(Illustration by Edel Rodriguez)
The week before Thanksgiving 2023, I flew to Orlando, Florida, to attend ARNOVA, the conference of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. This annual confab of academic scholars affords journalists like me a window into the latest thinking in civil-society research.
In reviewing the program, I highlighted the title of one session I felt I had to attend: “Philanthropy, Funding, and Program in Community-Based NGOs Working in Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Identity-Based Violence,” a presentation by David Campbell and Susan Appe.
The topic wasn’t far from everyone’s mind. The month before, on October 7, Hamas militants crossed from Gaza into Israel; slaughtered 1,200 people; engaged in rape, torture, and other inhumane acts; and took 251 hostages back to Gaza. By the start of ARNOVA, the Israel Defense Forces had launched its counterassault to eliminate Hamas. The IDF has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, turned much of Gaza into rubble, bombed hospitals and relief camps, and pushed Gaza’s civilians into famine. By May 2024, Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, sought arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the time, I didn’t know how bad the conflict would get, but I knew the conflagration would rival or surpass the most heinous mass violence of my lifetime.
Campbell and Appe’s presentation did not disappoint. They reviewed community-based programs around the world, from the former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, curbing the sort of identity-based violence that has led to massacres. But I was not entirely satisfied by the solutions on offer. In the question period, I expressed my nagging feeling that such efforts were more about reconciliation after such atrocities occur than about preventing them from occurring in the first place. The speakers rightly noted that such programs do prevent violence from reoccurring, but they acknowledged my concern. Eager to hear more, I invited Campbell and Appe after the panel to write something for the magazine. One year later, that invitation has resulted in the cover story of our Spring 2025 issue.
While their feature, cowritten with Kerry Whigham, may not provide a solution to the Israel-Gaza crisis, it offers much wisdom. The community-based organizations they profile push the people they serve, who are riven by anger, resentment, and trauma, to ask themselves the fundamental question of political philosophy: How are we to live together? Bad answers pull the parties apart. They appeal to polarizing factors such as competitive victimhood and assert “We have suffered more than you, and our suffering is fundamentally unfair.” Successful answers bring both sides together and get them to see and apply their shared histories, interests, values, and goals in joint activities.
As of this writing, we have yet to see a resolution of the Gaza crisis. But if the two sides resolve their differences one day and find lasting peace, their success will require some of the practices that our cover story examines.
Read more stories by David V. Johnson.