Hi,
I know that coming to Palestine isn't exactly a short hop for most (if not all) of you. I still wanted to mention it for anyone that might be interested and have the means. On December 2-3, the Alternative Information Center (AIC) (where I work), together with Health Works Committee (HWC) and the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) are having our second international seminar in Bethlehem, Palestine. This time the subject will be: "Building a Future Together: Alternatives to the Israeli- Palestinian Impasse"
For more specifics on the seminar:
http://alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=40
In August 2003 the Alternative Information Center (AIC), Health Works Committee (HWC) and the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) organized an international seminar in Bethlehem under the title: A Middle East without Wars and Oppression is Possible: An International Seminar on the Palestinian Struggle and Globalisation. Attended by more than 300 people from 23 different countries, this seminar was the first public meeting between Palestinians and Israelis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories following the outbreak of
the second Intifada in September 2000.
Following the success of this seminar, the AIC, in cooperation with the HWC and the ATG, are organizing the second international seminar entitled "Building a Future Together: Alternatives to the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse". This seminar will serve as a platform for the often unheard discussion within and between Palestine, Israel and other countries about possible political solutions. The goal is to search for and formulate the future conditions for just, equal and democratic bases on which a true and lasting peace can be founded.
A singular panel of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals will be participating in this seminar, including Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, Professor Eileen Kuttab of the Institute of Women’s Studies at Bir Zeit University and Dr. Arnon Raz-Krakotzkin of Ben Gurion University.
This is an international seminar because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is first and foremost an international issue. Moreover, addressing this conflict on the basis of justice, humanity and democracy is the mission of all the democratic and progressive powers of the world.
Many projects and agreements in existence, such as the Oslo Process, Geneva Accords and the Road Map, call for a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Yet the peace process still appears to be blocked. This is because all of these agreements attempt to achieve
peace based on unjust and unequal power balances and conditions. Many agreements are doomed from the outset as they leap over the major conflict questions and their primary complications. Focusing on security rather than on politics, the agreements leave the focal issues unanswered: the right of return, the concept of sovereignty, Jerusalem, settlements, the negotiation terms of reference, the nature of the coming Palestinian state and the characteristics of the Israeli state (a state of all its citizens or a state for the Jews?).
From here derives the importance of discussing a political, historical and moral solution to the conflict that will promote both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, releasing them from violence, oppression and exploitation.
* However, is such a solution possible?
* What are the pre-conditions necessary for its success?
* How do the various groups (Israeli,Palestinian and international) perceive these solutions?
This international seminar aims to promote discussion of these questions and to offer several directions for answering them.
-- Bryan Atinsky Editor, News from Within e-mail: bryan at alt-info.org Tel: (972)2-624-1159 P.O. Box 31417, Jerusalem 91313 http://www.newsfromwithin.org http://www.alternativenews.org