How is this peace conference different from all other peace conferences? 3 Ways

The Paris Peace Conference is doing something that no other Middle East Peace conference has done before.... and maybe because of that, this one will work.

I’m here in Paris with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists for a civil society peace conference in advance of next week’s big Peace Conference at the UN in New York led by France and Saudi Arabia. This is a kind of pre-conference conference in which around 1000 grass-roots leaders are working on crafting solutions and proposals that official world leaders can use in order to advance an end to the current disaster in Gaza as well as a long-term solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. (Or whatever we are calling it these days… The War. The Horror. The Mess…..)

This is very exciting, and the women who have been working day and night to ensure equal representation of women/men and Palestinians/Israelis are full of energy and optimism. Special shout-out to Yasmin Geurin of Forum 1325 who has done an amazing job on this. Also shout out to the people of ALLMEP who are pulling off the seemingly impossible. Despite the outrageous (yet typical) yelling and screaming coming out of the White House condemning this event, for the people who are here both physically and ideologically, this is a unique moment of hope and optimism.

I have two items to share with you explaining why this is so important.

One is a conversation I had with my friend and colleague, Amira Musallem, who is my podcast cohost this coming season (premiering next week, on June 17!). Amira is one of the people who is definitely here in spirit but could not be here physically because she is very busy on the ground in real life trying to end the violence. She talks about this work a lot in our conversations. In yesterday’s recording, she explains why the structure of this conference is so important. Take a look:

Transcripts below.

Here is another short video explanation. Take a look (trascript follows):

To summarize: The Three Ways that This Conference is Different:
(1) Grass-roots led
(2) Emphasis on women’s inclusion and diversity
(3) Focus on solutions

Transcript of my clip on 3 Ways This Conference is Different:

Why is this week’s Paris Peace conference so significant?

(1) It’s grass-roots led

This conference is for activists, NGOs, and civil society organizations. Nearly 1000 attendees from civil society will be in attendance – Israeli, Palestinian, bi national, cross-border, shared society, and international activists and organizational representatives. The goal of the conference is for these grass-roots activists to collaborate on building strong and smart proposals to bring to next week’s peace conference at the UN. This is a vital step towards achieving success. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of the Oslo accords is that it was an entirely top-down effort that failed to connect with people and communities on the ground. Research has shown that peace agreements are far more likely to succeed when they are preceded by grass roots activities and connected to the needs and the messages of people on the ground. So now, for the first time, the work of building an Israel-Palestine peace accord is being tightly coordinated with the grass roots. That is a very big deal, and is a crucial step towards making a workable, long-term plan for the region.

(2) It prioritizes partnership and diversity. The planning of this conference has focused very intently on ensuring that there will be a 50-50 representation of Palestinians and Israelis AND a 50-50 representation of women-men. This is a very big deal. First of all, until now, the teams working on issues of war and peace have lacked representation. Throughout this war, there have been no women around the table in negotiations. Also no women on the security cabinet. No women in senior army positions. No women making decisions anywhere about this war – on both sides, by the way. The lack of diversity means that the same people with the same limited thinking from the same narrow viewpoints keep making the same terrible decisions. And we know where that has led us. Violence, war, dehumanization, bombardment – as if these are the only ways to resolve anything. They are not, and this narrow, flawed decision-making has kept us in this horrible mess. And representation matters. We know this. People need to be represented in order for their needs and perspectives to be heard and met. Otherwise, what’s the use. We need the expertise of people who think differently, who can discuss creatively. The people and organizations coming together prioritize diversity. ALLMEP, one of the key behind-the-scenes organizers, represents 170 diverse organizations from all sides of the conflict. Also Forum 1325 prioritizes diversity, especially women’s diversity. Because we know that when diverse women are around the negotiating table, the ideas being discussed have a 30% higher chance of becoming a real peace deal – a lasting, sustainable peace accord.

(3) It focuses on solutions, not preconditions. This conference is all about solutions. The whole point is for us to get together before the world leaders convene next week in order to be able to present viable solutions. We so often hear, “There is no solution”, or “There are no partners”. The people coming together at this conference have already built viable partnerships and have spent years working out details for solutions. Organizations like A Land for All, or All its Citizens, or The Federalist Forum of Challenge – these and many other organizations have been crafting viable solutions. And not just the two-state solution. At Forum 1325, we present at least four different viable solutions – the two-state solution, a binational state, a Federalist system, and a confederation. Our experts can talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Ultimately, the solutions are out there, the partners are out there. And at this conference, world leaders are finally listening. BEFORE they sit down with each other.

