The Peace Team--Joint Israeli-Palestinian team to debut at Australian Football tourney

cross-posted at www.jewschool.com

Ha'aretz reports that a new team will debut next week at the Australian Football League's International Cup, a joint Palestinian-Israeli team dubbed, the "Peace Team".

16 nations will compete for the prize, but only one team will be made of two nations. According to the article:

"The Peace Team is funded by the Peres Center for Peace and the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue. The idea for the team originated when James Demetriou, brother of AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou, was introduced to the Peres Center during a visit to Israel. Soon afterwards the AFL approved the project..."

According to the AFL's official site, "The combined Israeli-Palestinian Peace Team will make its International Cup debut against Great Britain in the second group of matches played from 1pm. Sweden, China, Finland and India will also compete for the first time."

In my opinion, real peace, not diplomatic peace, but real peace, peace between people, starts with cross-cultural projects like this one. Even something less public, like the G.ho.st online endeavor, is a positive thing. Palestinians and Israelis need to cooperate, and work together, to be able to live together. Even if peace is signed on paper, peace is not real until it is in the hearts of the inhabitants of the countries.

The Ha'aretz report implies as much, and adds this bit regarding the political difficulties:

With half the squad coming from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, there have been some difficulties. Training sessions, held mostly at Kibbutz Netivah Lamed Hey, near Ben Shemen, have been cancelled a couple of times due to closures of the West Bank.

One player from Hebron even pulled out of the team after receiving threats from fellow Palestinians who suspected him of collaborating with Israel.

But as Barassi said, the project's success is best measured by its effect on ordinary members of the community. And judging by the friendly interaction amongst team members, this has been the case.

The team has stuck to a tight schedule, given only a few months to learn the game and train before they leave for Australia on August 19.

But the important part is that the team is getting along; the team can serve as models for their home communities on the possibilities of coexistence and cooperation in the future.

For more information on the team from the Peres Center, look here.
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Georgian and Russian Olympiads embrace

While Russia belligerently furthers its invasion of Georgia, and while the Olympics get used to as a stage for abusive politics, Georgian and Russian sharpshooters put that aside for a congratulatory embrace.

CNN reports.
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I feel I never told you the story of the G.ho.st

It's now a fact, ghosts are real--at least the Global Host Operating System, the brainchild of G.ho.st Inc, a 2006 start-up with an interesting ideal. On the surface of things, what G.ho.st, Inc is attempting to do is "develop the Global Hosted Operating System, the world's only true Web Operating System." But beneath the surface of this company lies a progressive vision based on collaboration and co-existence.

The company has a simple, yet provocative, vision:

"to provide a free fully functional Virtual Computer, on the Web, so that every person in the world can do any computing at any time, any place, on any budget."

In that spirit, the G.ho.st provides a word processor and spreadsheet program, applications and games. Much like Google has challenged Microsoft with their new free Office Suite-style package, G.ho.st provides a means for consumers to avoid financially supporting corporations. This would be good enough, but there is more.

The company is founded on an interesting philosophy. According to their website, "Windows, MAC and UNIX are all successors to operating systems that were designed in the 60’s, 70’s and 80's, long before the Internet was even dreamed of." Well that's a great point that never even crossed my mind! All of our software is constantly catching up to technological advancement. We have been limiting our capacity by not exploiting the wireless nature of the Internet to its fullest. Internet communication has allowed people to break cultural, diplomatic and economic boundaries like no other media has. G.ho.st is implementing that spirit of cooperation into their work. And it does not stop at the software...

Perhaps the most inspiring and impressive aspects of G.ho.st is not so much the background of the company, as the background of the individuals who made it.


These men and women are Palestinians and Israelis. This company does seek to help the world collaborate, share and cross boundaries. These people have experience in collaborating, sharing and crossing boundaries that many of us cannot fathom. In their own words:
The G.ho.st team is itself a rare Palestinian-Israeli collaboration. Ghosts go through walls and the very first wall that G.ho.st goes through is the 425 mile concrete barrier that Israel has built in the West Bank between itself and the Palestinians and which physically divides the G.ho.st team into two. However the Internet and collaboration between human beings transcends all physical boundaries.
The team is led by Founder and CEO Zvi Schreiber, a British-born Israeli; G.ho.st is his third Israeli start-up company. He describes G.ho.st as a "consumer service," as opposed to his other two projects which were "business ventures." The company's director is Tareq Maayah, a US educated Palestinian who was on an advisory board to the Palestinian Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. The company itself itself is made up of 40 Palestinians and Israelis who desire to provide free computing for the world and peace for their communities.

Perhaps the most important facet of their company is the G.ho.st Peace Foundation. According to their website:

The GhPF is founded on firm beliefs that

The silent majority of Palestinians and Israelis want peace.

That personal and commercial cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians can overcome nationalistic animosity.

That supporting independent economic development for Palestine is preferable to aid and is the key foundation for peace.

That all peoples in the region should have access to technology skills to overcome the digital divide and allow future prosperity.

Their website is not yet developed, but based on what they've been able to do with their web-based Operating System, I'm sure it will be an impressive digital feat. This is an endeavor we should all be supporting. We should use their FREE web-based operating system (I wrote this post on their word processor!) and support their peace initiative.
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