STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY COOPER, WORLDRIGHTS, ON THE OCCASION OF THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE CIVIC FORUM PRESS CONFERENCE
National Press Club - August 5, 2009
Peace is built by consensus—one vote, one good intention at a time.
That is what the Middle East Peace Civic Forum is all about—building a consensus for peace one person at a time.
We believe that with consensus, peace will come.
We are about opening up a new political space in which consensus can be won.
We are about offering a fresh watershed of good intentions to achieve this grand consensus.
Naturally, for peace to prevail there must be—at the very least—the promise of justice on the ground. Because, of course, without common justice on the ground, there can be no real or lasting peace. With justice, peace can be a force of nature, a continuum, a river of good intentions.
The search for justice on the ground begins and ends on the fields of right conditions—conditions based on reciprocated respect, communal dignity, and above all, an expectation of equity. Conditions based on political, social and economic justice. Creating these conditions—or their promise, written in stone--leads us down the path toward consensus.
That is why we are about taking small steps as well as big ones—and why we believe that everyone should be involved in the peace process—from the shoemaker in Gaza, to the street merchant in Jerusalem, to the elected leaders of Israel and Palestine, to the current occupant of the White House. Everyone. All are essential, all are critical to achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East because peace is no orphan; it is the province of everyone.
Internationally recognized human rights have been decreed by global consensus as inalienable to the dignity and welfare of all persons everywhere. They represent humanity’s highest ideals—its finest dreams. But perhaps we should all dare to dream of even greater things to come—that all persons should be entitled to enjoy the right to peace, that peace be their birthright.
The right to peace is, at least, the shared dream of the people in this room for the good people of the Israel and Palestine. It is our hope that it will flow to them by our river of good intentions.