Our next activities try to look at the issue of youth as agents of change. There are three generations in Palestinian society. One is the traditional nationalistic generation of leaders, still part of the revolutionary culture. It is incapable of building a civil society that will help us as Palestinians to build our society, in terms of economy and democracy. The second generation 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 can't move forward because there is no solution to the political dispute. This prevents them from moving from the revolutionary mentality to the more civil mentality and they are stuck in between the national movement and state-building. This generation sometimes uses violence in order to legitimize their leadership. Because there is a struggle and occupation, fighting the Occupation is perceived as legitimate by the Palestinians - this approach belongs to the revolutionary mentality. I am afraid the third generation will follow the first and the second generations. 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 prevent this. We have to provide this generation with the tools to use their energies positively and not negatively. We can fight and kill the Israelis, they can also kill us, but this will not contribute to building a state and a democratic society.
Rami Nasrallah
18
Civil Society
What are your next activities as an organization?
Our next activities try to look at the issue of youth as agents of change. There are three generations in Palestinian society. One is the traditional nationalistic generation of leaders, still part of the revolutionary culture. It is incapable of building a civil society that will help us as Palestinians to build our society, in terms of economy and democracy. The second generation 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 can't move forward because there is no solution to the political dispute. This prevents them from moving from the revolutionary mentality to the more civil mentality and they are stuck in between the national movement and state-building. This generation sometimes uses violence in order to legitimize their leadership. Because there is a struggle and occupation, fighting the Occupation is perceived as legitimate by the Palestinians - this approach belongs to the revolutionary mentality.1 I am afraid the third generation will follow the first and the second generations. 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 prevent this. We have to provide this generation with the tools to use their energies positively and not negatively. We can fight and kill the Israelis, they can also kill us, but this will not contribute to building a state and a democratic society. In addition, we are also starting dialogue with Israelis who are not left-wing but are more from the mainstream about how to transform Jerusalem into the capital of two countries. Jerusalem should be a city without a wall separating it into two cities. Jerusalem can never achieve international recognition without the Palestinian capital's existence. The more positive relationships we can establish between the two sides, the more effective the international role will be because this city is of importance for all Christians, Muslims and Jews, the Western world and the world as a whole. We are also working on the media's role in constructing the image of the other. How can media play a positive role in implementing change? It is about the public agenda for the Palestinians because the conflict turned us into a society that is incapable of organizing its agenda or priorities. Sometimes we just blame it all on occupation, but we should also work on our internal agenda. Occupation does play a role, but that's not all -this is what we are trying to highlight through media. We are also studying the image that we have of the West, Israel and anyone that falls under the title of "the other." Working on conflict resolution means we have to acknowledge that the conflict is not only political, but also social, economic and educational, regional and local. We need to figure out how to deal with all these conflicts within a single framework. Political conflict could be solved but the educational, intellectual, conflict will continue to exist, so the region should be in synch to be able to work it out. Civil society is one of our largest concerns; we work with a lot of NGOs in Palestinian society in order to consolidate the Palestinians' vision and figure out various scenarios to implement change. Our main concern is our role as Palestinians once the Occupation ends and how to prepare for this.- 1Khaled Abu Toameh wrote about "a sharp dispute between representatives of the grassroots younger generation and veteran Arafat loyalists who returned from Tunis in 1994." Rami appears to be describing the same political division. "Palestinians turn out in droves for municipality elections" Jerusalem Post 5/5/05 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1115259514951