« Thematic Highlights

Leadership/Empowerment

Yana Knopova
Coalition of Women For Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Ensuring someone else is able to do something is an obligation and an important role. They should lead the process themselves. I think that by enabling the process and by assuming we haven't got all the answers we are demonstrating leadership. Leadership comes in many forms; there are various kinds of leadership. Personally, and I hope this is true for the Coalition today, we don't believe that leadership is about claiming to have the truth and imposing our way. It's enabling other groups to present their position or stance, their truths. Maybe they will be leading us, who knows.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Khulood Badawi
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Ta'ayush, Coalition of Women for Peace, Bat Shalom Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ As Palestinians inside Israel we have a big roll in the conflict and should be the link between the two sides. We should be more active because we are part of a society that struggles for its freedom and at the same time we are citizens of Israel. We enjoy the geographical position and the unique possibility to be part of a pioneering leadership for a better future and real peace. We speak two languages and have two voices.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Wafa Srour
The School for Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ It was only when I became aware of the fact that I was being oppressed that I was able to start resisting it. The same thing applies to the struggle of women; the moment that I realized that I was not born weak, but rather that society had forced me into a weak position, I could start fighting for my rights. […] Once we become aware that there are people living under occupation, we can work to end it. This is our work; it is centered on consciousness-raising. Change, however, will not be achieved easily or quickly. Ideas that are deeply ingrained - the ideas on which people have been raised -cannot be uprooted overnight.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Michal Eskenazi
Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Young professionals are young people who have attained respectable positions, mostly due to their leadership abilities. At YIFC we claim that although they have achieved a lot for their age, it hasn’t amounted to that much, broadly speaking. These leaders are in the outer circles; for example, assistants to members of parliament. Occasionally, you hear of people who became members of Knesset at a very young age but usually you don’t. There isn’t a tendency to welcome young people [in politics], quite the contrary. So these people work as parliamentary assistants or student union leaders and relative to their age they are successful, but we believe that there is much more to be desired. These people are very open, they are creative and flexible thinkers and have fewer commitments than they will have ten years from now [...] We believe that these [young] leaders are situated between civil society and decision makers.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Adina Shapiro
Middle East Children's Association (MECA) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ If we say that skills of leadership would include being able to see a broader reality than what is right in front of your eyes, that’s one thing that a leader needs and that would be something that teachers need, but also the ability to cope with changing times, the different perspectives, and the messages that have to come across, not the political messages [...] Besides having the knowledge, you have to have the skills to do something with that knowledge and the communication skills to get that message across [...] I think that that is a very important task of a leader, and definitely of a teacher, and people who are working with young people today. We can see into the future, you can have a vision. There can be a time when things are different for us as people, for our region, for you as children, for us as Israelis, or as Palestinians.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ We keep thinking about occupation and its consequences, but we don't think about the ways that we can change it. For example, if Sharon got crazy one day and decided he was going to give us the West Bank and Jerusalem back, what would we do with it? This is our main concern: what is our role as Palestinians once occupation is over and how can we be prepared.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ibrahim Issa
Hope Flowers School Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ [In] my opinion, it starts with the child's empowerment here in school. Also getting to your inner self, knowing exactly what you need and what bothers you, and what you want and what you don't want. But also to feel your inner fever that you are free to choose and free to take responsibility, and taking responsibility is the most important thing in empowerment.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Helmi Kittani
Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Thirty students, Jews and Arabs [in a joint business program], live together and begin to build ideas. They say that this place can become the Garden of Eden. We must build a common Middle East business leadership. They believe they will be the foundation. We also believe that they will be the foundation because they serve as a good example. Today they can convey to the Jewish people in Israel, to the Arabs in Israel and to the Palestinians that it is possible to live together, that we can understand each other. Despite the difference, it is possible to respect each other and still understand that others are different but that I can live with them, I can learn with them, and I can establish businesses with them and everyone will profit from that. And I think that if we succeed in conveying this message to the Palestinian and Israeli leaders we can break down the barriers and help foster trust and the creation of a true and righteous peace in the region.