“Falastine” gives us a bird’s-eyes view into the songwriting experience of Heartbeat: Haifa, which paints an interesting picture of the opportunities and challenges of intergroup songwriting. The lyrics are written by the Israeli Jewish members of the ensemble after several months of programming and upon the realization while driving home late at night one evening that there were green lights in the northern countryside everywhere. These green lights were on the minarets of mosques. This brought up the question for those members: how can Israel be called a “Jewish state” when there are mosques and churches, and essentially those who are not Jewish, native to the land as well? The Palestinian members of the ensemble were amazed and somewhat surprised when they heard the lyrics, written by Israeli Jews, speaking so beautifully of a place called “Palestine.” The facilitators of the group and myself were shocked as well that such lyrics were written, especially at such an early stage in the group’s process. It was clear that there was something much deeper happening. The first challenge was addressing the role of Arabic in the song: should Arabic be included and who decides? This situation brought up power dynamics within the group (and which exists in every group) bubbling to the surface, since Israeli Jews hold more power within society, this recreates itself in the meeting space, tool. It is the responsibility of the facilitators to challenge this power dynamic and use it as a learning possibility for both Israelis and Palestinians in order to co-create an equalizing space. After a few months of discussion, it was decided by the Palestinian members to not include Arabic, but rather an improvisatory section recalling Palestine pre-1948. Though the song includes the voices of both Israeli and Palestinian youth, in a way this entire song and songwriting experience is symbolic of the greater conflict within the group dynamic. In the end, the group never could come to a mutual understanding of whether the lyrics were a “love song” to Palestine as the Palestinians related to Palestine or as the Israelis wrote “A question that continues in vain.”