Rami Rabayah, a member of OneVoice Palestine, and Yaniv Sasson, a member of OneVoice Israel, gathered in the Woods-Brown Amphitheatre Wednesday as part of the OneVoice International Education Program, which aims to promote hope for the future and urgency for a comprehensive resolution between their two countries.
Organizers founded the OneVoice movement in 2002, two years after discussions between Palestine and Israel broke down at the 2000 Camp David Summit, according to Laurel Rapp, director of International Education for OneVoice. The non-political, non-profit movement has offices spread across both Palestine and Israel, including Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Gaza City according to OneVoice's Web site. Its focus is conflict resolution through international goals, defined on their Web site as "creating a sense of urgency, visualizing the potential, understanding the process and building a grassroots infrastructure."
AU's OneVoice group started a year ago and strives to spread public awareness and unity on campus according to Lauren Barr, the president of AU's OneVoice chapter.
OneVoice focuses on approaching both camps in the dispute with "mutual recognition" and appealing to the national interests of both sides, according to OneVoice's Web site.
Rabayah, a Palestinian representative, is a businessman who owns and operates a farm that specializes in the production of extra virgin olive oil according to Rabayah.
Sasson, an Israeli representative and veteran of the Israeli army, said he applied to join the army at age 18, a common practice for all Israeli men. However, after they discovered that he was diabetic, the army denied him entrance, Sasson said.
After he received an OneVoice e-mail titled "What Would You Do to End the Conflict?," he decided to join and has been an avid member at the local and international levels, Sasson said.
OneVoice International established their headquarters in both New York City and London. They focus on "college campuses [that have become] increasingly polarized," according to the OneVoice Web site. They targeted these campuses through regional tours, youth leadership seminars and conventions and through mobilization in the form of "global town hall meetings."
OneVoice International's "Imagine 2018" campaign urges Israeli and Palestinian youth to envision what they see their country being like in 2018. These ideas will be a central part of a global OneVoice advertisement campaign.
On the international level, the movement has gotten the support of influential global leaders such as Jordanian King Abdullah II, as well as American actors Danny Devito, Anne Cusack, Elliot Gould and Jason Alexander.
OneVoice plans to lobby the U.S. government to take part in the global activism, according to Rapp.
It is Israel's and Palestine's responsibility as global citizens to recognize the faults in resorting to violence and "help Israel and Palestine build bridges" Rabayah said.
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