PLEASE FORWARD -- So Israelis and Palestinians will phone
one another
Helen Schary Motro ( Motrom@post.tau.ac.il ), an
American writer and lawyer living in Israel, profiles "a one-of-a-kind
social experiment" called Hello, Peace! that facilitates
free-of-cost telephone contact between Israelis and Palestinians as a way to
break through the "soundproof curtain" which has descended between
the two communities in the past two years.
Her story comes through Common Ground News
Service. We urge you to subscribe to it, for creative thinking and
breakthrough activities related to Middle East relations. It's at:
http://www.sfcg.org/cgnews/middle-east.cfm
We have previously reported on Hello
Peace! and have devoted a descriptive Web page, with conversation ideas,
at:
http://traubman.igc.org/call-now.htm
The official Hello Peace!
site is at http://www.hellopeace.net/
.
Here is more good news, measured
since the project's beginning in October 2002.
As of the March 1, 2003, 108,000 phone calls have
been made between motivated Palestinian and Israeli citizens.
It really is -- and needs to be -- The Citizens' Citizens'
Century.
Published 3 March 2003 by Common Ground News Service
(CGNews)
Israelis and Palestinians Break the Sound
Barrier
by Helen Schary Motro
In the past two years a soundproof curtain has
descended on dialogue between individuals in Israel on the one hand and Gaza
and the West Bank on the other. Without the possibility of interchange it is
but a small step to collective demonization of the "other." If
Palestinians and Israelis are linked by anything, it seems to be fear and
mistrust.
Now a one-of-a-kind social experiment has stepped into
the void, attempting to pierce that curtain. Not between politicians. Not
between delegations. Not between professional groups. Not between celebrities.
With supreme - and perhaps naive - faith in the common man, a local group has
come up with a scheme to allow Palestinians and Israelis a first step in
one-to-one contact: simply giving them the opportunity to talk.
The bi-national organization Israeli-Palestinian
Bereaved Parents for Peace constitutes about 400 Israeli and Palestinian
parents whose children have been killed by the other side. Until now its
efforts have been focused on using its members' immense moral credibility to
press leaders for peace. With their tragic credentials, hardly any door remains
closed to them. In addition to meetings and workshops among themselves, the
group has also conducted projects to raise public consciousness. For example,
it has filled Tel-Aviv's biggest square with symbolic coffins to represent the
victims of both sides, as well as undertaking hunger strikes in which each day
another bereaved parent volunteered to fast.
With its new telephone project "Hello, Salaam!
Hello, Shalom! Hello, Peace!", the parents group has initiated a program
audacious in scope yet employing the simplest tool of communication available
to almost everybody: the telephone.
For although Israelis and Palestinians are now unable
to meet in person, telephone lines between them are as open as a conversation
between two girlfriends living in adjacent apartments. Often mobile phones even
have the same area codes.
But how would anybody from either side know whom to
contact within the sea of the other nationality?
Hello, Peace! has established an ingenious matrix for
telephone contact: an automated telephone system through which any individual
can, without charge, talk by phone to a member of the "other
side". It is a grassroots connection of the most basic and immediate
kind.
Callers within Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza dial
*6364 from any telephone. They then have the option of browsing through a list
of names and messages of individuals who have signed up as interested in
receiving phone calls, to date 590 Israelis and 1377 Palestinians. They can
decide to whom to place a call, which is done through the project's system.
Additionally, every caller may create a personalized message box identifying
himself and giving a short greeting, thus enabling another caller to contact
him. The data is further broken down by gender and age, so that a caller can
direct whom he contacts.
When instituted in October 2002, the project was
advertised on billboards, on the radio, in the Israeli press, and in the
Arabic-language newspaper Al Quds. Since then, its existence has spread
by word of mouth. To date over a hundred thousand calls have been made, far
exceeding the expectations of its creators.
Edna, a 66-year-old Israeli living in Beersheba, has
been calling Hello, Peace! regularly. She very much would like to speak to
another woman, but has yet to find a Palestinian woman who speaks English or
Hebrew, and Edna's Arabic is too rudimentary to have a real conversation. Edna
now has two young men with whom she speaks often. At first she was hesitant
to give her age but decided that a 66 year old on the line is a message in
itself. Their conversations are not limited to politics. One man, previously
injured in a car accident, told her he has been treated in the Beersheba
hospital in the past. "If he comes again," Edna says, "I will
definitely go to visit him."
Last year 22-year-old Yaniv finished his Israeli army
service, serving in a combat unit. This winter he has been speaking on Hello,
Peace! "I heard many - at least 10 - say they are against suicide
bombers and support peace. It is important for us Israelis to know there are
Palestinians who feel this way. Because when we see all those pictures on the
TV we think there are no normal people on the other side. And they feel exactly
the same way."
Trying to get through to someone sometimes takes
determination and perseverance. The language barrier is frequently a stumbling
block. Often English is the lingua franca.
Indeed, in the opinion of the project's organizers,
the language barrier is symptomatic of the non-communication of the two
societies in general. Even after there is a human being on the other end, it is
not always easy to break the ice with a stranger and exchange more than
platitudes.
Ahmed from Hebron learned Hebrew during his many years
working in Israel as a building subcontractor, so he was able to freely express
himself to his Israeli counterpart. In fact, Ahmed has spoken with many
Israelis through Hello, Peace!, some of them several times. When he calls he
gives only his first name, as is customary.
When asked if he thinks these calls can help, what
private individuals can actually accomplish by talking together, Ahmed
responds, "It is true, I can do nothing. But Israelis can. Israel is a
democracy. Israel has all the power on its side. The scales are not even.
Israelis are the ones who can make a choice." Ahmed has a message he wants
to convey to Israelis: "To know that we too deserve to live like human
beings."
"Are you working now?" he is asked.
"Not now," he answers. "Now the
situation is terrible."
"So what do you do?"
"What do I do?" he laughs. "I sit at
home and watch television - and I talk on the phone."