Open (source) peace talks
Published: 2020-03-18 19:26:12

For a long time now i’ve been avoiding writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict in Facebook and the public media.

It is not that I have nothing to say, it is because the more i’m growing up inside this conflict (i’ve been a part of it all my life) and listening to both sides, I realize I just don’t know enough.

But to my surprise, i’m the only one who doesn’t know enough. everyone knows everything and they have the perfect solution, doesn’t matter if they are Israelis, Palestinians or people from all over the world.

But how can both sides be sure they know so much, when the other side thinks it knows so much as well and he knows completely different thing?

So how do they know? who are everyone’s sources? The news, social media and the political leaders.

But those sources are questionable — When there are peace or ceasefire talks, the people in the room are leaders from both sides. and they all have something in common — they are the people in power in their own country, and they want to stay that. that goal is far greater for them then to solve the conflict.

We choose our stand from the minimal information the people in power provide us. No wonder the current conversation that is happening on TV, newspapers and social media is in a very low standard and mostly a huge simplification of the problem, in both sides of the conflict.

But what we are actually doing is making things worse. By simplifying stuff, we are simplifying the other side’s needs. this is exactly the opposite of what we need to do. to solve conflicts you need to step into the other side’s shoes, not simplifying him.

We know something is not right when we look at the media and the news are so different from station to station.

Imagine two leaders sitting in a closed room. Each one is sending different messages about what’s happening in the room to his people. Usually imformation that makes him look good and the other side look bad. then those people fight each based on this partial information and the men in power remain the ones sitting in the closed room.

We don’t demand the knowledge we deserve! we are easy on the trigger of blaming the other side.

But how can we, the public, know enough?

We need to open our peace talks. publish it in live stream and in a public document. no more closed doors.

Then, when one side is declining a solution, everyone knows exactly why. No more stories.

The people on each side have to start demanding opening the talks.

I wouldn’t rely on foreign governments as people often suggest. they are also leaders, and they don’t want this “open” culture to spread into their own countries. no matter if they are western or eastern.

The movement needs to start from the people. we need to create a open document and start building the peace contract. after this document will pick up by people from both sides, the leadership will have to respond to that.

So here is a starting document of a peace process (can be changed into anything): <https://www.penflip.com/Urigo/peace-contract>


People might say that this can prevent the process from moving forward because the public might prevent those solutions immediately and also it will be hard to publish incentives from foreign countries.

I believe that a better informed public can make better choices — there is more chance that the public will prevent a peace process that its not a part of then a one it understands and feel in power with.

It is also not something that “we will think about later, after the current events will calms down”. it is the thing that will make the current events calm down and not repeated again — we need to start opening the current ceasefire talks.

Once people from both sides will start working on this open contract, the leaders couldn’t ingnore it and will have to use it at least as reference.

Open the solution for peace. <https://www.penflip.com/Urigo/peace-contract>


Edit suggestions here: <https://www.penflip.com/Urigo/open-source-peace-talks>