By Michael Felsen
BOSTON, Massachusetts: Can the youthful energy, passion and idealism that fuelled the Arab Spring and the Israeli social justice protests salvage the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians?
Judging from the voices heard at a multi-generational gathering in Geneva two weeks ago, there is reason to believe they can.
On Nov. 22, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey hosted a conference of Israelis and Palestinians to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the Geneva Accord, the ground-breaking agreement crafted by prominent members of Palestinian and Israeli civil society to serve as a model for resolving all facets of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The accord was developed by the Geneva Initiative, a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort aiming to provide a road map for peace.
The Nov. 22 conference, dubbed “Geneva Initiative 2.0” featured Geneva Initiative founders Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Justice Minister. French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy; Hossam Zaki of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Israeli Knesset members from the Shas, Kadima and Labour parties; and several prominent Palestinian activists and opinion leaders were also guests at the conference. But just as importantly, it was attended by a cohort of young Israelis and Palestinians.
President Calmy-Rey told the delegates that “eight years have not been enough to convince leaders that peace is not only desirable but also achievable” and that “we are counting today on a new generation to drive the peace effort forward” — especially in the wake of Israel’s summer social justice protests and the Arab Spring. A young Israeli who picked up that cue was Vicki Idzinski, a Russian Jewish immigrant to Israel who had joined the protests last July.
She spoke of how she and other Russian Jews — often viewed as “right-wing” — found themselves speaking about economic issues, housing and human rights. Before they knew it, they were asking questions about the peace process, wondering why so many politicians are “only occupied with hatred” and aren’t “solving real problems”. As she saw it, the “silent majority woke up”, realized that “we need to dream about peace and equality” and beyond that demand it. “If we don’t do it, nobody will do it for us,” she insisted.
Similar sentiments were expressed by a young Palestinian woman named Tami Rafidi. Filled with indignation prompted by years of living under occupation, she spoke passionately about the role of youth in “making the impossible possible”. Demanding recognition of the right to self-determination through establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, she echoed the basic two-state principles of the Geneva Accord. Like Idzinski, her Israeli counterpart, she spoke of dreams, “of white lilies, of a song-filled street”. And then she imagined: “Connect light to light to light and join the lights together of the one billion young people in the world today. We will be enough to set the whole planet aglow.”
The fresh, poetic intensity of these young people was matched by the time-tested but no less fervent perspectives of Geneva Initiative founders Beilin and Rabbo.
When a member of the audience suggested that two states are not the answer, Beilin insisted that there is no alternative. Israelis and Palestinians, he vowed, must inevitably grasp that the solution cannot lie in the satisfaction of their own side’s national interest alone: both sides’ national aspirations must be fulfilled.
And Rabbo echoed that view: “To hell with all scholars, whoever they are, who predict that the two-state solution is impossible.” Acknowledging the ever-increasing obstacles to two viable states, Rabbo agreed with Beilin that there is, nonetheless, no other acceptable answer.
As the conference session drew to a close, he chastened those who say otherwise, reminding the naysayers on both sides that they don’t know the price their people will pay if “two states” becomes impossible. Certainly, he and Beilin believe, a price far too high.
The conference reminded us that with imagination, tenacity and a deep understanding of the need for both sides to make difficult but essential compromises, the architects of the Geneva Accord built a viable two-state framework for peace. But it also delivered another crucial message: that it now falls on a new generation of Israelis and Palestinians — those like Vicki and Tami with the heart and courage to accept the challenge — to help complete the job.
Michael Felsen is an attorney and is on the board of Workmen’s Circle in Boston, Massachusetts, a 110-year old communal organization dedicated to secular Jewish education, culture and social justice. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews), www.commongroundnews.org.
