Middle East Regional Dialogues

We initiate activities with regional media professionals to improve communication across borders, increase regional understanding, and encourage journalists to challenge their own biases and stereotypes while using the media as a tool for peace and public education on core issues.

Cooperative Disease Monitoring System
Since 2003, we have facilitated regional cooperation against the threat posed by biological attacks and natural disease outbreaks. In partnership with the NTI Global Health and Security Initiative, we formed the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance (MECIDS), through which the Ministries of Health of Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority are sharing data about disease outbreaks. Currently, MECIDS is assisting Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian health and veterinary issues to work together to manage the threat of avian influenza (“bird flu”).
Since avian influenza was first identified in Israel on March 16, 2006, MECIDS has convened nine meetings to coordinate among the Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian ministries of health and agriculture to battle avian influenza. The three Ministries of Health are in the process of writing a common plan of action for monitoring and preventing this deadly virus from spreading in the region.

Holy Sites Initiative
To empower and mobilize Middle Eastern religious leaders as peacemakers, we are facilitating a process which will result in leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths signing a declaration that recognizes and respects the attachments of the three faiths to their respective holy sites in Jerusalem and the setting up of an inter-religious standing committee to deal with potential crises in a peaceful manner. We have developed a draft declaration, had it endorsed by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land comprising the leadership of the Abrahamic faiths, and have received an agreement in principle from H.M. King Mohammed VI of Morocco to host a world religious leaders' summit in Morocco at which the declaration will be signed. We are now raising the funding needed and planning the strategy and logistics for the summit which we anticipate will be held at the end of 2007.

Jerusalem Old City Initiative
This initiative aims to build workable solutions on the future of the Old City by advancing practical cooperation and improving conditions on the ground through addressing the wide-ranging needs of stakeholders in the Old City. A second goal is to provoke rigorous discussion about future governance options for the Old City and to generate new possibilities and ways of thinking, through public education and advocacy.

Madrid+15 Middle East Peace Conference
Along with 4 other global civil society organizations, we organized the "Madrid+15" Conference that occurred between January 10-12, 2007, with great success. The meeting commemorated the 15th anniversary of the 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid and gathered influential figures from Syria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan alongside senior European and UN officials, high-powered civil society actors and representatives of the USA and Russia to reignite a regional approach to peace in the Middle East. The tone of the meeting was excellent, permitting a frank but constructive exchange on issues, considerable networking, and a decision to pursue follow up with special emphasis on the Arab League initiative.

Please click here for more information about the Madrid+15 conference.
 

Please click here if you would like to make a donation to support our projects.