The Sharaka Project brings Israeli-Arab peace to ordinary people - opinion

The most important characteristic of this visit was that it was informal and thus it supported the idea that a peace process is not complete unless it involves ordinary people.

By NAJAT ALSAIED
AN ISRAELI poses with Emiratis in Dubai last week. It’s time to pay attention to Arabs who live here, too. (photo credit: REUTERS/CHRISTOPHER PIKE)
AN ISRAELI poses with Emiratis in Dubai last week. It’s time to pay attention to Arabs who live here, too.
(photo credit: REUTERS/CHRISTOPHER PIKE)
The Sharaka Project is a group of influencers in the UAE and Bahrain who visited Israel last week to promote communication among young people in the Arab Gulf States and Israel. This group is non-governmental and calls for peace, seeking partnerships in science, technology and research. Its primary goal is to make the peace process relevant to people. It was established after the signing of the Abraham Accords between the UAE and Israel, establishing Dubai and Tel Aviv as its headquarters.
The meetings and dialogue of the Sharaka Project in Israel focused on communication and making connections, a goal that the visit achieved. It was an intensive week in which several activities took place: a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin; a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center; a tour of Tel Aviv and the Golan Heights; joining a Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem; and visiting al-Aqsa Mosque.
The most important characteristic of this visit was that it was informal and thus it supported the idea that a peace process is not complete unless it involves ordinary people. This is what Rivlin emphasized to the Sharaka delegation, “Peace is made between peoples and nations. Your visit here is another step in the path of building warm relations between our countries.”
Dr. Majid Al Sarrah, from the University of Dubai and a founding member of the Sharaka Project, responded, “To visit Israel for the first time as part of a delegation is a historic moment. Israel is a prime example of tolerance in the region. This is a new era of peace and stability between peoples.”
The concept of warm peace was also reiterated by Amjad Taha, the regional director of The British Middle East Center for Studies and Research from Bahrain, “The mission of this visit is to send one message, which is the message of peace through building bridges of knowledge among people.”
When peace processes pass through a stage of stalemate, changes are needed and thinking outside the box can generate new approaches. The first model for peace was “land for peace” and this was the basis of the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. The second model was identified by the Arab Peace Initiative led by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and demanded that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in order to establish a Palestinian state. As for the latest model, it is to halt the annexation of the West Bank in order to normalize and progress the peace process.
This new model is different because it is not demanding a Palestinian state immediately, calling instead for a first step in the right direction to achieve that; it views the Abraham Accords not as a deal, but rather a national and strategic option in which the people also are involved. So it is both a top-down and bottom-up approach; preparing future leaders who are problem solvers and creating a generation free of extremist ideologies and hateful rhetoric that uses political pragmatism rather than idealism to achieve peace and prosperity. This is the Sharaka Project.
HISTORY HAS taught us that peace cannot be built as long as extremism and ideological terrorism exist, and there can be no independent Palestinian state if generations are raised on violence and hatred in the absence of reason and logic. More importantly, if a Palestinian state were established in such a toxic environment, it would never be able to provide stability and prosperity for its people and could easily destabilize its neighbors.
As a result, peace processes should utilize several methods and approaches. If peace between the Israelis and Palestinians has been static and a solution has not been reached for more than seven decades, it is time to try and achieve peace indirectly, using a different model and discourse, and with this different approach it may be possible achieve the desired goal.
The new peace treaty will demonstrate to Israel that peace is multi-layered and that the Arabs are not a homogenous unit but rather they are diverse and have different models. This new model differs from the previous models because it includes people, which means better communication and a greater opportunity for mutual understanding. The most hopeful thing about this new model comes from what was recently reported by several Jewish visitors to the UAE; that they feel more secure in the UAE than in most Western democracies in Europe and America. Members of the Sharaka delegation also reported that they saw Israel as a place of success and coexistence, contradicting what is misleadingly claimed in the media.

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This new model of peace is like a pebble in a stagnant pond. Let us see who will be the strongest – supporters of peace and pragmatic solutions that will generate more ripples in this stagnant pond, or those who will obstruct peace and perpetuate conflict and let the pond continue to stagnate or worse, turn the pond into a barren soil.
The writer is a Saudi-American independent academic researcher in political communication and societal development based on productivity rather than religion or race.


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