The Week That Was: Strategy for the People

by Charles Lenchner · 2008-12-20 14:16:00 UTC
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The past week saw a number of posts wrestling with strategy. What is the best course of action for supporters of peace?

Building Coalitions for Peace asks the question: how can supporters of Israeli-Palestinian peace move forward on the basis of what unites us, instead of remaining apart because of our disagreements? What Kinds of Coalitions are Possible wonders if we can seperate advocacy into 'constructive' and 'pure protest' categories on the basis of what is possible under an Obama administration.

Refuser Solidarity Day Recap looks at the very successful December 18th Day of Action with a critical eye: Is the actual impact the same as the stated impact? In a similar vein, and still interogating part of the Jewish peace community, we take a look at the multiple calls from Americans for Peace Now, J Street and Brit Tzedek to engage the Obama administration. Since all the actions are using the same tool for the same cause and appealing to the same constituency, why aren't these groups working more closely together?

Finally, an examination of ALLMEP, the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a network of 57 NGO's working on some aspect of peacebuilding. Looking at the various peacebuilding models, a question comes to mind: are any of them actually working, given the violence and tension in the Middle East right now?

Writing these articles put me a critical frame of mind, so I searched the web for other examples of friendly analysis of the Middle East peace camp. It's easy to find right wing critiques of the peace movement, and left wing critiques of the right wing - but fact based analysis of what is actually working? This is hard to find. If you have any ideas - post them below. I'm also interested in guest posts that take a stab at answering these questions, so feel free to submit your thoughts to me privately.

Charles Lenchner
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