The Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security
29 November 2024
This is from an email sent by ROPES, an organization I support. The only rational future for the Middle East it to create a nonterrorist Palestinian state that coexists with Israel. This is quite a challenge, particularly since most Palestinians today will not publicly reject terrorism, but ROPES is a way forward. I urge you to support them.
Even in challenging times, Thanksgiving reminds us all to focus on the positive. And amid the cloud of darkness that has engulfed the Middle East for more than a year now, it is worth celebrating any rays of light (such as today’s Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire). You all have supported ROPES in recent years because you’ve seen us--and the new generation of Arab and Israeli leaders we represent--as one such source of hope. And so, in the spirit of optimism and gratitude, Ksenia and I are pleased to share with you some positive developments and to thank you all for making them possible.
Recently in Cyprus, with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Israel, ROPES held its second conflict-journalism course for another bright and brave cohort of 15 young female journalists from Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and various countries across the MENA region (including, for the first time, Iran). This intensive five-day program, which covered topics ranging from reporting on peace processes to combating disinformation in times of war, was ROPES's fourth major people-to-people program of 2024 (double the number we held in 2023) and caps a string of other recent successes…
In August, we held our fifth annual summit for 30+ emerging leaders in Baku, Azerbaijan (which you can read about in Times of Israel).
The European Union awarded ROPES a 150,000-euro grant to launch Phase II of our education-exchange initiative.
We co-hosted webinars with two Arab think tanks (the Dubai Public Policy Research Centre and the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington).
We’ve continued amplifying forward-thinking Arab and Israeli voices through our podcast.
And we're not done yet. Next month in Tel Aviv, ROPES will launch a series of live Hebrew lectures about the MENA region for an Israeli audience (our first experiment with a self-financed program model). And this February in Morocco, with the blessing of the Moroccan government, we will hold the first of three 2025 education programs for a total of 100 university and graduate students from Israel/Palestine and across the MENA region.
On the fundraising front, despite the headwinds of an election year, we’ve already exceeded our 2023 fundraising total and--thanks to your support--are now 4/5 of the way to hitting the $1 million milestone for the first time. We're extremely grateful to the many of you who have already generously supported us this year. If you haven’t yet made a 2024 contribution to ROPES but are encouraged by our progress under challenging circumstances, I hope you'll consider renewing your support of our peacebuilding work at whatever level is right for you.
Your continued support will enable us to further scale up ROPES’s various people-to-people programs and to make critical new hires (especially from the region itself) that will allow us to carry out our accelerated program agenda. Just as importantly, it will enable us to invest in our growing alumni community (now encompassing Israel/Palestine and 13 regional countries) by holding regular virtual/in-person alumni events and overseeing/seed-funding cooperation projects spearheaded by multinational groups of ROPES alumni.
If you'd like to make a 2024 (or multi-year) pledge to ROPES, you can do so by replying to this e-mail or by filling out our pledge form. Tax-deductible donations can be made by credit card or check/bank wire/DAF via either of our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsors, the Middle East Peace Dialogue Network (EIN number 22-3684183) or Global Impact (EIN: 52-1273585). Please do remember to mark ROPES in the memo line.
If you have any questions or ideas, please don't hesitate to send them my way.
We appreciate your kind consideration and thank you all again for helping us continue building bridges at a time when they are both as elusive and as vital as ever. The arc of history may be long, but even in the Middle East, it does bend toward peace.
I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving and a blessed conclusion to the year. May we see more light and less darkness in the year ahead.
Warmly,
Ben Birnbaum
Founder | ROPES (The Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security)A New Generation. A New Middle East.
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