LEAP - AIESEC Research Initiative to Palestine 2006-2008

Dear interested people!

We bow out. The LEAP-Team of AIESEC in Berlin will not continue its extension efforts to Palestine.

Our team gathered in Berlin, anciously waiting for the decision of the IPM last Tuesday night. At around 12:30am we heard from our OCP Kevin that the global plenary did not vote in favor of Germany's motion to raise the status of the Research Group AIESEC Palestine to Expanding Country.

We would like to thank every one of you who supported us. We are grateful, for buying our t-shirts, donating money or simply raising awareness of the extension initiatives and the Middle East conflict.

Most likely, the extensions to Israel and Palestine will continue very slowly, but we will never forget the unique team experience here in Berlin, the wonderful summer of 2007 with Anas and Rawan in Berlin and our motivated Palestinians.

For the moment, we could not keep our promise to bring an exchange opportunity to the Middle East and give the students there the experience most of us have made. Hopefully there will be other possibilities for the students to develop, maybe there will be possibilities for them that AIESEC couldn't even offer in the first place.

In the end it took courage to ask for a definate decision, yes or no, that's what we asked for. We expected as much courage from the international AIESEC community as AIESEC Germany has given us over the past two years. It seems AIESEC wasn't ready to take a brave stand, as they have taken in South Africa, China, or Afghanistan . A true look at the enriching aspects that Israel and Palestine would have brought to the community was discouraged.
It is so disappointing: AIESEC made the most political decision it could.

Thank you once again, we bow out.
The LEAP-Team!

PS: It is over when it's over - we currently evaluate alternative opportunities to make student and intern exchange with Palestine happen. So stay tuned for further information... ;)

Our motion for limited Expansion Activities was not carried. Only 13 out of 55 member countries supported our project.
If you have any questions please contact the German MC - Hajo and Nuno did an excellent job! - or us directly.

After collecting the concerns of the MENAs again we came to a text of the motion for the decision that will take place in the afternoon.
I am more positive now than I was the last days - I have the feeling that the Global Plenary will legislate further action, including working on-site.
I will inform you about the result this evening.
Cross your fingers... :)

It becomes more and more serious - the Global Legislation approaches.
Yesterday Hajo and Nuno had worked on the wording for the motion. Until tomorrow the delegates have the chance to make amendments, so the motion and the mandate can still be changed.
If we are allowed to continue with the initiative we will likely not be allowed to have an official homepage. Therefore, this blog will be closed soon as well... However, I am positive that we will continue and Markus and Christin will be able to travel to Ramallah. It was clear before the IPM that we will have to make some reservations and compromise on some things as other countries and members will have to compromise.
Hear more about it Tuesday evening - the vote on our motion will be before dinner, thus around 6pm (German time). I'll keep you updated.

As soon as I had arrived yesterday I was thrown into the usual discussions and felt as there had been no time gap since the International Congress (IC) in Turkey last August.
Hajo and Nuno, our current and elected MCP, are doing a great job; I feel like they know much better what the situation is like. Especially Nuno surprises me with his knowledge about the process and deep understanding of the MENA concerns.
Therefore, we think about a process that will allow us to officially expand while at the same time we regard the registration process in the Gulf member countries. Other options - that can be combined - are not to call the regions with its country names but to use different names, e.g. instead of Israel it could be Galilee and West Bank instead of Palestine.

We will see - I hope everything will work out fine. And more important, I would like to get a definite decision on the further process.

Oh, yesterday evening the first Official Dinner took place, celebrating the 60th anniversary. Therefore, Nuno, Hajo and I dressed up. :)

Almost exactly one year ago I arrived at Egypt for AIESEC's IPM (International Presidents Meeting) 2007. Currently, I am sitting in Vienna and waiting for my connection flight to Skopje from where I am going to travel to Ohrid to the IPM 2008.

As well as last year my mission is - again - to persuade the current MCPs (Member Committee Presidents) to vote for further AIESEC activities in Palestine, more precisely for the motion that Palestine will become Official Extension. Having the status of an Official Extension we will finally be able to start with the Exchange Program and send the first Palestinian interns abroad to get to know to other cultures and broaden their horizons.

