Mediation program solves conflicts and changes perceptions

Mustafa, an educational counselor, recently found himself co-mediating a dispute involving a blind man who was forced to leave a pub after the owners refused to allow his guide dog to enter the premises. The blind man claimed that he needed his guide dog beside him at all times, while the pub's owners argued that the dog frightened their other clients. "Just because you're blind doesn't mean you're right," argued the owner.

As a trainee mediator in JDC's GISHUR Mediation Program, Mustafa is being taught how to tackle the intricacies of disputes involving the disabled. In this case – a simulation exercise – he helped the two sides reach a compromise, whereby the blind man would be able to bring his dog to the pub, where a quiet corner would be reserved for him, while he in turn would recommend the pub to his friends and thus increase their clientele.

By successfully mediating this dispute, Mustafa was not just reconciling differences; he was also helping to break stereotypes. For Mustafa, an eloquent speaker and talented mediator, was himself born blind.

Mustafa is one of 29 people with disabilities who, together with 21 participants without disabilities, are part of a pilot project initiated in 2003 by JDC in coordination with the Justice Ministry's National Center for Mediation and Settling Disputes, Bizchut, the Israel Human Rights Center for People with Disabilities, and the National Insurance Institute. As part of the program, mediators participate in special sessions where they address many sensitive issues, such as patronization by non-disabled mediators and the issue of neutrality in a case involving both a disabled mediator and a disabled client.

Mustafa's counseling background, in addition to his roles as coordinator of activities in the Arab sector for a mental health hotline and tireless advocate in promoting the rights of the disabled, made him an ideal candidate for the project. According to Mustafa, "A good mediator can do his job under any circumstances. The model in which one mediator is disabled and the other not, has something very balancing that creates credibility."

The co-mediation project serves to empower mediators with disabilities by integrating them into the field, as well as helping experienced mediators increase their knowledge, understanding and sensitivity to people with disabilities seeking their service.

Tamara Barnea, Head of the Disabilities and Rehabilitation Unit at JDC-Israel, hopes the pilot project will expose government and public agencies to the advantages of mediation and that they will adopt it as a routine tool in their care of the disabled population. In fact, the idea behind the project is to combine two emerging developments - mediation as a social management tool, and empowerment as a tool for coping for the disabled in society.

According to Mustafa, the presence of a disabled mediator in the courtroom helps to change public perceptions of the disabled. "The court hands down justice, but does not change attitudes," Mustafa says. He feels that Israeli society is quick to label and pre-judge people according to stereotypes and that those stereotypes must be changed, not by changing the law but by changing public perceptions.

Mustafa himself has had to overcome labeling on two counts – as an Arab and as a blind man. When he works in the courts as a mediator he opens each session by stating that he is blind in order to avoid discomfort later on. The fact that he is Arab is obvious from his name, Mustafa says, laughing.