A letter from ALLMEP Founder & President, Avi Meyerstein

I started this update from the plane departing Tel Aviv on Tuesday. I wanted to share what I saw and heard during an intensive week of conversations with ALLMEP’s regional team and many of our extraordinary members — and what it could mean for our shared path forward.

It was only when I landed that I learned of the latest major regional escalation, which sent millions of Israelis and Palestinians running for cover. Suddenly, the core conflict that desperately needs our attention seemed to move off many people’s screens.

But as we approach 365 days of this brutal war, people on the ground are holding all of these battlefronts in their minds at once. Too many of us will be marking painful anniversaries in the coming days and weeks, remembering the dear friends and family we lost. Few imagined a year ago where we’d be now.

One thing I couldn’t help notice again on my trip: Despite so much polarization, it’s striking how many Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are going through similar experiences and feelings of fear, despair, anger, and confusion. They struggle with many of the same questions, too.

On Sunday, a bereaved Jewish Israeli mother asked me, “Can we ever live here in peace? Are there any good people ‘over there?’” The next day, a Palestinian colleague told me that her teenage son asked the very same thing.

These questions are heartbreaking. But, they also reveal a tentative opening. The extreme pain, uncertainty, and insecurity have jolted many people, in the region and abroad, to consciousness. They’re asking, some for the first time, deep and searching questions about the failed status quo. Many question where war will take us without an exit plan or strategy for peace.

Questions can create an opening, but unfortunately, they are not enough. Even with such doubts, war often seems the more actionable, “doable” choice. People don’t understand how to put peace into practice. And many stopped trying after too many failures years ago.

If only those questioning what endless war has to offer could see the work and resilience of the peacebuilding community. They’re offering compelling answers and alternatives, making peace actionable. To see thousands building trust and cooperation at a time like this — with such activity, demand, and capacity — is to understand that almost anything is possible.

What I saw and heard on the ground was that many of our 160 member organizations can’t keep up with demand for their services and programs. One program had 1,600 applicants for just 120 spots. Others have waiting lists and projects ready to fund. Consider that with its current budget, USAID could only support 22 of the first 275 MEPPA project proposals. Our contacts at the European Union are reporting a similar over-supply of strong applications and under-supply of resources.

Even in this environment, the peacebuilders haven’t missed a day of work. More than 25% actually increased activity during these difficult months. To do so, they’ve been able to tap into capacity built over 30 years: a new generation of leaders, high-impact initiatives and tools, and resilient teams. And ALLMEP is here to support them.

Through a nearly impossible time, we’ve been finding our way as a field. It’s required lots of adaptation and tough conversations. To help, we’ve brought online new tools. Our AI Pulse project, where over 150 peacebuilders engaged in a deep, months-long focus group helped us find wide agreement on the shared values and goals at our core — the lights that guide us even as the world seems to collapse all around.

But fully meeting this unprecedented moment will take something even more fundamental that we never had before — a level of visibility and scale to go toe-to-toe with the forces, media, and trauma that steadily fuel conflict. We need to scale the work of our members to engage those who are ready to reach across the divide. And we must also reach those who are not yet ready but who are open, as they now see that continued conflict is a dead end.

The biggest thing we need is not new. It’s more. War is not easy or automatic. To wage it, we invest vast sums of time and money. We demonstrate immeasurable resilience. We steel ourselves to pay the highest price. What if we invested even a fraction of that in the alternatives?

To that end, with good choices, the next year could offer a turning point. MEPPA — and expected new European investments — provide a foundation of tens of millions of dollars. These are critical building blocks, as are the G7’s repeated commitments just this year to institutionalize peacebuilding. ALLMEP is working on three continents to fully realize this potential and ensure that this ground-up strategy is married to real and substantive diplomacy.

We know with certainty that when it matters most, including today, Israelis and Palestinians will ask: Do I have a partner? The question for the rest of us must be: Did we do everything we could to help them answer “yes?” We and they don’t have to accept this situation. We can and must create a way out.

As we mark this solemn anniversary of the start of this devastating period, we hope you’ll reflect and commit with us to taking action to support the peacebuilders lighting the way. When I founded ALLMEP two decades ago during the darkness of the Second Intifada, I don’t think I ever imagined scenes as horrific as those we’ve seen this past year.

But I also don’t think I imagined ALLMEP having over 160 members, a global staff of fifteen, and such a capacity and opportunity to influence what comes next. I remain convinced today, as I was then, that our broad community of peacebuilding offers people something that endless violence and war cannot: a way forward. And when we all get behind them, they can fully seize the openings of this difficult time and enable Israelis and Palestinians to shape together the future they are destined to share.