For these three reasons – the grass-roots leadership, prioritizing diversity and partnership, and the centrality of an array of real solutions – this conference is paving the way for success and implementing a viable, long-term vision for the region that will make life livable in this land for all those who call this place home.

C’est tout. Au revoir! See you in Paris!

Transcript of my conversation with Amira Musallem:
Amira (00:01)

Hello, Shalom! How are you? I'm good, thank you. Yes!

Elana (00:01)

Okay. ⁓ Salam. ⁓ Mahaba. I'm good Amira. How are you? Alan? Yeah? Yeah.

How's things going? Crazy, crazy times.

Amira (00:14)

Crazy times, yet very, I'm very hopeful. Like I have lots of hope in my heart and especially for the event that is happening in Paris. Unfortunately, I will not be joining though I was invited. Yeah, because in three days we will have our first cohort for the unarmed civilian protection and they are coming and so.

Elana (00:41)

Wow.

Wow.

Amira (00:43)

You know,

I'm the head of the mission, so I have to be around. And I couldn't just like, yeah, divide myself into two places, though I know the Paris summit is very important, but I know that really good people are going. I know from many organizations, many of my colleagues, Israelis and Palestinians are going. So I trust, I trust them so much. Good people are going, honest people, people who want to, yeah, to end this.

Elana (00:47)

Sure.

Sure.

Amira (01:12)

craziness, end this injustice, end this apartheid and maybe have a real solution this time, hopefully.

Elana (01:13)

Yes.

Yeah.

I hope so.

Yeah, my flight leaves in a few hours after this call. I'm going to finish packing and get on. I love that you said that there are lots of really good people going, a lot of really good people. The women from Forum 1325 and the people from AllMEP and the people from Land for All. You know, these are like the people doing... And people like you, Amira, I mean, you're here doing the real work on the ground. And it's so, so important that people like you who are there, who are living this...

Amira (01:30)

Yes.

There are many, many, others.

Yes.

Elana (01:49)

You're

like living the work of peace building. Your voices need to be there. So this feels new. mean, is it new? Is this new, this idea that the grassroots people are planning for the peace conference?

Amira (02:01)

Yes,

I think it is new because in the past I have never heard of something like this. It was always blah, blah, blah, just talking and meeting and nothing is happening, like real action. But now I think like, yeah, one step forward to real work. ⁓ And this summit is going to bring the voice of grassroots that was never heard actually.

Elana (02:27)

Never

heard. Yeah, was never heard. Yeah.

Amira (02:28)

Like our leaders never involved us in making decisions. They are like making

decisions on our behalf and some of them they don't even know what we are living. They are living in their like lala land and like luxurious life while people like us are living on the ground with everything that is going on. So I think this grassroots summit is going to be really inshallah something.

Elana (02:40)

right.

Amira (02:58)

that will come out of it.

Elana (02:58)

Different.

really, I really hope so. I think that what you're talking about is also connected to the gender thing a little bit. It's about like the exclusion of people who just become invisible. We're just like so often objects, you know, and our real lived experiences and our real lives and our values are just not part of it. It's very top down, imposing. We know it's right. And so we're, and that's why it hasn't worked. I mean, we hear this all the time on the, on the podcast. think we've talked about it a few times that like we hear all the time that the reason why

Amira (03:26)

Yes.

Elana (03:28)

Oslo didn't work was because it was so disconnected from the ground. Is that true? Yeah.

Amira (03:32)

Exactly, exactly,

exactly. And you can see that actually, and I'm sorry to say that, in Oslo. And Oslo was imposed on us. Nobody asked the Palestinian people who were living it, nobody asked them what do they think about Oslo. The Palestinian Authority came from abroad and they were imposed on us. We welcomed them because we thought they are carrying the same dreams and the same...

Elana (03:46)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amira (03:59)

But then we were shocked with Oslo and how it was like signed, like nothing for the Palestinian people. Oslo was all about apartheid, know, starting from the West Bank, like a partition of the West Bank to area A, area B, area C, to the water resources, to the economics, to the borders. Like everything wasn't for a real solution.

