Al Ayyam
Sunday 28 January 2007
from www.al-ayyam.ps
Written by: Yousef Al-Shayeb
Last Thursday evening, a huge number of young activists were gathered in “Al-Makan” restaurant and coffee shop, in the middle of Ramallah city, to participate in one of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) sessions in “Davos”, which gathered more than 2500 global leaders including politicians, dignitaries, business leaders and also the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, through using the satellite technique and the internet network, the youth gathered in Ramallah had the opportunity to listen to their president?s speech live, and also give their own opinions and feedbacks about the session, that was also joined by Tzipi Livni.
What was remarkable in the meeting; that was organized by Onevoice (OV);is that it gave the opportunity to those activists to address their voices to the global leaders, through giving their own opinions to President Abbas and Livini, in order to be discussed next day in a follow up session, and through recorded massages from both Ramallah and Jerusalem presented by ordinary Palestinian people to the World decision makers, calls for ending the conflict and the need to resume negotiations according to the international legislative decisions, to achieve a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as it’s capital, the live broadcasting made them feel as if they were in the famous Swiss Alpine resort of “Davos”.
Nisreen Shaheen the Executive director of One Voice Palestine remarked that this is the first time that the voice of the ordinary Palestinians is reaching the world’s decision makers asking them to work on the peace process in order to achieve an independent Palestinian State. Meantime, from Tel-Aviv a group of Israeli moderates addressed a similar message for their political leaders, asking them to end the occupation and to go back to the Palestinian ?Israeli negotiation table. And she also insisted on the importance of raising the voice of the moderates despite of all the extremist direction that both sides are following, and she says” whenever, the bad situation is increasing, it makes our effort doubled in order to encourage the moderate voices, which may also get affected with extremism, because of the speed growing of the violence circle” mentioning that there are some leaders in “Hamas” that are showing turning points in their thoughts towards accepting the international legislative decisions which was based on a Palestinian State in the 1967 borders “.
And she also added that one of the important messages that is addressed by OVP activists is denouncing the bloody clashes and the lack of law and order and anarchy of arms.
But in this event they concentrated on ending the occupation and a quick peace process solution that ends up with a Palestinian state, and she insisted that ” Onevoice” isn’t a peace and love organization on the contrary it concentrates on ending the Palestinian ?Israeli conflict according to the international legislative decisions, and she added ” we are a non-partisan organization and the evidence for this is our participation in the last year elections concentrated only on motivating the people to vote”.
At the same time, Dr. Fathi Darwish the General Director of OneVoice-Palestine, insisted on the non-stop effort for ending the occupation and he also assured with other participants about the importance to raise the voice of the Palestinian people, specially the young generation.
And about this subject, Issa Saba; a university student said:” I am very happy for having the opportunity to make the global leaders hear my voice ?. It’s a very important opportunity for me and many other youth to participate in influencing the world’s decision makers ? I think that the significance of participating in “Davos” from Ramallah, isn’t less important than participating in the elections, which plays a role in deciding my future and destiny.
Dalia Ibrahim didn’t add anything different than Saba; on the contrary she assured the importance of this event because it’s the first time that such an opportunity is given to the Palestinian youth to express themselves, in an international forum such as Davos ” I think it’s a historical event for us, particularly that this chance has never been given to others, we express the Palestinian moderates voice, those who are outside the decision making circle, especially the youth, even if we didn’t affect the world leaders, at least we had the opportunity to say what we want without restrictions.”