Elcid Asaei, www.demotix.com
With prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deadlocked, it is worth taking notice of the OneVoice movement: a charity aiming to reinvigorate and eventually resolve the long-standing Middle-East conflict. On November 17th, as part of a UK Campus tour, OneVoice held a presentation in University London Union building to promote its aims of “building bridges” between Palestinian and Jewish students, and to connect activists in the UK with those in the region for the cause of peace.
Since it launched in 2002, OneVoice has undertaken a grassroots approach to engage Palestinians and Israelis toward greater public involvement with the peace process. The movement was conceived following the collapse of the Oslo Accords, and since has striven to empower the moderate majority of Israelis and Palestinians to take a more active, assertive role toward resolving the conflict. A look on the OneVoice website indicates that up to 652,672 people have given their support to the movement’s effort to end the conflict once and for all.
On the night of the talk, John Lyndon, the executive director of OneVoice, highlighted and reaffirmed the regional aims to build consensus on the goal of a two-state solution, build a mass grass roots movement and “amplify the voice of the moderates on both sides”. He went on to voice the added urgency to resolving the crisis since the 2008 war in Gaza and how UK campuses could become integral to supporting the OneVoice campaign for peace.
Yet, Lyndon reminded the audience that the polarisation of opinions outside the region have become entrenched and in many cases more extreme than of those people in either Palestine or Israel. “On UK campuses the war in Gaza led to an entrenchment of positions of advocates for either respective side. We aim to reconnect Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israeli activists with the grassroots of those societies so their advocates reflect the will of the people in the region.”
Lyndon added that this reflected part of the strategy “to challenge the myth that ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are not in favour of a just and peaceful solution.” Indeed, a recent poll undertaken by OneVoice showed that 74% of Palestinians and 78% of Israelis were willing to accept a two state solution.
Flanking Lyndon on either side were Dina Jaber and Beata Krants, regional youth leaders who spoke of their aspiration for resolving the conflict. Dina, the Palestinian representative, had a lifetime of stories living under the occupation. She remembered the daily trials of going through checkpoints to reach the University of Birzeit, where on one particular day they arrested one of her colleagues and began beating her with ropes. In the ensuing clashes at the scene, she was injured by a plastic bullet as Israeli soldiers began shooting out. For Dina, a former PLO activist, resolving the crisis was dependent now on “a new generation of ambassadors” who challenged the old preconceptions and were dedicated in the pursuit of “a mutually-settled agreement” to end the occupation.
Beata Krants, her Israeli counterpart, was a passionate Zionist who had worked on the IDF radio service during her national service and has immediate family members serving on the front line. For Dina, the persistent fear and insecurity of suicide bombings and rocket attacks have “chased her mindset”. She emphasise the need for “security” as a goal intrinsic to convincing ordinary Israelis of a two state solution: “It was important for future generations to live without the fear of death”, she said.