On January 29th, Atkin Fellows Amal Abusrour and Yosef Kedmi presented their final research papers, focusing on Palestinian civil society and Israeli peace organisations and NGOs, respectively. The Atkin Fellowship, in conjunction with ICSR, offers young leaders from Israel and the Arab world the opportunity to come to London in order to engage in research, debate and constructive dialogue in a neutral political environment. Amal prepared and presented a paper entitled ‘Palestinian Civil Society: A Time to Act’, claiming that Palestine has one of the potentially most sophisticated and vibrant civil societies in the Arab world. She added that the failure to recognize and cultivate civil society as a force for positive change and political reform has been one of the great missed opportunities for advancing democracy, peace and pluralism in the Palestinian Territories. Yosef’s paper, entitled ‘Under the Microscope: Israeli and Bi-National Peace NGOs’, examined the work of peace and conflict-resolution organizations working in Israel, assessing their work and suggesting mechanisms for improvement in the areas of finance, evaluation mechanisms, outreach and transparency. Atkin Fellow research papers will be published by ICSR in February and made available in electronic and paper format upon request.
