December 14, 2020
Image by iStock
The kids in Israel and Palestine are not alright. Almost half of Israeli high school students told pollsters in 2016 that they don’t think Arab citizens should be allowed to vote or sit in the Knesset. Meanwhile, 73% of Palestinian youth told pollsters in 2015 that they supported the knife intifada. Also in 2016, 82% of Israeli 11th and 12th graders said there was “no chance” of reaching a deal of some sort with the Palestinians.
These young people should not be blamed for their attitudes; they’re the product of a dysfunctional environment that their leaders, and we in the international community, have bestowed upon them. The emerging generation of Israelis and Palestinians have less experience of each other than probably any cohort since 1967.
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A Palestinian boy looks behind a wall separating Jewish part and Palestinian part of the West Bank. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Last December, we could never have imagined the events that would come to shape our region and world in 2020. At EcoPeace Middle East, we pictured 2020 as full of travel across Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. We expected to meet up with our regional and international partners often and to forge ahead on our mission to achieve water security region wide. The COVID-19 pandemic turned those plans upside down, but it also transformed how many Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis now envision their shared future.