Insights
Encountering Peace: Change in Gaza is possible
If we want change in Gaza, we have to change the way we treat Gaza. Hamas is the enemy, the people of Gaza are not.
If we want change in Gaza, we have to change the way we treat Gaza. Hamas is the enemy, the people of Gaza are not.
Gershon Baskin joined world leaders from Russia, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United States, France, Iran, Lebanon at the United Kingdom at the Middle East 2020: Is a Comprehensive Settlement Possible? conference in Jordan.
Remarks by Gershon Baskin at the opening session of the “Middle East 2020: Is the Comprehensive Settlement Possible?” conference held the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan (December 20-22, 2009).
Peace…needs leadership, ingenuity, creativity, boldness, and determination. This is what we expect from the Obama administration. We don’t want more of the same. We want and need a real change. This is the moment for making history.
Gershon Baskin believes that there is no bilateral solution. The fastest road to the next round of violence is through another failed negotiation process … and it has zero chance. Next year … could be ripe for an explosion.
Resolving that Jerusalem will be the capital of two states is not only doable, it is the only way that Jerusalem will be recognised as the capital of Israel.
Gershon Baskin and Palestinian Hanna Siniora run one of the oldest and boldest of the truly collaborative undertakings between the two peoples, and it recently won an award as one of the world’s best NGOs
More than 10 months have passed since President Barack Obama entered the White House and seven months since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took over the reins in Jerusalem and there is still no peace process worth mentioning.
Netanyahu campaigned on the slogan of “economic peace” and boasted that he would help the Palestinians build their state from the bottom up by strengthening their economy and thereby “giving them something to lose,” so that they will not revert back to violence.
There is little chance that bilateral negotiations at this time will be capable of producing agreements on either the Israeli-Palestinian or Israel-Syria track. The US mediator has been focusing on “process” rather than “substance”.
One can exhaust the resources of the thesaurus trying to come up words to describe Dr. Gershon Baskin — determined, stubborn, resolute, resilient, indefatigable.