Olmert’s Offer to Abbas
Aluf Benn provided an insightful report on what Olmert "offered’ Abbas as a way to at least insert a proposal that may give him a legacy.
Lebanon’s Daily Star on Hamas-Fatah Internecine Fighting
The Daily Star wrote a compellingly sad editorial on how Hamas and Fatah are killing the Palestinian dream. Both have cared more about their power than the Palestinian cause, but it is not a balanced blame.
Fatah is indeed embroiled in corruption and ineptitude because it lacks a system to give young emerging locally respected leaders representative power, but Hamas is the party that staged a coup and killed hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas is the party whose "Foreign Minister", Mahmoud Al Zahar, recently said it alone was the representative of God on Earth.
Under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, the West Bank is experiencing some level of development, growth, order, and an admirable push for transparency. Under Hamas, Gaza has become a Taliban-like enclave of terror against ordinary citizens, suppressing all freedoms according to Palestinians living there.
David Harris on Refugees
I was forwarded a provocative but interesting article by David Harris, head of AJC. While I am a fervent supporter of Israel as the haven and homeland of the Jewish people, I am very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian refugees, and I think more will be accomplished by acknowledging their suffering and then moving on to practical solutions along the Clinton parameters. But Harris does raise some provocative points worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, as with almost everything dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, this line of reasoning will appeal to partisan pro-Israeli views and repel partisan pro-Palestinian views, and nothing will come out of it except to further affirm the partisan convictions of each side - which is why I revert back to the approach of helping each side better understand the other’s narrative and then focus on WORKING SOLUTIONS like those offered in OneVoice’s citizen negotiations and the Clinton parameters. Anyway, here is the article:
Social Entrepreneurship Profile on BusinessWeek
Thanks to Stacy Perman for a profile about PeaceWorks, KIND, and OneVoice in BusinessWeek yesterday.
Imagine 2018 Essay Contest Winners Announced
From the OneVoice newsletter:
The results are in!
Ø 50 Palestinian winners and 50 Israeli winners have been selected
Ø Read some of the winning essays
Ø Israel & Palestine to Co-Host World Cup in 2018? Check out one vision for the future
· OneVoice Youth Leadership & outreach update
Ø OneVoice Israeli & Palestinian Youth to Tony Blair: “A Mideast Quintet”
Ø From our Gaza office: Town Hall Meeting in Beit Hanoun
Ø OneVoice is Referenced in House of Lords Debate 5 Times
Ø OneVoice Student Leader at Stanford Organizes Islam-West Unity Event
The Imagine 2018 campaign has only just begun – now that 100 winning essayists have been selected, 10 foremost directors will begin selecting 10 essays to turn into short films.
These films – the visions of Israeli and Palestinian youth brought to life – will be used to inspire people worldwide to envision some of the tangible benefits peace – to empower people to take action, and to ensure that the leadership acts with urgency and commitment to reach a two state agreement which ends the occupation and all forms of violence, and establishes a viable, independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel.
How you can get involved:
Donate – Sign up to the Movement – Forward our videos – Visit our blog & tell us what you think
The OneVoice Teams in Ramallah, Gaza, Tel Aviv, London, and New York
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Imagining Through the Lens of Kids
Khaled Diab wrote a nice article about OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 project, asking Palestinian and Israeli kids to visualize what their lives will look like in 10 years IF a peace agreement is achieved between Israel and Palestine.
Sobering Attitudes correlated to sobering times
Just like on the Palestinian side the call for "resistance" has been strengthening, Israeli views towards negotiations with Palestinians are hardening, according to the latest War and Peace Index conducted by Professor Tamar Hermann. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
Hamas shutting down and arresting civil society leaders
Today was a very bloody day in Gaza, yet the Western media barely reported it, partly because Hamas has blocked them out, so instead of redoubling efforts to cover things, many in the media just move on. In the meantime, apparent infighting within Hamas is being blamed on Fatah sabotage, even though Fatah is pretty much inoperative in Gaza. More alarmingly, Hamas rounded up hundreds of people, not just Fatah-aligned politicians, but also unaffiliated civil society groups. People are terrified and have no recourse - or voice!
Arab Pledges to Palestinians Go Unfulfilled
It’s been a known and disappointing reality that Arab aid to Palestinians is significantly less than aid from the West, but it borders on repulsive that even the committed pledges are not being fulfilled, and all this in the midst of a surge in oil prices that is generating hundreds of billions in windfalls to Arab oil producers.
The Valley of Peace
Some will criticize this as Shimon Peres’s much-discounted "New Middle East" vision, but I love it, and I am confident that if Israelis and Palestinians get their act together and accept the historical compromises necessary to a comprehensive permanent agreement, this will only be the beginning. Check out this vision for the future of the Arava, intersecting Israel, Jordan and Palestine. It fits nicely within OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 Project.
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