Framed by the multilayered catastrophe now unfolding in Palestine and Israel, I propose the creation of an interdisciplinary working group in Paris that will bring together scholars from UC, Paris and other European centers, and Israel and Palestine whose work is characterized by two resolutely analytical foci: 1) a focus on understanding of the mix of factors and forces feeding the violence in Israel and Palestine, a mix which includes enduring structural factors but also newly emergent ones (e.g. extremist forms of religious nationalism that have risen to predominance in Israeli politics only recently; new forms of populism; new media constituting new audiences and ideologies); and no less 2) a focus on those aspects of culture, political culture, and civil society in Israel and Palestine that may bear potentials for ameliorating the conflict. The group would bring together sociologists and anthropologists, political scientists, historians of the present, cultural analysts. Paris is one of few places where scholars linked to the multiple communities involved might connect.