OneVoice speaks to students in Leeds

On Thursday 1st October, OneVoice’s Outreach and Education Director for Europe participated as a panel speaker at the Leeds University debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict entitled: “Why all the Fuss?”
The event was well attended and other panel speakers were Robin Hamilton-Taylor from the Israeli Embassy and Chris Doyle from the Council of British-Arab Cooperation. The event opened with Chris giving an account of what the current situation is like for Palestinians on the ground and Robin countering with what he felt were unjustified accusations against Israel. Sharon presented the two-state solution as being the most realistic and pragmatic possibility of ending the conflict and furthermore emphasized OneVoice’s polling results showing that this is in line with what the majority of civil society on the ground are willing to accept in order to move forward into a brighter future.

Questions raised by the students included the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the right of the Palestinians to have an armed force and the right to fight, OneVoice’s relationship to Hamas and issues of antisemitism on campus. There was a final question about how students on campuses can get involved in the Israel-Palestine issue in a constructive way and Sharon took the opportunity to make the students aware of OneVoice’s IEP programme, building support for the 600,000 voices in the region and raising the call for a peacefully negotiated, two-state solution on UK campuses.

Comments

[Jimmy]

You're organisation is a complete joke. Who fits surveys of little integrity to fit their political line. You said that you can only work on an issue when a majority of Palestinians and Israelis agree. You admitted that they do not agree over the right of return, this means that this does not fit into your idea of a 'negotiated peace'. Therefore, you can be held to ransom by either side, and in this instance by Israelis who reject the right of return, a UN resolution.

I also see you failed to mention the questions asked to Mr Taylor regarding him calling Mark Regev and the UN liars, and his failure to answer the question about unlawful killing of children during the Gaza war. His defence that Israel has the world's most moral army due to its precise weaponry comes unstuck due to the fact that 300 children died, if they had such precise weaponry they must have consciously targeted these children.

[ideals]

I think that Jimmy is overly harsh. OneVoice clearly has to walk the difficult middle road in order to keep its strength - being seen as a grassroots movement that is not boxed into the traditional Israeli lefty peace camp.
Though I am sure it might make you feel better if OneVoice would pontificate on the conflict it would not advance the goal of the movement which is to end the occupation and establish two secure states alongside each other.

To call a movement that encompasses 10% of the Palestinian population, 300,000 Israeli's and 50,000 international supporters a complete joke is a little rich. If the grassroots believe in the movement who are you to call their aspiration a joke?

Lastly though there is no agreement over the right of return the OneVoice goes to communities in both societies and speaks to people on the ground about these taboo issues to try and create agreement rather than just shouting from the sidelines. You need buy in from the people of the region. The fact that OneVoice calls for the end of the occupation shows that it is serious about ending this conflict.

[zkharya]

Jimmy, few Palestinian Muslims or Christians accept Jewish right of return, which is assumed by the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate and the UN recommending of partition (whose legality Palestinian leaders rejected at the time, and for 40 years afterwards).

But if by "right of return" you mean "right of return to a Palestinian state", while Israel has a Jewish right of return to a Jewish state, I think most Israelis could accept it.

The question is, in your adolescent anti-Zionist Crusade, on behalf of Palestinian Christians and Muslims, to whose last drop of blood, doubtless, you are prepared to fight, could you?