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with the five Israelis) described his satisfaction at participating in the
dialogue and referred to his Jewish Day School experience in which he
had no exposure to Islam and how much he appreciated the opportunity
to learn more about that culture.
The Potential Importance of the Interreligious Dialogue
In view of these several efforts described, the question should certainly
be posed as to why and how focus on an interreligious dialogue has the
potential to move opposing sides toward some attitudinal moderation
when religion is assumed to act as an escalatory influence in many of the
explosive international/interethnic disputes occurring throughout the
world. Indeed, some of the most prominent and widely accepted conclu-
sions in the field of social psychology relevant to intergroup relations can,
on the basis of our experiences, offer insights into why and how such in-
tercultural dialogue rooted in religion has the potential to act as a positive
factor in Israeli-Palestinian relations. On the most basic level, theoretical
literature suggests that individuals will change their negative attitudes
toward another group when they discover that others hold attitudes or
beliefs similar to their own.^15
The importance of discovering commonality in the other is being in-
creasingly acknowledged by other researchers concerned with intergroup
reconciliation with attention to the interreligious element. For instance,
referring to post-Apartheid efforts at reconciliation in South Africa, Kries-
berg has indicated that “insofar as reconciliation entails members of one
communal group coming to believe that members of another communal
group share important qualities with them, reconciliation contributes to
constructive accommodations. Such beliefs are fostered by religious con-
victions that all humans are made in the image of God.”^16
In this regard we can also refer to an example from Northern Ireland
by Colin Knox and Joanne Hughes (the former a political scientist, the
latter a social anthropologist), who reported on the favorable impact of
intercultural activities and dialogue connected to religion upon Protes-
tant and Catholic participants.^17
Furthermore, in his work Theatre of Power, Raymond Cohen cited the
particular importance of religious symbolism with its potential for build-
ing links between Israel and Egypt. He recalled the late president Anwar