Get your homework done
There are a lot of resources. Take time to research and do not reinvent the wheel. There is wealth of information on the internet which can be easily found. There are even Free books/literature for Non-Profits
Knowing how to organize will be covered in other sections of this chapter. But you also need to prepare for who is your antagonists and study how they work. Perhaps one way to look at the situation in the Middle East and to organize our activism is to identify who benefits and who is hurt by a lack of peaceful and just resolution and who is our own audience and best groups to start with to build our coalitions.
We are talking about working for a resolution which would result in just economic development, respect for human rights, and removal of barriers to exchange of people and of information and we believe ultimately that more people will benefit from this regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or particular poetical beliefs. As regards to the Middle East though, a small minority could be benefiting from perpetual conflicts. These include some in the military industries (60% of US military exports go to the Middle East, Israel exports lots of weapons). Others include some in the oil industries and in the policy "think tanks" in Washington DC and Tel Aviv. Zionist leaders get significant attention, support, hefty lecture fees and good positions and they write books and receive adulation. Religious zealots (whether Christian, Jews, Muslims) believe in doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic endings and find it useful to follow what they perceive to be "God's will." But they ignore the clear admonitions in their religions calling for mercy, love, and respect for others. The fanatical Jewish colonizers/settlers in Hebron are a good example of this as are people like Osama Bin Laden. A peaceful resolution could take away the only crutch left for Arab leaders' dictatorial powers (which also benefits from lucrative oil and arms deals). With their people not distracted by the conflict outside their borders, they would demand freedoms, responsible economic development, elimination of corruption, an infrastructure, and jobs.
Our own elected representatives receive millions of dollars in donations towards their elections from special interest groups who benefit from the status quo. Absence of the conflict in the Middle East could deprive them of ways to ask for money from rather rich and politically active segments of their voter pool.
These "beneficiaries" are a tiny minority of the mass of humanity adversely affected by the continuation of this conflict (the status quo). Six of the nine million Palestinians in the world remain refugees or displaced people prevented from going back to their homes and lands. Israel, established to provide a safe haven for Jews across the globe, is ironically the only place where Jews remain endangered and subjected to violence. Economically Jews who emigrated to the US are far better off than those who emigrated to Israel. Within Israel, social and economic problems are exacerbated by the continuing conflict. Israelis have 12% unemployment and Palestinians nearly 60%. It is time for the remainder of us, who do not benefit from the continuation of this tragic conflict, to support a solution based on human rights and not the balance of power. This, by definition, implies basic rights such as the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands, abandoning nationalistic and supremacist philosophies, and building pluralistic societies. Doing it in Israel/Palestine will result in a domino effect that will cause a dramatic shift in the repressive Arab regimes who will no longer have that most crucial "crutch." But even if they resist change, the tremendous savings and economic development unleashed by the two most highly educated people in the Middle East (Israelis and Palestinians) will undoubtedly result in dramatic and positive ripples across the globe.
Having identified both the majority beneficiaries of our actions and the tiny minority standing in the way (out of ignorance, narrow self interest or what ever), it is then time to network with allies and begin organizing.
Other resources:
- Legal aid: :awyers without borders and National Lawyer Guild can help. See Survey of legal needs by non-profit organizations |