Our Fathom Highlight this week is a new ground-breaking report titled ‘A future of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding’, published today by Fathom and the think-tank BICOM, on Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding projects. Written by Ned Lazarus, visiting Professor at George Washington University and before that the Middle East Program Director for Seeds of Peace from 1996-2004, with a preface by Jonathan Powell, the chief British negotiator during the Northern Ireland Peace Process, this landmark study shows that grassroots Israeli-Palestinian peace building projects work, are a vital missing ingredient in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and should receive much more support from the international community. Also new this week is Kyle Orton’s review of Mustafa Khalifa’s The Shell, a novel based on the repressive and systematic nature of Bashar al-Assad’s prison system in Syria.

Our Voice of the Week is Ned Lazarus talking to Fathom editor Alan Johnson about his report A future of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding.

Our Image of the Week is Israeli Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz and Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Rami Hamdallah celebrating the opening of the first Palestinian-owned and managed electricity substation, outside of Jenin in the West Bank, 10 July 2017. Photo by Miriam Alster.

A future for Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding

by BICOM