Peace Initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians

The Peres Center for Peace — was founded in 1996 in Tel Aviv.

Their vision is people of the Middle East region working together to build peace through socio-economic cooperation and development.
The means is extensive people-to-people engagement, communication, cooperation and creativity. Their first pillar is people-to-people dialogue and interaction among partnered Arabs and Jews.

They have an extraordinarily wide array of different programs to engage civil society leaders through shared platforms, empowering them to serve as "agents of change" in their respective communities and together.
Their diverse activities are in the arenas of Education, Academia, Politics, Healthcare, Community Leadership, Sports and Professional Exchange.

Be assured that there are more-than-we-know NGOs like this who cross borders and oceans to bring the public peace process to life as never before in history.
"We, the civil society players, will continue to do our utmost to foster the dialogue and cooperation," e-mails director general, Ron Pundak ( Pundak@peres-center.org ).
"There is no other option for the benefit of the two sides."
As this 2008 begins, appreciate what this one Center is contributing to life.

PeaceMaker —

This new computer game fosters education and deeper understanding of the relationships and different roads to take, unilaterally or together.
It allows a player to take on the role of either Palestinian or Israeli decision makers while making decisions to correct challenging conflicts, even emergencies
THE PERES CENTER and ImpactGames distributed 80,000 copies of "PeaceMaker" to subscribers of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz and Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds Daily.
This activity helps everyone better understand and have empathy for the pressures and constraints of the "other side."

Twinned Peace Kindergarten —

The 2007-2008 academic year began with 180 Palestinian and Israeli children participating weekly in a bilingual motor skills development program.
Jointly presented by the Peres Center and the Israel Tennis Center, this includes youngsters aged 4 to 6 years from six different communities within and surrounding Jerusalem.
These children meet weekly as participants in a joint sport program, Peace Education activities of recreation and culture sharing.
Youth from both "sides" meet and interact with their counterparts from across the divide, within the framework of a safe and friendly program.
Already over 1,000 Palestinian and Israeli youngsters from East and West Jerusalem have been reached by the "Twinned Peace Kindergartens" program.

Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, 2007 —

A network of Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. Their new Web site has been launched.
The Forum works toward peaceful relationships, with more than 100 organizations validating and reinforcing the importance of citizen NGO initiatives to be creative both independently and mutually.

Entrepreneuring Peace —

Helping to establish the Palestinian Shippers' Council has helped improve and develop the Palestinian private sector, a necessary step for equal and balanced relations between Israeli and Palestinian businesses.
For this THE PERES CENTER was one of three winners for the CHANGEMAKERS collaborative competition "Entrepreneuring Peace."
The project, "Palestinian-Israeli Private Sector Dialogue, through the Establishment of a Palestinian Shippers' Council and Strengthening of the Palestinian Private Sector" was honored based on impact, innovation, and sustainability.

Changemakers —

Open sourcing social solutions is focused on the rapidly-growing world of social innovation, provides an overarching intellectual framework for collaborative competitions, bringing together individual social change initiatives into a more powerful whole.

These are a small fraction of the diverse cultural, education and especially economic endeavors across borders initiated by the THE PERES PEACE CENTER.

Please visit the Website http://peres-center.org to appreciate how many of their projects bring together Israeli, Palestinian and other Middle Eastern citizens to discover new relationships, business cooperation, and social intelligence.

These kinds of success stories are preserved at http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm
Simply Google "Jewish Palestinian Messages" or read the next page. Such human victories show that engagement, good communication and creativity will transform conflict into cooperation. 

Peace is not so wild a dream
as those who profit from postponing it pretend

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