory in the field and of existing research in the field of social identity construction and majority‐minority relations. The article then shows how processes that take place in our encounter workshops may even shed light on the Jewish‐Palestinian conflict from 1948 until today. Understanding these processes is essential to any attempt at building a more humane society based on equality and justice between the two peoples.

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Ethnic and national identities are shaped and evolve in the context of complex negotiations sustained among multiple players, each with its own and often contradicting interests. This study focuses on one unique cultural group, the Druze in Israel, and examines a multifaceted identity constructed as a direct result of policies and expectations of members and institutions of majority groups. My aim is to explore how this identity is defined within the complex intergroup context, the various components and their inter-relations (congruent or conflictual), and the way its boundaries are shaped through interaction with other identities in Israel. The analysis of the interviews conducted with 50 Druze university students in Israel yielded three major content categories: 'Druze by blood;' 'Arab, but less so;' and 'Being Israeli.' The Druze identity is constructed in primordialist terms, and a central role is assigned to the belief in reincarnation. The Arab identity is categorized primarily as a national one, and it is strongly affected by the negative attitude of Arabs toward the service of the Druze in the Israeli army. Three major aspects emerged in relation to the Israeli identity of the Druze: the fact of their being citizens of the State of Israel, the attitude of the state and of Jews toward them, and the army service. Our study portrays a highly complex and problematic constellation of group identities, shaped as a delicate adaptation to the unique position of a group subject to multiple political forces in the past and present.During the last decades, the focus of identity construction has gradually shifted from the intra-psychological to the inter-psychological and from the individual to the social arena where historically situated participants calibrate their positions according to complex socio-cultural relations. The understanding of identity has undergone a shift from de-contextualized models, to historicized, dialogically produced and transformed ones (Baumaister and Muraven, 1996;Bekerman, 2001; Harre and Gillett, 1995). According to this approach, ethnic and national identities are shaped and evolve in the context of complex negotiations sustained among multiple players, each with its own and often contradicting interests (Horenczyk, 1996;Horenczyk and Munayer, 2003;Said, 1978 Said, , 1993Wa Thiongo, 1986). Our purpose is not to add to this already well-based theoretical corpus, but to show it at work and discuss the potential implications for identity work in conflictual

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