As an economist attracted to the intractable (favorite topics include poverty, subsistence, unemployment, and population growth in developing nations), URI professor Mohammed Sharif spent early 2001 ruminating on the world's loci of conflict -- the Mideast, Chechnya, Kosovo, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, and Colombia, to name a few. How to address these hostilities, he wondered, where to begin? Then 9/11 seared its way into a consciousness gone suddenly, inexorably global, and Sharif found his imperative: Israel and Palestine must finally resolve their differences, and must do so peacefully.

On Sunday, August 4, URI will host a daylong conference, open to the public, designed and to be presented by Sharif and a host of international scholars and peace activists, "Israel and Palestine Working Toward Justice and Peace" (www.uri.edu/outreach/mideast). The event, step one of a two-part, multi-year effort, will focus on public education, as well as discussion and definition by the parties of their unresolved issues, with the aim of developing a declaration of mutually shared goals. This will go to the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League, and the US government to use as a tool for their work in the region. Next year's follow-up conference will focus on implementing this year's blueprint.

Sharif explains that while the conference planning process was hardly without friction, especially given escalating violence in the Middle East over the past year, the participants were chosen for their dedication to peaceful means of conflict resolution. "We didn't invite anyone who wanted the other side eliminated; we only invited those people who start from a recognition of the other side's humanity," he notes. The day will feature panels on the history of the conflict, the US role, and a vision for peaceful coexistence; time is allotted throughout the presentations for audience participation. The day will culminate with a multi-course Indian dinner.

Sharif wants to reclaim from extremists on both sides the issues at the heart of the conflict, and he offers the conference as a rare and essential opportunity for thinking people from all over the world to engage one another in open conversation. "We can't wait for the powerful to solve our problems," he argues. "Power loves the status quo. It's people who change the world." And whatever tangled role the US has played in the Mideast, the founding tenet of free speech uniquely qualifies it, he says, to nurture a new way forward. "This is the country where I am free to stand and speak what I think and feel because this government is strong," Sharif says. "This is where we can start a real dialogue." (Reservations: 401-874-4119.)

Issue Date: August 2 - 8, 2002