Boycotting the OneVoice Summit?
OneVoice Palestine has recently been attacked by a new campaign by disgruntled people (apparently funded out of Lebanon) who believe the OneVoice Summit should be boycotted.
Some of our staff and friends got emails urging them to boycott the efforts of OneVoice Palestine - they all came from someone in Lebanon who claimed that our mobilization of moderate voices to call for an end to the conflict across both sides is an effort at normalization rather than at ending the occupation.
A couple weeks ago, on the other side, we also heard boycott calls from an extremist Jewish American group that plans to protest our Washington DC event and claimed OneVoice Israel was a tool of appeasement betraying Jewish values.
This is not the first and will not be the last time that violent extremists and radical absolutists from either side will try to undermine the OneVoice Movement.
Indeed, the more we grow and threaten these extremist visions, the more they will try to undermine our call to empower mainstream nationalists on both sides to break the shackles that violent extremists have placed on our world for too long.
But OneVoice is built and engineered not just to withstand that, but to use those attacks to expose radical extremists, absolutists and fatalists who claim they are "for peace" but who realistically prefer eternal warfare to compromise. Let's call the bluff on anyone who says they are "for peace" but don't want to accept the other side has a right. Let them be honest and at least say, "we are not for peace, we want it all, or war."
There are only two options: a) Two States for Two People, or b) Continued Conflict.
People need to make a choice.
Are they going to stand up and be counted and help us build the critical mass to unleash the power of moderation - or are they going to be silenced by violent extremism?
As OneVoice continues growing, it will be the subject of more criticism from those very violent extremists we seek to neutralize and isolate. They will isolate themselves by opposing a popular movement that aims to build dignity, respect, humanity, and a two state solution for both peoples.
In the process, they will also highlight the OneVoice message.
Any Palestinian that wants to end the occupation and achieve independence, and any Israeli that wants to end terror and achieve security, must ultimately understand the only way to do so is through an agreement among both peoples to end the conflict.
The International Solidarity Movement is calling for a boycott as well.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/10/03/pacbi-celebrating-peace-or-camouflaging-apartheid/
[…] Per my prior blog post, I could have placed my bet on who is behind the "boycott" of the OneVoice Summit… […]
I could have placed my bet on who is behind the "boycott" of the OneVoice Summit…
…No one other than the "International Solidarity Movement."
This is a fringe movement of extremists that do not support the two-state-solution, of any kind. It is not an issue of 67 borders, or Jerusalem, or refugee rights. Don't let them hide behind any of that - because all of those issues have answers the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians support, embodied in the Clinton Parameters - and also in the Taba talks that Arafat himself fully endorsed.
If any one doubts that the ISM and all those opposing the OneVoice Summit are just ultimately the very extremists we seek to expose, just confront them and ask them. You will get evasive politicized answers that only will confirm these people are the "false messiahs" that promise absolute solutions to the Palestinians, only to manipulate them and deliver nothing to them.
The "International Solidarity Movement" has been exposed and defeated at numerous college campus events. Before, they could hide under the mantle of Palestinian nationalism, out of the comfort of their homes in Virginia.
But when OneVoice Youth Leaders from Palestine, from Gaza to Jenin, who are living with the consequences tell the public that they want a two-state-solution, they help unmask intransigent groups that rather eternal warfare than a historic compromise.
The problem does not exist among Palestinian extremist circles alone, who covet "all of Palestine" and will not accept the existence of a Jewish State by their side. There are parallel Jewish groups that want a "Greater Israel" and will not recognize a Palestinian State by their side.
They too get unmasked by mainstream Israelis that are just fed up with absolutists messing their lives for far too long.
They will try to hide behind diatribe and formulations, but the bottomline question you must ask them to expose them is, do you recognize the right of both the Israeli and Palestinian people to live in freedom, dignity, and with security - for two states to co-exist side by side?
Anyone that does not accept this formulation is either uninformed or hiding their absolutism.
One-State-Solution may be beautifully-intentioned but both the Israelis and the Palestinians want a separate State of their own. Eventually after peace comes you could hope for a confederacy agreement between proud independent states, but the fact is that the ONLY solution out there is the Two-State-Solution embodied in the Clinton Parameters - and the OneVoice Pillars available at www.OneVoiceMovement/negotiate.
There are just no other answers out there and it is time that we come to terms with that and not allow violent extremists to derail the hopes and dreams of millions for an end to the conflict.