The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is probably the most talked about international issue in the UK today, despite persistent attempts to refocus the agenda on atrocities and suffering in Darfur or alleviating poverty worldwide through the G8 Summit. Occupying such a prominent position in British consciousness the conflict is, more often than not, used as an excuse for polarisation, bad relations and hatred between communities- predominantly but not exclusively Jewish/ Muslim - finding particular expression on University campuses.

Growing up in the UK and experiencing first hand the negative effects the conflict has on communal and societal relations, I increasingly questioned where the energy I personally felt around the issue and injustices was best directed. I attended countless demonstrations, seminars and debates but despite the numbers of people and the groundswell of passion that went into them, images on the news remained the same and suffering on the ground in the Middle East continued. Debates were frequently academic dominated by outside opinions and with little reference to what Israelis and Palestinians on the ground actually wanted, which was what I wanted to know, to help.

After I graduated from my masters’ degree at SOAS, I came across an organisation that was enabling Palestinians and Israelis to define their own future. To build a movement out of Israeli and Palestinian mainstream nationalists who would put pressure on their elected governments to achieve a sustainable and viable two state solution. The organisation had trained 2,000 young Palestinians and Israelis in their mid to late twenties (around about my age) to be change agents within their own society. These young people had already recruited and mobilised over 450,000 Palestinian and Israeli citizens who would agree to basic principles for resolution and use non-violent activism as their vehicle for achieving resolution. As a spin off to the work of the organisation were educational tours inviting these young Palestinians and Israelis to primarily American and British university campuses and religious centres to ask those who felt so strongly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to give their energy to helping Palestinians and Israelis on the ground working to find a way out of the conflict.