OneVoice Movement

WATCH: OneVoice activists share why they joined the movement

2012-05-14T17:28:20-04:00

New York, May 14, 2012—Marking the 10th anniversary of the OneVoice Movement, some of OneVoice Palestine's most senior youth leaders - activists who have shown their dedication to the two-state solution, who have engaged Palestinians in town hall meetings and creative campaigns, and who have met with Palestinian politicians - answer the question, 'Why did I join OneVoice?'.

We want to know why YOU joined the movement! Share the stories of how you became involved with OneVoice and why you believe in the two-state solution with us on Facebook and Twitter. OneVoice is made up of individuals - but all of our voices, taken together, make a movement! Add your voice.

ACT NOW: Raise American support for the Arab Peace Initiative

2012-05-03T17:22:56-04:00

New York, May 3, 2012—The International Engagement Program (IEP) launched a call to action last month, asking Americans to support OneVoice activists in Israel and Palestine by engaging their own politicians to revive the Arab Peace Initiative. ACT NOW.

Exactly 10 years ago, the 22 Arab League member states came together in Beirut to propose a peace plan to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab Peace Initiative offered a comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It represented an abrupt about-face, from the League's refusal to engage with Israel to the potential for a new era of regional stability and cooperation. While not an end-point for negotiations, the document sets a positive new starting point.

Unfortunately, Israel never accepted the Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for peace discussions.

The timing of the call to action coincides with parallel campaigns taking place in Palestine and Israel, both of which have the Arab Peace Initiative as their focal point.

Using social media, community programming and appeals to political leadership, OVI and OVP are mobilizing their communities around the regional peace plan. While OVI is raising awareness and demanding a response to this historic opportunity, OVP is using the revitalized discussion about the document to transform popular frustration into a unified call for the two-state solution.

The call to action, unveiled during IEP's recent Southern California tour, is designed to complement these campaigns, using social media to reinsert the Arab Peace Initiative into the American political parlance concerning the conflict. ACT NOW.

Americans are being asked to bombard the social media feeds on Twitter and Facebook of Members of Congress who exert influence on foreign affairs and hold a tremendous responsibility toward resolving the conflict.

Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Subcommittees that focus on the Middle East are being targeted, using the hashtag #EndtheConflict.

Learn more about the Arab Peace Initiative and what you can do to support this historic document and break the deadlock here. UK supporters can also highlight the initiative to their Members of Parliament by visiting ACT NOW UK.

Twitter user @YonahLieberman fulfills the call to action, messaging Senator John Kerry to ask him to support the Arab Peace Initiative.

OneVoice’s Palestinian activists urge Israeli response to Arab Peace Initiative

2012-04-28T16:17:51-04:00

Hundreds of OneVoice youth activists and locals, wearing flag caps of countries supporting the Arab Peace Initiative, released into Israel hundreds of helium balloons carrying the text of the regional peace plan.

Ramallah, April 28, 2012—From a village near Jenin that borders on the 1967 line, OneVoice Palestine youth activists and locals released into Israel hundreds of helium balloons carrying the text of the Arab Peace Initiative on Saturday, drawing attention toward this historic opportunity.

Hundreds of locals, wearing flag caps of countries supporting the regional peace plan, participated in the activity, which was co-sponsored by Jenin’s governor and the municipality, to mark the document’s tenth anniversary. They called on all Israelis to pressure their politicians into accepting the initiative as a framework for serious regional negotiations to achieve the two-state solution and end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jenin Deputy Governor Ahmad al-Qassam, Minister of Prisoner Affairs Ashraf al-Ajrami, Fatah spokesman Mahmoud Labadi, and other municipal officials also attended the headline-grabbing event.

“We're urging the Israeli public to demand from their government a real response to the Arab Peace Initiative,” said Samer Makhlouf, executive director of OneVoice Palestine. “The document has never been withdrawn or rejected by any Arab state, but despite its apparent resilience, we cannot expect it stay on the table forever.”

