International Programs - Middle East
Peace in the Middle East: A History of Helping
Quaker work in the Middle East dates
back to 1875, with the establishment of a Friends school
in Lebanon. Before and during World War II, Quakers
in Europe helped Jews and other persecuted minorities
escape from areas under Nazi rule. In 1949, because
of the experience it gained in helping to resettle hundreds
of thousands of refugees and displaced persons following
World War II, AFSC was asked by the United Nations to
organize similar relief efforts for Palestinian Arab
refugees coming into the Gaza Strip. By 1950, AFSC staff
began work in Israel on agricultural development projects
in Palestinian villages and with internally displaced
Palestinians. AFSC also opened a center in the mixed
Arab-Jewish city of Acre to encourage dialogue between
Israeli Arab and Jewish youth.
For thirty years, the search for regional peace has been at the
center of AFSC Middle East International Affairs work. Quaker
International Affairs Representatives traveled exhaustively between
Israel and neighboring Arab countries, promoting dialogue and
understanding. Following the 1967 war, Quakers began crafting
a document that would suggest a possible course for achieving
peace. Search for Peace In the Middle East was published
in 1970, and its sequel, A Compassionate Peace (1982/1989),
made AFSC among the first U.S. organizations to affirm that peace
in the Middle East depended upon the mutual recognition of Palestinian
and Israeli rights to self-determination, including the Palestinians'
right to form their own state alongside Israel.
Throughout the 1980s, quiet meetings between Israeli and Palestinian
leaders helped establish good will and may, in a small way, have
contributed to the success of the 1993 Oslo Accord negotiations
and eventual establishment of Palestinian self-rule. This work
continues.
Since 1968, AFSC's community-based work has promoted dialogue
and the rights of Palestinians by serving more than 30,000 Palestinian
refugee children and employing several hundred Palestinian teachers
and administrators. That work has also included providing legal
aid for Palestinians, establishing a regional center in Israel
for disabled children, and offering house reconstruction and health
services in Lebanon. These long-standing programs are now independent.
A new phase of AFSC Middle East work began in 1994 as the major
long-standing programs were being devolved. The new programs are
designed to take into account the changing political and civil
environment in the Middle East. AFSC aims to work with local non-governmental
organizations, helping them to develop their institutional capacities
and to create imaginative, sustainable programs for their constituencies.
AFSC also is working to build practical linkages among NGOs in
the Middle East for mutual support, common planning and the sharing
of ideas and resources. In this work, AFSC continues to work across
lines of conflicts and to provide opportunities for exchanges
and dialogue among NGOs and other groups, especially youth and
women.
In 1998 a new staff position was created -- Regional Field
Program Coordinator. Initially the RPC was in Beirut,
Lebanon to facilitate the development of program there,
but in 2000 the RPC office was relocated to Amman, Jordan.
In addition to supervising and supporting the development
programs for AFSC the Regional Program Coordinators
(presently a two-person team) are responsible for building
contacts with community-based Non-Governmental Organizations
throughout the Middle East and will take an active role
in new program exploration.
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