The conflict in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians is a lively topic on campus. At least once a week, the relevant campus student groups host lectures and events to raise awareness of the issues and encourage student involvement. And it's great to see cooperation between the various partisan groups. Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Progressive, Republican groups and others all have some stake in the debate and a unique and important opinion to add to the discussion. However, something is missing.
Despite the relative abundance of groups, there is no unified, nonpartisan forum for discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I'm sure dialogue happens occasionally on an informal basis, but it should be encouraged, even established. Instead of rallies, and in addition to speeches and lectures, the issue requires dialogue. We need an organized, open forum for anyone to express any reasonable opinion and, even more importantly, to listen to differing opinions.
The Princeton Peace Process (PPP) will fulfill this role on campus, with its first meeting this Sunday night. PPP will be a group of Princeton undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty dedicated to maintaining reasonable dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peace and dialogue, not partisan interests, are the top priorities — we are resolved to let the extremists dictate the debate no longer. In the very long term, our goal is the production of an actual peace proposal. We will work toward creating a core of educated, reasonable and open-minded people with the ability to engage others in knowledgeable and respectful dialogue on the issue, regardless of their respective viewpoints. We want to show that peaceful dialogue on this issue is possible. We plan to disseminate factual information — to actively target truth and fact, and filter out word-of-mouth and misinformation — and foster an environment for dialogue that incorporates rather than ignores those facts. In each meeting, members will approach the issues by understanding opposing viewpoints and working with people of different views, not just to argue back and forth but to find a solution together. Finally, as previously mentioned, we plan to produce a cohesive and comprehensive peace plan based on the conclusions of our discussions. Eventually, we will present this plan publicly, with the explicit intention of setting an example for the leaders in the Middle East and showing the world (and, perhaps more importantly, ourselves) that it can be done.
These are lofty goals, but at its most basic the PPP plans to cultivate an environment in which disagreement is safe and even encouraged. People of a variety of stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be free to express their opinions, as long as they are willing to discuss them reasonably. Our leadership and, we hope, our membership, will approach the issues from different intellectual, political, ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The only requirements for participation are a desire for peace and an earnest willingness to listen. We encourage any interested readers to join us for the first meeting. For more information please contact dsegal@princeton.edu. David Segal is a classics major from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at dsegal@princeton.edu.
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