Our Final Program

Our last meeting was held at the Israel government office of Foreign Affairs. Here we are standing outside shivering while we await approval of official entry. We had to turn in our passports in order to be given Visitors' passes and were not allowed to take our cameras into the meeting. Once inside, however, the meeting was truly amazing.

We met with Daniel Taub, Head of the Legislative Department of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our last speaker, Mr. Taub was as well-informed, articulate and responsive as anyone we've met on this tour. He spoke of wishing to be (and imagining that indeed they would be) in a very different place at this point than the one at which the country is. The spiral that has occurred since the breakdown of talks with Arafat in 2000, through the unexpected violence following the unilateral disengagement from Gaza in the summer 2006 after the Hamas takeover in that region, up to the Israeli incursion into the Gaza strip this past week, is disappointing, but not stopping the attempt at negotiations.

Taub made several statements, among them that while there is no partner on the Palestinian side that can ensure an agreement is positively implemented, that will not stop their attempt to work toward peace; that the current Israeli policy is one of distinction - that is, they are trying to identify and work with those in the Palestinian government that are moderate; that their approach is to continue the process begun with Roadmap to Peace; and to conduct negotiations now rather than wait until a government is in place that can implement decisions. He also argued that the conflict is not territory-based, as is shown in what happened when Israel unilaterally left Gaza and gave the territory back, but is instead a moderate/extremist conflict.
It would logically be in Israel's best interests for the Palestinians to have a positive national identity. But all attempts by Israel (and indeed the world community - Palestine has received more international aid per capita than any other nation in the world) have been thwarted by extremists.

This does not leave a lot of hope for either side, but I guess if I can find some, it is in the individuals we have met and in Daniel Taub himself and others like him, working against all odds for all to have a decent way of life in his country.