US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel last week, almost at the same time as the sad news arrived from South Africa of Nelson Mandela’s death. “That example of Nelson Mandela is an example that we all need to take to heart as we face the challenge of trying to reach a two-state solution,” Kerry remarked. “The naysayers are wrong to call peace in this region an impossible goal,” he added, quoting Mandela as saying: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
The African leader, who served 27 years in the apartheid regime’s prisons, became in his lifetime a shining example and symbol for those seeking freedom, equality and reconciliation around the world. The young leadership of YaLa, the movement which opens its doors to young men and women from the Middle East and North Africa, is seeking to enlist this vision of Mandela to prove that Kerry isn’t wrong. A new online project, the Arab-Israeli Peace Academy, which the organization has been developing for the past few months, will be devoted to Mandela’s memory.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, the project’s founder, Uri Savir, says the 415,000 people signed up on the YaLa Facebook page make it the biggest web-based peace movement in the world. For Savir, one of the architects of the Oslo Accord who served as director-general of the Foreign Ministry in the days of the second Rabin government, this is no less than a belated rehabilitation of the process with which he is most identified. “This is my second Oslo,” he says. “I believe peace at this time must be participatory and actively involve the young Arab and Israeli generation. Peace by people and among people can only be achieved through education.”
One of the peace camp’s biggest problems, Savir claims, is the dangerous passivity that has engulfed specifically at a time when the camp of peace opponents is increasing its activity and capturing hearts and minds. “Our vision is to encourage a new young generation of peace activists. The region will go where the young lead it — just have a look at the events unfolding in Egypt. YaLa and its academy is the revolution of the young, Arabs and Israelis, who are fed up with war and politicians,” promises the man who also served as Israeli consul in New York.
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