Unfortunately, Israel never accepted the Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for peace discussions. Among Ariel Sharon’s 14 reservations to the 2003 Road Map, reservation #10 explicitly rejected the Arab Peace Initiative. Since then, it has lain dormant.

“Accepting the Arab Peace Initiative as a framework for serious regional negotiations is a far better approach than outright rejection wrapped in unsupportable assertions that Israel has done everything it can for peace over the past 64 years and the Palestinians have only been obstructionist,” said OneVoice CEO Howard Sumka.

The event is part of OneVoice Palestine's campaign, launched in February, demanding the Israeli government to halt its settlement policy and return to negotiations on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative. From tree plantings in Hebron and Bethlehem and distribution of flyers and bumper stickers across the West Bank, to an online campaign with banners on top local news sites – OneVoice Palestine is creating momentum for the peace plan.

Separately, OneVoice Israel is complementing the effort though parallel action, igniting conversations about the Arab Peace Initiative across their eight university chapters, from Haifa to Sderot. Next month, they will mobilize people in the heart of Tel Aviv, bringing prominent public figures to make soap-box speeches while a giant ice cube containing the Arab Peace Initiative text slowly melts away. Working with the growing Two-State Solution Caucus, they will then deliver their message loudly in the Knesset.

Local and international media covered OneVoice Palestine's Jenin activity marking the tenth anniversary of the Arab Peace Initiative.

From a village near Jenin that borders on the 1967 line, helium balloons carrying the text of the Arab Peace Initiative were released into Israel by OneVoice activists and locals during the media-grabbing event.

OneVoice Israel launches campaign: Netanyahu, will you sign?

2012-04-03T18:31:16-04:00

OneVoice Israel poster, part of their new campaign focused on the Arab Peace Initiative, reads: "Bibi, meet Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, emir of Qatar: In exchange for a divided Jerusalem, he offers us normalization, diplomatic relations, and peace. He calls it the Arab Peace Initiative. So what do you say? Worth it?”

New York, April 3, 2012—OneVoice Israel unveiled a new campaign last Wednesday, intended to highlight the Arab Peace Initiative (API) to the Israeli public and raise it within the political agenda.

Ten years ago at the Beirut Summit of the Arab League, the API was proposed as a regional attempt to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while ending the wider Arab-Israeli conflict as well. It offered a comprehensive and peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The API represented an abrupt about-face in the regional political field: from the Arab League's refusal to negotiate or recognize Israel, the API ushered in a new era in Middle East relations and the potential for regional stability and cooperation.

In a press release published in Hebrew on their Facebook page, OneVoice Israel outlined the intention of the campaign: "The Arab Peace Initiative embodies the spirit of the Arab moderate camp [...] For the past 10 years, successive Israeli governments have refused to address it formally or negotiate based on its content. The Arab Peace Initiative is still alive, though, and we believe that Israel's leaders need to respond to the initiative with a resounding 'Yes'."

The campaign, designed to put the initiative back on the peace-process map, will be unrolled in three phases: the first phase consists of raising public awareness about the initiative and the historic opportunity for compromise it embodies; in the second phase, this awareness will be turned into mass mobilization around the initiative as a means of restarting the fledgling peace process; the campaign will conclude by channeling the public's demands for a government response to the API to Israeli politicians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, said: "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then what is it? That's right, it's a duck — but this duck is a nuclear duck. And it's time the world started calling a duck a duck." The strategic threat a nuclear Iran presents is not the only political issue being misinterpreted; "the Arab Peace Duck," wrote OneVoice Israel Executive Director Tal Harris in an op-ed piece, "has been waiting for Israel for 10 years now. It is time it too receives the appropriate response."

To mark the beginning of the OneVoice campaign, 80 toy "Arab Peace Ducks" were sent to Members of the Knesset and senior media correspondents along with the text of the Arab Peace Initiative — a friendly reminder that a potential partner for peace has yet to be given a real chance.

Playing on Netanyahu's reference to Iran as a nuclear duck, OneVoice Israel inundated Israeli MKs with 'Arab Peace Ducks' and copies of the Arab Peace Initiative to get them to see the API for what it really is: a historic chance for peace.

