The grand finale: your New Year's resolutions

Last day of the year. My blog has come to an end. After my emotional outpouring yesterday, I want to leave you with practical ideas of what you can do next. So how about it folks? Are you ready to make a resolution tonight to do at least one thing in 2010? Take your pick.

1. Educational Tours. On your next visit to Israel, set aside half a day to accompany an Israeli organisation on a tour to learn about different aspects of the conflict.

For tours of East Jerusalem - Ir Amim

For tours of Hebron and the South Hebron hills - Breaking the Silence

To meet Palestinian families in the West Bank - The Villages Group

2. Tell your friends. Let the voices of peace grow louder. The next time you speak to friends or family about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the next time you hear someone say that there is no hope for peace, tell them about all the different peace initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians. Tell them about the people who do believe in peace and who are trying to make it happen.

A list of peace organisations can be found here (scroll down to the bottom) and here. Take 10 minutes to look through. Try to remember two organisations and spread the word!

3. Stay informed. Choose one new source of information to find out what is happening on the ground. Choose a credible source, and be daring, pick one from the other side of your political leaning. You can subscribe to information bulletins or e-newsletters.

For the lefties out there try:

The Council for Peace and Security

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

For the righties out there try:

B'Tselem

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel

4. Make a donation. If you already give money to Israel, think about allocating 5-10 percent of that amount to peace initiatives. If you do not give any money to Israel think about supporting one peace initiative this year. Personally, I like the following organisations:

If you want to support human rights:

B'Tselem (The information center on human rights in the Occupied Territories)

Hamoked (Providing legal defence for individuals)

Gisha (Working on freedom of movement)

If you want to help improve people's health:

Physicians for Human Rights - Israel

Peres Center for Peace

If you want to support peace dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians:

The Peoples Peace Fund (bringing together Palestinians and Israelis wounded in the conflict)

The Other Voice (bringing together people from Gaza and Sderot)

The Parents Circle (bringing together parents who have lost children in the conflict)

If you are interesting in art, music and culture:

The Villages Group (they just started a music center in two Palestinian villages)

If you are interested in environmental initiatives:

Comet-ME (Israelis installing solar panels and wind turbines in Bedouin villages in the Southern Hebron hills)

If you are interested in sport:

Peres Center for Peace

That's it. I'm done. Now do your own homework.

So here we are. Sixty one days later. Can you believe it? It is time to say good bye and to thank you for sharing this journey with me. I have cherished it dearly, and you have all made it worthwhile.

The End.

No more days to go.

The other voice

Today I went to Sderot to meet a guy who refuses to give in to the hatred. And believe me, this guy has a lot of cause for hatred. When the second intifada broke out in 2000, qassam rockets started coming over from Gaza into Sderot. At first, people in Sderot thought the rocket attacks would only last for a short time. No-one ever imagined that they would become an ongoing, long-lasting, and almost daily reality. Between 2005 and 2008, rocket attacks were particularly intensive. On good days, Sderot received two or three rockets, on bad days, up to sixty rockets.

The guy I met lives in Sderot with his wife and three children. His twins were three years old and his eldest daughter was six when the rocket attacks started. They are now 12 and 15 respectively. They do not know any other kind of reality. There are bunkers and shelters every few hundred metres. Many people receive ongoing trauma counselling.

When Justice Goldstone conducted a fact-finding mission earlier this year, he found Hamas militants guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, for their indiscriminate and incessant rocket attacks at civilians in southern Israel. And rightly so. He called on them to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

Three years ago, the guy from Sderot, met two people from Gaza at a peace dialogue in Jerusalem. It was the first time he had met someone from Gaza since the rocket attacks had started, and it was an eye-opening experience. The three men promised to stay in contact.

And for the past three years they have kept the channel of communication open. They spoke, emailed and blogged together daily during the war in Gaza, from December to January.

They set up an organisation called the Other Voice, which is dedicated to bringing together people from Sderot and Gaza, if not in person, then by phone, skype, email or even through loudspeakers across the wall that divides Gaza from Israel!

They are trying to fight the demonisation of the other. They are concerned with the consequences of the dehumanisation, of treating everyone from the other side as an enemy. They believe that ongoing and sustained contact with people is key to remembering that human beings live on the other side.

What affects me so strongly about the story of Sderot and Gaza is how the situation has led to the blurring between military and civilian targets, between combatants and civilians. On the Hamas side, the enemy is the State of Israel, and they deliberately target civilians. On the Israeli side, the enemy is the Gaza Strip, which was declared "hostile territory" in 2007, and whose people have been severely punished ever since Hamas was elected.

The result: terrorized and traumatized civilian populations on both sides. 3 civilian deaths in Sderot and 773 civilian deaths in Gaza, including 320 children, during the last period of hostilities.

What I love about the work of the Other Voice, is that its members resist the blur. It is simple, yet incredibly powerful. They are a minority, but just imagine what could happen if these voices could got louder.

15 days to go…