CB is working for nonviolence in a practical and promising way and I would like to add five ideas about how peaceful means can be approached in international conflicts. I do so while recognising that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely serious, complicated, and longlasting.

1. Stick to international law and order. The Geneva Convention, for instance, bans attacks on civil populations and prohibits an occupier from transferring its own population to the occupied territories. The idea of peace by peaceful means is grounded in the UN charter, Article 33. This principle is something that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) can use to challenge their government when it seems ready to use military intervention to solve a political problem, Have all the peaceful means of Article 33 been tried out? How seriously? With what effort?

2. Realize the fact of power. In an asymmetric conflict, one of the parties has much more power, money, international backup, weapons and control of media. That makes dialogue extremely difficult. How can dialogue be possible given the unequal power relations like in the Israel-Palestine conflict? What methods can be used to promote an equal dialogue?

3. Various levels of dialogue needed. Dialogue is possible and the efforts of groups like CB are useful when we distinguish between the top leadership, the middle level and the grassroots. The top comprises governments and national leaders who can make binding agreements. However, the top is often influenced by external powers and institutions. The grassroots level is the place of people-to-people dialogue. Sometimes it is difficult even for the people to meet but when the meetings take place they often prove to be necessary, useful and hopeful. These grassroots efforts can be even more useful if they can reach the middle level: media, religious and ethnic leaders, respected, well known personalities, leaders of mass organisations.

4. The third response. When an aggressive act happens there are two common responses to it. Either fight, which means retaliation, violence, hostile actions, or flight, which means to evade, do nothing, surrender. Many politicians and the mass media put forward only these two possibilities. CSOs and peace builders can do something very enlightening by pointing out that this is a limited choice and there is always a third possibility, namely to meet the aggression carefully and thoughtfully. Get a grip on the strong feelings that the aggression provokes. Get a wider perspective. Look into the problems behind the attack. Consider various responses. Grassroots groups can call on politicians and the media to react intelligently and with responsibility and not to feed the spiral of violence.

5. Maintain contact. When a conflict escalates, contact and dialogue is given up at a certain point. If that happens we enter a dangerous phase. When there is no more contact we get rumours, misunderstandings, lies, enemy images, dehumanization of the enemy, hostile actions, violence. It is not easy to advocate contact with the ‘enemy’ in tense situations. You might be called naïve or even traitors. Nonviolence takes a lot of courage. Keeping and creating new contacts is one of the most important peaceful means available to CSOs. To construct networks of human contact cannot be overestimated even if it does not solve the conflict or bring immediate results. Rather, it gives hope and fertilizes the soil for peace building. This is exactly what CB and other groups are doing and I wish you lots of success with your work.