Call for Peace Brings Large Response
One Voice Unites Many Students
Sergey Kadinsky
Issue date: 11/13/06 Section: News
When a group calling for peace and unity in the Middle East comes to campus, should the people be taken seriously? For One Voice, the results speak for themselves. "Initially, we sought 5,000 voices, and we got 20,000. At this time, our number is 250,000!" states Miriam Asnes, the international program manager of the organization.
Founded in 2002, at the height of the second Intifada, the organization is proud of its grassroots approach in empowering the "silent majority" of politically moderate Israelis and Palestinian Arabs in calling for a renunciation of violence, and rejecting the absolutist vision of the extremist minorities.
Sponsored by CCNY Hillel and the International Studies Club, the November 9th event drew a crowd into the Study Abroad Office on the sixth floor, where a PowerPoint presentation was followed by introductions from participants Aya Hijazi and Yosef Kedmi.
Aya Hijazi is a student in Chicago, who spent most of her life in Ramallah, a Palestinian city located north of Jerusalem. "When the [Israeli Defense Forces] reoccupied Ramallah in 2002, random bullets were fired into my room, and my family hid inside for six hours," Hijazi recalls. With a tank positioned in front of her home, and the neighboring homes bombed by Israeli forces, she became radicalized and demonstrated alongside extremist groups calling for the destruction of Israel.
Her counterpart, Yosef "Sefy" Kedmi was born in Holon, a city near Tel Aviv. Raised in a right-wing family, he points out that his father was a founder of the Techya (Rebirth) Party, which opposed the 1982 Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. In his teenage years, Kedmi demonstrated against the Oslo peace agreement and Palestinian statehood.
For both students, the realization of the humanity on the "other side" began when they met members of the opposing groups for the first time. "I love skydiving," notes Kedmi. "In Arizona, my instructor was a Saudi, and I realized that he was as human as me." Gradually, Kedmi began to accept the notion of making sacrifices for peace, and became a member of One Voice during his time as a student at the Inter-Disciplinary Institute in Herzliya.
Founded in 2002, at the height of the second Intifada, the organization is proud of its grassroots approach in empowering the "silent majority" of politically moderate Israelis and Palestinian Arabs in calling for a renunciation of violence, and rejecting the absolutist vision of the extremist minorities.
Sponsored by CCNY Hillel and the International Studies Club, the November 9th event drew a crowd into the Study Abroad Office on the sixth floor, where a PowerPoint presentation was followed by introductions from participants Aya Hijazi and Yosef Kedmi.
Aya Hijazi is a student in Chicago, who spent most of her life in Ramallah, a Palestinian city located north of Jerusalem. "When the [Israeli Defense Forces] reoccupied Ramallah in 2002, random bullets were fired into my room, and my family hid inside for six hours," Hijazi recalls. With a tank positioned in front of her home, and the neighboring homes bombed by Israeli forces, she became radicalized and demonstrated alongside extremist groups calling for the destruction of Israel.
Her counterpart, Yosef "Sefy" Kedmi was born in Holon, a city near Tel Aviv. Raised in a right-wing family, he points out that his father was a founder of the Techya (Rebirth) Party, which opposed the 1982 Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. In his teenage years, Kedmi demonstrated against the Oslo peace agreement and Palestinian statehood.
For both students, the realization of the humanity on the "other side" began when they met members of the opposing groups for the first time. "I love skydiving," notes Kedmi. "In Arizona, my instructor was a Saudi, and I realized that he was as human as me." Gradually, Kedmi began to accept the notion of making sacrifices for peace, and became a member of One Voice during his time as a student at the Inter-Disciplinary Institute in Herzliya.
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