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Palestinians & Israelis Take Matters into Their Own Hands

Israeli – Palestinian Public Negotiating Congress in Almog Junction
April 10-11, 2014

Location map of the Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) Equirectangular projection, N/S stretching 115 %. Geographic limits of the map: N: 32.7° N S: 30.9° N W: 34.0° E E: 35.8° E (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Israeli and Palestinian leaderships apparently do not have a working strategy to cope with their conflict. So, the time has come for the two peoples to take matters into their own hands!

On April 10-11, 2014 an Israeli delegation, a Palestinian delegation and an audience will negotiate solutions to the conflict. Each delegation will include 10 representatives from all walks of life – Israeli generals, Palestinian commanders, Israeli settlers, Palestinian ex-prisoners, academics, business people, and students – reflecting the entire political spectrum.

The congress is co-chaired by Dr. Sapir Handelman an Israeli who received the Peter Becker Award in Peace & Conflict Studies; and Mr. Ibrahim Enbawi a prominent Palestinian leader in East Jerusalem. The chairmen have five sessions to lead the public assembly to reach peace agreements.

This event is another important step towards the establishment of a major Israeli-Palestinian Public Negotiating Congress with political power. The congress is designed to involve the people in the peacemaking efforts and motivate the leaderships to conclude agreements.

Schedule:
Friday, April 11, 2014
Almog Junction – on the Road to Jericho Thursday, April 10, 2014
Almog Junction – on the Road to Jericho
9:30 Opening session
10:00 – 12:00 First Session
10:00- 12:00 Fourth Session 13:00- 15:00 Second Session
13:00- 15:00 Fifth Session 16:00- 18:00 Third Session

The Minds of Peace Organization has, so far, led 25 Israeli-Palestinian public negotiating congresses around the US and Canada, and in Israel and Palestine. In nearly all of the congresses, the delegations succeeded in reaching peace agreements. This is an astonishing result because the various delegations included people with widely different political views and from all walks of life. However, as the initiative began to grow and attract more attention the congresses became more challenging.

The last congresses that took place in the Mashbir Plaza, Jerusalem (October 2013) and in Ramallah (January 2014) demonstrated one of the symptoms of intractable conflict: every effective peacemaking initiative is going to increase the level of violence. In west Jerusalem violence was caused by extremist Jews; in Ramallah violence was caused by extremist Palestinians.

The congress at Almog Junction in April 10-11 intends to create a momentum for a much bigger congress that is going to be in a central place very soon. We are not going to let extremists dictating conditions for the rest of the people!

For more information:

Tamara Bercovich, “Minds of Peace”
mindsofpeace@hotmail.com, peace.public@gmail.com

Tamar Weisser, director of PR, Lotan Communications
Fax: 972-3-5667030; tamar@lotan.org.il

END

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Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News

RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.

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