Some talking points:
A democratic assembly to complement and reinforce the traditional diplomatic process and negotiate a final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.
Reaching a comprehensive and definitive peace via a Joint Israeli-Palestinian Democratic Peace Assembly (i.e. creating a political solution based on broad democratic processes and assent of the people).
approach never seems to have been tried and while it may not be perfect, most people we have spoken to acknowledge it is worth a try.
To reach these goals, the design of the Assembly and its selection process is vital. That is why it is necessary to look at various scenarios, explore their pros and cons, as well as get feedback from potential participants and all interested parties.
As we all know, the stakes are high. They have just been raised tremendously by the announcement of a politically very risky international peace conference. Our proposal, by creating a broad-based parallel track, reduces the political risk by not staking everything on one uncertain process. It thus complements rather than supersedes traditional diplomacy. It could be a major point of discussion at the international peace conference.
We anticipate that just as Crown Prince’s Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s recent proposal was taken up rapidly by most parties, that this proposal could be taken up rapidly as well. Part of its attraction is that it does not presume anyone is right or wrong from the outset, and could be complementary to any other effort or proposal underway.
Another advantage is that it is based only on fundamental political principles that both sides claim to adhere to and respect, and which public opinion - both Israeli/Palestinian and international - is extremely likely to support.
And this democratic based proposal is likely to be very popular and “sellable” to the US government and US public, as well as other Western governments.
Initial reactions from several sides (Israeli Embassy, Palestinian Delegate, and US Embassy, all in London), are encouraging. All three diplomatic representations (Palestinian, Israeli and USA) have sent the proposal to their capitals (respectively to Arafat, Sharon and Peres, and Powell).
We have started to design processes to use Democracy-Empowered Diplomacy to stabilize the situation of other hot spots as well (Balkans, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Western Sahara) and are looking for support to continue to develop the Israeli-Palestinian scenario and other scenarios.