Loading ...Peacebuilding in Israel-Palestine: Will It Work This Time?
By: Mackenzie Ricca/Arab America Contributing Writer
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has escalated in recent years, resulting in several peacebuilding efforts between the two warring nations. These efforts have been implemented for years and supported by several countries such as the United States and many European nations. There is hope that peace can eventually be achieved.
What Is Peacebuilding?
Peacebuilding is somewhat of a fluid term as it manifests in many different forms. In its essence, it is the combination of the actions taken by national, international, and non-governmental actors and organizations to mitigate or transform central aspects of conflict in an attempt to facilitate peace. For years, several U.S.-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the government itself, have invested in peacebuilding efforts for Israel and Palestine. They have utilized strategies such as organizing a bilateral and informal dialogue between the two nations and even investing in other major peace projects within the region.
Evolution of Peacebuilding Efforts
Until recently, the United States has been a significant contributor to many of these efforts. As of September 2018, the Trump Administration decided that peacebuilding funding from the United States would end. According to NPR, “It’s the latest in a series of announcements of the U.S. cutting hundreds of millions of dollars for Palestinians, with the aim of pressuring Palestinian leaders to cooperate with U.S. efforts to broker a peace deal with Israel.”
The chart above shows the amount of money the United States used for Israel-Palestine peacebuilding efforts from 2015 and the projected amount that would have been used for 2019, but will no longer be provided.
Since the U.S. has stopped peacebuilding funding, the Trump Administration has done the following: withdrawn close to 200 million dollars for Palestinian development, which includes several humanitarian projects which were heavily funded since 2010; pulled 300 million dollars out of the United Nation’s funded program to protect Palestinian refugees from harm; and moved to close the Palestinians’ diplomatic office in Washington, D.C.
So What Happens Next?
Even though the United States has pulled its funding, several other nations, and more importantly, NGOs, have been stepping up to provide as much funding as possible to support the peacebuilding efforts. Several European Union member nations contribute to these efforts, as do NGOs within their states. As of 2018, Bicom research shows how many NGO peacebuilding budgets provided by European NGOs have given close to 3-6 million dollars to help solve this conflict. Many of these NGOs are either funded by private actors or groups who raise money for education and other necessary projects.
Most of the peacebuilding efforts have a wide variety of plans of action to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The funding ranges from advocacy and education to art projects and economic development. By implementing several different plans of action, governments and NGOs are finding new avenues to build peace. The chart below illustrates peacebuilding plans globally.
Chart Created by Mackenzie Ricca/Arab America with Data provided by Bicom 2017-2018New strategies are consistently being developed to help promote peacebuilding, and new NGOs are continually created. The following list provides the names of some major peacebuilding organizations which have donated to Israeli-Palestinian efforts between 2013 and 2018. Several of these plans will continue into 2019, and new budgets will be developed in the upcoming year.
Chart Created by Mackenzie Ricca/Arab America with Data provided by Bicom 2017-2018The New Peacebuilding Bill 2020
There are new bills currently being drafted as of early March 2020. There is now a bill that will be brought forward to Congress, which will explicitly support peacebuilding once again. The bill, dubbed as “The Partnership Fund For Peace Act,” will create an international fund that promotes Israeli-Palestinian peace. It will fund methods of peacebuilding such as the creation of infrastructure and the promotion of economic development within the region. There are high expectations for the bill to pass, as it has been shown to have bicameral and bipartisan support, as well as the support of multiple inter-faith organizations.
Around forty-seven members of Congress have named themselves as co-sponsors as of March 2020, which is very promising. If the United States makes an effort to take this step forward and pass the bill later this year, it will once again raise funding from the United States and allow the government to have the chance to initiate new forms of peacebuilding projects. Additionally, if this effort is successful, it will pave the way for the future of peacebuilding between other nations. By funding these programs, it may be possible to catalyze the movement of non-violent activists who support peace efforts.
Sources:
https://www.allmep.org/landmark-bicom-report-details-a-future-for-israeli-palestinian-peacebuilding/
https://thejewishnews.com/2020/03/11/looking-at-peacebuilding-programs-in-israel-just-might-work/
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf
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