For now, the prospect of reaching a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a remote possibility. However, while many feel sheer despair, the present moment is also an opportunity to revisit what has gone badly wrong over more than 30 years of attempts to reach a lasting peace between the two sides.
There is little doubt in my mind that, while the architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords on both sides were committed to the necessary compromises required to reach a final status agreement, they failed to achieve this because they believed in an “elite peace.” In their focus on pushing forward the peace process, they neglected the need to build a critical mass of support for this long and hazardous journey through closely collaborating with a civil society that could spread the message of peace far and wide.
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And there is the 30-plus years of dedicated work by Seeds of Peace, which has brought together thousands of young people from conflict zones, many of them from Israel and Palestine, to interact with one another away from home and in a safe space. This allows them to develop trust, respect and empathy, and, most importantly, become lifelong friends and messengers of peace in their communities upon their return.
Read the rest of Yossi Mekelberg’s article in the Arab News ››