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Dialogue with Israel should be based on Palestinian interests. When the Israelis initiated meetings in Europe that were funded by the Europeans, the Palestinians sometimes didn't understand the intent of the meetings and we didn't ask ourselves the right questions about the relations with Israelis. We were literally followers. This creates extremely negative reactions. Part of the people become "traitors" who work for Israel and part become nationalists who are against normalization. Can I free anything from Israel if I don't meet with the Israelis? I can't. The idea for the creation of the IPCC was the creation of a Palestinian agenda, for the issues of peace, development and social and economic mobility.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ If you are an architect you should know how to use architecture to create change. If you come from the field of communications and media, you should know how to use your profession as a tool for change. The same is true for all the other professions. We are trying to bring all the young Palestinians together in order for them to establish their own agenda for change.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Riyad Faraj
Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ We did not go there [to meet with Israelis in the Bereaved Families Forum] to compliment the Israelis or to complain to them. We went there so that their voice would be louder to their government--to let us have a good life, and to convey that it is our right to live. We also wanted to tell them that we are not here [at a seminar in a hotel in Jerusalem] to escape our stressful lives, but because we are looking for a better life for our children.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Adina Shapiro
Middle East Children's Association (MECA) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Providing the children with the skills to cope with the difficult reality and assume responsibility rather than blame and hopelessness and despair is something that is in our interest. And being able to see a more complex reality is in the interest of each side. So the way that we see it, and we emphasize it a lot, is that this is a self-serving project.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Wafa Srour
The School for Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ If I am weak, then I will not achieve a thing. I must become more powerful in order to make change. This is not a lesson, as much as it is a given. I cannot expect a tyrant and an occupier to act humanely all of a sudden: to apologize and ask to make amends. I wish it were that easy, but it's not. So the lesson we learn is that we must increase our own strength. It is similar to marriage; men will never understand women's concerns unless women reveal them. This can be difficult and even excruciating, but this is the way things are.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ [We] try to look at the issue of youth as bearers of change. There are three generations among Palestinian society. One generation is the traditional nationalistic generation of leaders. This generation still has the revolutionary culture; it is not able to build the civil culture that will help us as Palestinians to build our society, economy and democracy. The second generation is the one that lived under the Israeli occupation. This generation is aware of democratic values but is still influenced by the traditional leadership, because there is no political solution. They are reluctant, in a way. They can't move forward because there is no solution to the political dispute. This causes them not to move from the revolutionary mentality to the more civil mentality. They are stuck in between the national movement and state building. This generation sometimes uses violence in order to provide legitimacy to their leadership. Because there is a struggle and occupation, fighting the occupation is a legitimate act by the Palestinians. This approach belongs to the revolutionary mentality. There is a third generation that I am afraid will follow the first and the second. I am afraid they will not be able to think about the future, and will use the same methods as the first and second generations. We have to avoid this. We have to provide this generation with the tools to use their energies in a positive way, not a negative one. We can fight and kill the Israelis, they can also kill us, but this will not contribute to our state building and social democracy building.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Adina Shapiro
Middle East Children's Association (MECA) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I would like to see a reality where every school is a place that can encourage and raise responsible citizens that see themselves as people that can contribute to building society. To see that play a significant role in a peaceful negotiation, eventually filtering down between the two peoples and allowing us not to live nonviolently side by side. For the next generation to be able to take on the challenges that are ahead of them in these changing times is something I think the educational institutions can provide some kind of guidance for.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Professor Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ We cannot say that this project, by itself, will lead to peace. Grassroots work - the development of this and other people-to-people projects - is necessary, but not sufficient for the achievement of peace. A political decision or agreement can be implemented from the top down, but in order for peace be to transformed from a political decision to a reality, people must follow it. For this reason, we need both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms to function together and reinforce one another.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Nasser Laham
Maan News, Bethlehem Television Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you won't find them on my program, nor will you find ideas for short-term strategies. From my show, you will acquire ideas that change you into a responsible person, into a leader.”  [Source in Complete Interview]