YOUNG FATEH, LIKUD LEADERS FIND FRIENDSHIP LEADS TO UNDERSTANDING
USIA
11 August 1998
YOUNG FATEH, LIKUD LEADERS FIND FRIENDSHIP LEADS TO UNDERSTANDING
(We have learned how to talk to each other, group says) (1080)
By Rick Marshall
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Those who may be losing hope in the peace process should
take heart from a very special group of young Palestinians and
Israelis. Drawn from the ranks of Fateh and Likud -- hardly
ideological soulmates -- they are discovering that after a year of
getting to know each other, it is indeed possible to get along.
"We have succeeded in overcoming the psychological barriers between
us," Rawan Abu-Yousef, of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of
Planning and International Cooperation, said in a recent interview in
New York City where the group was winding up a two-week tour of the
United States.
"We have learned how to talk to each other."
Ofra Dahari, of Likud's Sderot Branch, first met her Palestinian
counterparts at a meeting in Cyprus last November. "I had no idea what
to anticipate," she said. "Some people said to me that I was not very
normal. But after I got back and described what had transpired, they
saw that it was not so very terrible."
Abu-Yousef's experiences were virtually the same. "When I came back
home from the first trip in Cyprus, my friends said 'Rawan, we
couldn't imagine you were meeting with Likud. What were you doing?'
But I did meet with them and I'm still surviving. They're not devils."
Indeed, after an initial period of uncertainty, the young Israelis and
Palestinians began to find that they had much in common.
"We went out together to have fun," Dahari explained matter-of-factly.
"The result of that was we developed friendships and when we returned
to Israel we met with each other; we visited each other."
Liat Ravner, of Likud's Ramla Branch, participated in the Cyprus
meetings as well as an earlier one in Sweden. Despite having gone to
school with Palestinians, she remembers being "very afraid of them.
There was no confidence or trust between me and them at that first
meeting. We didn't even talk between the sessions."
"Now it's different," she said. "I didn't change my ideology in order
to be friends with them. The confidence and trust I have for them now
is because I know them better. Before I met them, they were only
Palestinians. Now they have names; they have faces."
"Before, we simply faced each other in the streets," Samer Sinijlawi,
the chairman of the Palestinian Council of Young Political Leaders and
the driving force behind the meetings on the Palestinian side,
recalled.
"We communicated through bullets and stones. And now we have decided
that there should be a more civilized, more productive way of
communicating, experiencing our political differences, trying to find
common ground."
"For a lot of time," Sinijlawi continued, "most Palestinians have seen
the other side of Israelis -- settlers, occupiers -- and most of the
Israelis have seen the Palestinians as only terrorists and people
hiding with knives. Through this process, we have humanized the other
side. Now the other side, despite the political gap that is still
separating us, are human beings. I may disagree with them, but yet I
am determined to advocate my views, my political aspirations through a
civilized way through dialogue."
The meetings have been a "major success," according to Uri Aloni, the
chairman of Likud's New Generation group and the man behind the
Israelis' participation in the meetings.
"It is very interesting to note that about four to five years ago it
was possible that I would be chasing my Arab friend because he was
throwing stones and he was one of the leaders of the intifadah and I
was a soldier," Aloni said.
"Today we sit together, we eat together and we're talking together."
By all accounts, it has not been easy getting to this point.
In May 1996, Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister.
When Aloni and Sinijlawi began meeting late that year their hopes to
expand the format met considerable resistance. In fact, the more
radical elements among both Likud and Fateh were openly critical of
the idea.
But, armed with the determination of youth and a sense of the
possible, Aloni and Sinijlawi pushed on. With help from the Swedish
Ministry of Cooperation and the European Community, an initial meeting
was held in Tel Aviv, according to Nasser Qatami of the Palestinian
Authority's Ministry of Youth and Sports who has been an active
participant in the process since that time.
When the Tel Aviv meeting seemed to offer promise, a decision was made
to expand the format and approach the US Consulate in Jerusalem for
support. Thus, Qatami noted, an expanded group meeting was organized
for Cyprus, with a further session to be held in the United States
this summer.
Funded by the U.S. Information Agency and facilitated by the American
Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL), the group met with a wide
range of political and community leaders in Washington, Chicago,
Boston and New York. By the time the tour was ending in late July a
sense of comraderie had developed that was clear for everyone to see.
But few of these young leaders will be satisfied if friendship is the
only result.
"Each of us has got homework to do back home," Abu-Yousef stated. "We
have families, we have friends, we have communities back home. Some of
them support what we are doing and some of them do not. I think that
we've got to come out from this meeting with a message, to deliver a
message back home for those to support us. We should tell them that it
is worthy and we should go ahead, to expand the whole circle."
"We are young leaders on both sides," says Dahari, who plans to write
a series of articles about her experiences in a hometown newspaper.
"Hopefully, as we assume bigger and bigger roles, these contacts we
made here will help us."
Sinijlawi's comments reflect similar sentiments. "I do believe that
this program is a long-term investment," he said. "Certainly we will
see the result when this young generation will be integrated strongly
in the system and have more important positions representing their
governments."
"As young leaders we should not underestimate our role and our power,"
he said, summing up in a few phrases the hopes and optimism the others
seem to radiate.
"The future always starts as a minority."