Elana (04:07)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amira (04:29)

Actually, it was not a good solution. Oslo was our disaster, I think, for the Palestinian people. Not I think, I hear my people talking about it and everybody talks like this about Oslo, unfortunately.

Elana (04:33)

Yeah.

See, I'm also, yeah, no. Yeah, yeah.

So it's interesting that you talk about like the solution of separation because since Oslo, a lot of other solutions have been developed, again, on the grassroots by all these different organizations like a Land for All, you know, among others. And a lot of these solutions are not.

the standards two-state solution, are sort of a lot of variations. There's the federal system, the Confederate system, and the binational. There are lots of different, and those solutions have been coming from the ground, not from top down. And so I think one of the tensions going into this conference is whether they're gonna stick to the two-state solution. Like I think that some of the planners might have been coming, because the name of the conference is, we're pushing the two-state solution.

And through the planning process, like all these organizations are coming and saying, hello, you we've been talking about lots of other possibilities. And so we're going to, yeah, that's okay. Yeah.

Amira (05:35)

Yeah, but I'm sorry to interrupt you, but let me tell you, the two-state solution

that was imposed on us since forever doesn't have details. Like it really doesn't have, like it's not clear what does it mean to state solution. So with all these minds coming, going together to this summit, with all these ideas, with all these solutions, we might get to the real two-state solution, not the one that everybody was talking about it without knowing what does it mean.

Elana Sztokman (05:43)

Yep.

Amira (06:04)

You know, so now the grassroots and my hope from these people who are going to this summit to put the real steps toward the two-state solution. Then if we manage to get to a two-state solution, then we can talk about so many other solutions. But first we need one solution. And the first solution is the two-state because it's the more realistic one for now, you know, for all the status quo that is going.

Elana (06:22)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amira (06:34)

Then we can talk about federation, confederation, whatever you need. But now let's talk about a simple solution, two-state solution on the borders of the 67, that's it. That's the most logical solution now. For me as Amira, as Amira Masalam, not as a Palestinian, as Amira. I'm not with a two-state solution. I dream of one country for everybody. But I know that this is not realistic right now.

Elana (06:50)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Amira (07:03)

There's a lot of work to be done before getting to one country for everybody, one homeland. So that's why until we get there, we need to prepare the grounds for one country to make reconciliation, to bring back people together, to build trust between both people because ⁓ we lost a lot. We lost a lot of trust. We lost a of...

Elana (07:04)

It might be.

Mm hmm. Right.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, Allah.

Amira (07:33)

Lots of our heart, we lost it in all these years that have...

Elana (07:35)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also lost optimism, lost hope, lost vision a lot. So many, so many things lost. So maybe this conference, even if it doesn't come up with a perfect solution, I think it's, it hasn't already has, has an uplifting effect, you know, because like, especially now over the last 20 months, especially like there's been so much, you know, horribleness and like now people are like looking towards a thing like, we have something to like hang onto, like some kind of step to

Amira (07:53)

Yes.

Elana (08:08)

lift us out of all of that, you know, yeah.

Amira (08:09)

Yes, and so,

yes, inshallah, all these people who are going there to shout, to scream and tell them, we want this, we want a solution. Enough is enough, enough of blood. I don't want to love my Israeli neighbor now. I don't want to love them. Just give us a solution to build something, to build a solid ground.

Elana (08:13)

Inshallah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep

Amira (08:37)

that then we can do all the kind of like dialogue and love each other and eat hummus at the end of the day together, you know? So, yes, so inshallah, I hope something good will come out of this. Good luck, Elana, I trust you all. I'll be with you all the time. can maybe... Exactly, exactly. So, yes.

Elana (08:53)

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be chatting with you. Yeah. We'll chat along the way. That would be great. I'll keep you

posted what's going on and we'll talk to each other from Paris to Bejela. Okay. I'm going to.

Amira (09:07)

Comment allez-vous? Bonjour. Yes, and

please eat lots of croissants for me. I love croissants.

Elana (09:21)

So

eat croissant and good luck with your new program. It's exciting and I'm so happy for you. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. All right, my friend, see you. See you, bye, bye. Thank you, bye.

Amira (09:24)

Thank you. I will let you also be updated on that. ⁓

Okay, see you. Bye, take care. Have a safe trip. Bye bye.

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