WBC Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem

"Young visions and strategies against hard realties" was the working title of the conference in December 2005, that brought together about 50 young Germans, Israelis and Palestinian political activists in Talitha Kumi. The event took part in co-operation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

While the conference in 2004 dealt with the conception of history, this years conference was dedicated to the specific political problems of the participiants' societies, with focus on the role of youth. Israeli, Palestinian, and Germans have been able to dicover analogies between their perceptions, after they first tried to work on definitions for "youth" in seperated groups.

The last unit of the conference served the common development of possibilities for more social justice and against a collapse of the peace process in the Middle East – as individual as well as in co-operation with political parties and NGOs. The role of minorities and migrants was identified as a special field of action, that will get particular attention of the Willy Brandt Center in 2006.

The Federal Vice-Chair and responsible represantative for the WBC of the Jusos, Cordula Drautz, summarized the conference as an important contribution for the strengthening of the sensible relationships between the Israeli and Palestinian youth organizations. "We feel constrained to the principle of nonpartisanship. This means that we do not engage in solidarity work, but acting as negotiator that tries to embrace both sides, to grant them space and to develop alternatives to the behavior that is causing conflicts."

The Willy Brandt Center tries to oppose the unilateral approach of the Israeli political discourse and the anti-normalization-debate of the Palestinian side in arguing, that a sustainable peace can only be reached with common approaches.