Israelis and Palestinians are hurting right now more than ever, and those of us working to create a more peaceful reality are no exception. Each of us continues to feel the trauma of October 7th everyday–while knowing that cross-border peacebuilding organizations sought to resolve one of, if not the, most complex and intractable conflict in the world even before the current war began.  

Through internal Amal-Tikva research we have explored why all attempted peace agreements between Israelis and Palestininans have failed until now, and most definitively why the Oslo Accords failed. The answer lies in two main factors, a) the lack of societal buy-in and b) the lack of implementation and follow-through. These are two areas that depend on a sustainable, strategic and resilient peacebuilding field. 

Societal Buy-in: 

Years of program evaluation and research have proven that person-to-person peacebuilding is highly effective in changing attitudes and enhancing cooperation in ethnic and territorial conflicts around the world. Research confirms that these programs change attitudes that conflicting groups have about each other, establish deeply rooted cooperation, build new feelings of trust, and positively change people’s views about peace. Participants in civil society peacebuilding programs exhibit much higher trust and willingness to work with the other side. Unfortunately, our Amal-Tikva Report on the state of Cross-Border Peacebuilding dove deeply into the challenges of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding. Through this research we discovered that 91% of organizations were unable to reach intended organizational benchmarks due to lack of funding coupled with a lack of organizational capacity.
 

Implementation: 

Since the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) passed into law, Amal-Tikva leadership has been approached by international leaders, think-tanks, and governments to address how the funding should be implemented. They ask this because while it was experts who designed the funding and lobbied for it, it is the people on the ground who must be those to direct its strategy and guide implementation. In the aftershock of the Oslo-Accords, there was an optimism and expectation that the hand-shake itself would be enough, but the moment could not sustain hopes forever as the promises from each leader to the other were broken and the required steps to bring about real peace were never taken.

We have learned that these two elements are key to addressing the conflict at large and must be our focus. We founded Amal-Tikva in 2019 because we understood that peacebuilding efforts to change the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict thus far have a unique role in creating societal buy-in and guiding implementation of potential developments toward a peace plan, but only if done strategically. Until now the field failed to bring together evidence-based theories of change, management skills, strategic funding, and systems for meaningful coordination and negotiation. With minimal infrastructure supporting the human, financial, and technical mechanisms that would enable peacebuilding efforts to make a tangible impact at the political or societal level and a culture of competition – the field cannot move the needle.

Amal-Tikva seeks to address these gaps by holistically engaging in peacebuilding efforts at all levels— NGO leaders, philanthropists, field experts, and elite leaders — to change the discourse and build capacity for sustainable and scalable peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians.​ We know that the shortcomings of peacebuilding efforts have many roots, so we offer a comprehensive range of programs, advocacy and partnerships to ensure that all stakeholders in peacebuilding are equipped to lay the foundation for a just and lasting peace.

Discussion circle | Photo courtesy of Amal-Tikva

Field Building within the current reality 

On October 7, the world watched as even peacebuilders faced shock, pain, and fear.  Many leaders, volunteers and activists from our field are still missing, were murdered or kidnapped, while others are indefinitely displaced, drafted, or have lost family and friends. Many are traumatized beyond being able to function, while others have had their bank accounts shut down or their homes or offices destroyed. Some have had no direct contact with the violence and yet are paralyzed by the anxiety and fear of it all, while others are working around the clock on adrenaline.

This moment seems to have changed almost everything, not just for the conflict but for those committed to peacebuilding. Yet resilience as a field must be the priority–that means making sure there are solid people dedicated to peacebuilding now and when the war is over. We know that a strong civil society plays a meaningful role in preparing societies for peace and sustaining momentum in the wake of a peace agreement. A strong constituency for peace within civil society will be built by peacebuilding organizations with the support of sound research and invested philanthropy. 

The first step to promoting more effective work in peacebuilding is to bring these stakeholders together as a field, share goals to create a more peaceful reality, and contribute toward the eventual peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The purpose of field building is not to force each organization or donor to follow the exact same strategy or approach; rather, to enable all parties to operate and collaborate more effectively.  While it is crucial for individual organizations and donors to have their own internal strategies including values, goals, objectives and evaluation, linking these individual strategies to a broader field-wide strategy will assure more effective operations across the board. Amal-Tikva recommends utilizing the techniques suggested in The Strong Field Framework as outlined below:

Standards of Practice: The field must come together to outline concrete, measurable goals relating back to a shared vision. The first step should include eliminating the zero-sum nature of the conflict: making it feel more resolvable, worth investing in, and worth participating in. The field must also invest in its human capital, creating more effective leadership and encouraging participants, volunteers, and staff to stay committed. Infrastructure must also be created to allow for smoother operations and increased program activity, such as the opening of more meeting spaces, shared offices, shared technology and equipment, and collaborative permit application support.

Knowledge Base: A mechanism for translating key research into Arabic and Hebrew should be developed to make these works more accessible to civil society, and provide training and opportunities to practice key recommendations offered in the most up-to-date reports and analyses. This mechanism should also include a unified system and language for monitoring and evaluating peacebuilding programs in a way that not only responds to donors’ needs, but concretely enables organizations to measure their success up to their own missions, visions, theories of change and core values.

Leadership and Grassroots: Sharing models with other organizations is an excellent way to assure impactful work can be repeated at scale. When addressing challenges around recruiting program participants, it is crucial that organizations internalize, address, and relate to the power dynamics of the conflict. For Israelis, participation in peacebuilding comes at the opportunity cost of the many other types of activities they have available in society. In order to recruit Israelis to peacebuilding activities, the activity itself must be top notch simply because it is competing with so many others. When recruiting Palestinian participants, supporting their struggle with anti-normalization is critical. On the one hand, providing a safe space to discuss mixed emotions is imperative. On the other hand, providing tools for discussing their choice to participate in a program that engages with Israelis is also crucial.

Funding and Supporting Policy: Organizations and donors must demand from themselves and each other a healthy balance of private and government donations with self-generated income. We recommend that organizations constantly work off their own strategic plan, knowing what programs they wish to implement and seek funding for those. Donors should offer general support funding, or program funding for multiple years at a time, building on successes and taking risks to encourage innovation. 

Conclusion: Getting to Work

The need to build a strong field of peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians has always been painfully real. After October 7th, this need is all the more. With the heartbreak and uncertainty, our community of activists, NGOs and donors continues to push forward. Over the past few months, our office has been busier than we could have ever imagined with organizational consulting sessions, professional development training, and honest conversations about what’s possible today and in the future. We have yet to begin healing; that day will come. Until then, we remain dedicated to laying the foundations for a more peaceful future.

¹ rep., The State of Cross-Border Peacebuilding Efforts Needs Assessment on Israeli and Palestinian Civil Society Organizations (Amal-Tikva, 2020), https://www.amal-tikva.org/_files/ugd/5e6e49_2355222eeefb44dea64b41e9b6c3cd0d.pdf.

²  publication, The Strong Field Framework A Guide and Toolkit for Funders and Nonprofits Committed to Large-Scale Impact (James Irvine Foundation, 2009), https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED506586.pdf