Coming Together Through Education: P2P Diplomacy in Israel

Two articles on the efficacy of "P2P" (peer-to-peer) diplomacy, taking place outside "official" diplomatic channels and institutions:

In Jerusalem this summer, 100 Israeli and Palestinian students are learning to communicate with the "other" while mastering basic science and business skills.

MEET – Middle East Education through Technology -- http://meet.mit.edu/ -- was youth-created in 2004 by students who dreamed of inventing a "social start-up" to engage youths from both sides.

"I had to fly over oceans to meet people who lived 10 minutes away from me [in Israel]," said Anat Binur, founder and member of the executive board, who grew up in the Israeli town of Herzliya. 

"We created relationships and a feeling that changed the way I looked at the world and my ability to solve problems. It made it very clear to me that we had to create a generation for whom the reality was very different."

Fellow board member Abeer Hazboun, a native of Bethlehem in the West Bank, said the aim was not necessarily to make the students best friends, but to teach them to work as partners. 

"We wanted to create an alternative model for classical conflict resolution and try to bring students who we believe have the potential to be leaders in the future and invest in them, empower them, educate them, provide them with skills of 21st century," Hazboun said. 

"It was a great opportunity in MEET to meet Israelis and see their point of view," said Rawan Abu Lafi, a 16-year-old Palestinian junior from Shuafat, a neighborhood bordering Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah. 

"It was a great opportunity to meet Palestinians," chimed in Adam Ochayon, 17, from the Israeli town of Mevaseret and a fellow participant in the program. 

Participants come from both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem and the Israeli towns of Beit Shemesh and Mevaseret. Those who live outside of Jerusalem reside in campus dormitories in rooms shared by Israelis and Palestinians.

"In the overnight it's a great opportunity to get to know each other," said Ochayon. "It really gets personal. You sleep in the same room. You can't really tell the difference. It doesn't really matter if you are Israeli or Palestinians."

The idea is to teach conflict resolution through computer science and business.  Instructors come from prestigious American technology university MIT, the primary partner of MEET.

"On the first day I walked in and I couldn't tell the difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, but I noticed there were clear-cut groups already and they seemed to be speaking either in Arabic or Hebrew and it was hard to try and figure out how to bring them together," said instructor AnnaPremo.

"But after the first week and they knew each other better and it was easier."

Read more at The Media Line.

Israelis and Palestinians joined forces for a Startup Weekend, to explore the possibilities of developing new technology businesses together.

Joining a worldwide trend, Israel last week hosted its second annual 'Startup Weekend' - an intense event when young entrepreneurs come together to pitch ideas and develop teams for new high-tech projects.  What was different about the Israeli event is that it was attended by both Jews and Palestinians who join an international community of 15,000 entrepreneurs in more than 100 cities around the world.

The July 14 to 16 event was held on the Mediterranean Sea at the new Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa.   The meeting included 20 Palestinians from the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus, out of a group of 150 participants, all in their 20s and early 30s. Watching from the wings were sponsors and angel investors, scouting for the next big thing.

Read more at Israel 21c.

(Hat-tip to Libby and Len Traubman)

Is Your Path The Way Of Peace?

In a world of negativity where it seems that it becomes easy to fall under the shade of war and hostility, there is always peace to brighten up our paths. When we have peace in ourselves, it spreads through our actions and thoughts onto others and thus fixing this planet one person at a time.

Below is a warm article relating the aspects of peace with our personal lives and the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters. Deepak Chopra gives simple tips on how to get a clear outlook on peace in our world today by saying:

If people could achieve satisfaction without destruction, I believe they would. Millions of us want to live without destruction already. Now we are looking for a way to make our will and desire more powerful than war. Fortunately, that isn’t complicated.

For further reading, see the article at Care2.

Spirituality in Business: Teaching Business Students the Alternative to Greed

In Vienna, Austria, business students at the University of Applied Sciences and Technology are getting more than an education in profit-making and corporate management - Dr. Lyly Rojas is teaching them about how to approach business itself from a humanitarian, peace-oriented perspective. From the Ode Exchange:

...Rojas' aim is to make peacemakers of her students by showing them alternatives to adopting the predatory and aggressive nature of the corporate environment. She maintains there is an alternative to the caveman mentality, to the bullying and domination that prevails to maximize profit and get ahead in the business world. Rojas is promoting a culture shift.

"We are in our minds, not in our hearts. We buy clothes made by Taiwanese slaves and chop down 2,000-year-old trees. We don't need more knowledge about problems; we know how to solve them," she explains. "What we need is encouragement that we will prosper without greed."

She gives her students the example of how child slavery relates to the business world; she tells them about the dresses that child slaves make in a far off land and companies sell for €4,000. In response, her students’ develop projects to change this. "Can you imagine how this makes me feel?" she asks excitedly. "Students come from different countries. Some are children of politicians and will have influence when they return home."

Whatever the background and nationality, Rojas explains that students need to learn to get along with each other and deal with conflict in a constructive manner. She provides them with the tools to realize this through assigned tasks; case studies, cross-cultural simulation and group projects, some based on her time with the UN. "Some students refuse to work together because of nationality; men team up against women and some students from former dictatorships ask 'can't we bribe people?'. The experience is about finding a collaborative point," she reveals.

You can read the full article here.