OneVoice moves to reestablish Gaza presence

2012-04-03T13:07:37-04:00

In coordination with Save Youth Future Society, OVP-Gaza Director Ezzeldin Masri gave an introductory session for 30 university students on Monday in Gaza city.

New York, April 3, 2012—Nearly two years after fleeing with his family, Ezzeldin Masri returned to Gaza in June, armed only with his convictions, to reestablish OneVoice’s presence in the besieged coastal enclave.

The reopening of the office marks a new stage in OneVoice’s history in Gaza, which began in November 2006 with the launch of its first office in the territory. Soon after, Ezzeldin began spreading OneVoice’s message, long known to Palestinians in the West Bank, to the residents of Gaza. Endeavoring to prepare the ground for a comprehensive peace, based on the notion of two states for two peoples, he began hosting town hall meetings across the major cities and in all the refugee camps to promote the two-state solution and discuss the final status issues.

Six months later, though, Gaza underwent an upheaval when Hamas wrested control from the Palestinian Authority. As Hamas cemented its rule throughout Gaza, masked gunmen broke into the OneVoice office and confiscated computers and documents. Discouraged, but not defeated, the OneVoice team continued to work with Gazan civil society and began training students from Al-Azhar University. Their efforts were dealt a final blow when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in late 2008.

"The war was a very scary experience for me,” Ezzeldin writes in letter describing his ordeal, dated June 2009. “Israeli warplanes bombarded the Gaza Strip heavily, as Israeli soldiers invaded my town of Beit Lahia. I had to take my family and flee on foot under heavy bombing toward Jabalia refugee camp. Luckily, the next day with the help of the US Embassy and OneVoice, my family and I left Gaza to Amman.”

From Jordan, it took several months to obtain approvals to move with his family to the West Bank city of Ramallah where, upon arriving, he quickly assumed the role of outreach and development director. Despite his new position, his time in Ramallah was marked by concerted efforts to return to Gaza as soon as conditions allowed. By 2011, OneVoice felt there was an opportunity to reopen the Gaza office.

As OneVoice CEO Howard Sumka explained, a unique confluence of factors provided OneVoice and Ezzeldin a narrow operating space within the changing Gaza social order:

"Although Gaza continues to suffer under the siege, symptoms of which include acute economic deprivations and military incursions, and while rockets continue to be fired into civilian centers in Israel, we took advantage of the opportunity we saw for OneVoice to reopen the dialogue about two states. Arab Spring revolutions were changing the dynamics of the region. The new regime in Egypt was less inclined to cooperate with the Israeli siege, which meant Gazans could move more freely internationally. And, as reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah progressed, Hamas changed the tone, albeit subtly, of its rhetoric regarding Israel and violence. These developments suggested that the environment might be more open to our work."

Ezzeldin reopened the office in late 2011 and has been testing the ground slowly. The results so far, he says, have been encouraging. More than 150 young people have attended informal introductory sessions and a third of them have shown interest in continuing with the OneVoice training program. Read OneVoice’s Q&A with Ezzeldin here.

He spoke with a senior Hamas official, who was receptive to OneVoice Palestine's work to end the occupation, resolve all final status issues according to international law, and establish an independent Palestinian state. He told Ezz that OneVoice's work will become easier once Hamas and Fatah reconcile. Ezzeldin also met with representatives of Fatah, the Popular Struggle Front, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian People's Party, introducing them to OneVoice's mission and programming.

Ezzeldin is building relationships with the 15 March Youth Coalition, Promising Palestinian Generation Society, Al-Azhar University professors, and other civil society members.

"Business people, NGO leaders, and others have been isolated from the outside world and have had no support," said Sumka. "OneVoice will empower them to make their voices heard and to grow their numbers. We are not naïve and understand that we operate in a narrow space defined by the authorities in Gaza. But we can engage young people and train them to be advocates for two states among the people of Gaza."