On Tuesday afternoon the Global Legislation will begin. As last year's legislation took around 10 hours, I expect it will again take more time than estimated. However, if the same proportion of the MCPs' votes will support Palestine (and the linked project of building up AIESEC in Israel), it does not matter if this decision will be taken at 6pm or 6am on the 27th.

I will keep you updated about my mission and hopefully awesome journey to Macedonia. Cross your fingers - and read about a hopefully successful decision on Tuesday.

Hey!

I am back in Berlin after an exciting time and a beautiful trip to Jordan.
I finally found a map that I like:

Well, I did, yesterday. While I was working on the feasibility study in one of the computer pools at Birzeit University, I got a call. For the first time I had forgotten a company meeting and it was an important one with the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture.

Thanks to the Palestinian flexibility the contact accepted to wait 20 more minutes (he had called me 10 min after the time of the meeting) until I could get to him by taxi. He was already waiting in his car and we went to his office close to the wall and Jerusalem. Coming closer to Qalandya there was a big traffic jam. First we thought it might be an accident. But no, the checkpoints around Ramallah had been closed. (One of the stories I heard about that was that there had been a shooting at the checkpoint the day before and a kid got injured or killed, so the security alert went up.)

So we waited a bit in the car and talked about AIESEC, our extension project, how we could cooperate and then went on to more private talks. Finally he took me back to Ramallah via the Qalandya camp. That looks much different than Ramallah and more like the Palestine we are used to watch in TV. Small, not very beautiful houses and huts standing very close to each other, no trees, small roads, some without tar and kids playing.

After he had brought me to Al Manara he tried to find a way to his office. Sometimes there are smaller, longer roads to get to your destination. I heard that the checkpoints were opened again in the evening.

After the fights the unversity remained closed for two days. The student leaders of Fateh and PFLP, together with another student, are dismissed from University for a certain time. Furthermore, most student members of PFLP got arrested (Fateh is the ruling party). And to really demonstrate, that the conflict is solved, two tables in the cafeteria, that were known to "belong" to the PFLP, were removed from the cafeteria. Well, if that is not some masterpiece of conflict solution...

The university indeed was famous in former times! Due to security concerns and travel restrictions less foreign students and, more important and damaging, less foreign professors find their way to Birzeit. Which has led to a slow decrease in the university's fame.

Hey!

I just returned from a trip to Hebron, where Abraham is buried. Partly due to his grave it is the second holiest site for Muslims and Jews after Jerusalem. That is the "reason" why there are several settlements IN and around the city.

Some of you migh have heard or read about the trouble in the old city, where 20000 Palestinians and 500 settlers live. The Israely army protects the settlers and sometimes even the Palestinians against the settlers.
Since 1997 a team of internatinal observers (http://www.tiph.org/, invited by Israel and Palestine) is present to monitor the situation and violations of human rights. Some streets in the old city have a fence above them to protect the pedestrians from garbage and stones being thrown at them by the settlers occupying some of the houses. And that although Hebron seems to belong to one of the A zones in the Westbank, which are supposed to be completely under Palestinian authority. Due to the special situation there an agreement exists that puts the city under Israeli jurisdiction. (This sounds so confusing that I am not sure if I understood it correctly)

Freedom of movement: After two security controls I visited the mosque, then went back, passed through two other controls and went to the synagogue. Both are in the same building, but unreachable for the other religion. It is so silly that I have more freedom of movement than the local people here.

On the way back we were in a large traffic jam for half an hour. Coming closer to the big checkpoint to Jerusalem, Qalandya, we heard that the checkpoint is closed. The checkpoints to Israel were closed from 11 am on. This is done in case of warnings of an attack, suicide bombing.
So I was dropped and more or less followed others who were on the way to Ramallah, passing under a fence down a slope and into a street, where already some taxis were waiting to take us to the Palestinian side of Qalandya. There we took another taxi to Ramallah. Kind of a normal day in Palestine...