By World BEYOND War, July 15, 2024
World BEYOND War has given the 2024 Organizational War Abolisher Award to Combatants for Peace (CfP), a joint community of Palestinians and Israelis working in solidarity to end the occupation and all forms of oppression in Palestine and Israel. Guided by the values of nonviolent resistance, they are showing the world that there is another way. CfP began in 2006, when Israelis and Palestinians who were born into conflict and faced one another as sworn enemies chose to do the unimaginable. A small group of combatants—Israeli soldiers from elite military units and Palestinian fighters, many of whom served years in Israeli prisons—began meeting one another in secret to challenge their fate and the violent status quo. Through many courageous meetings, a transformational journey began to unfold. These fighters and soldiers, once committed to armed battle, laid down their weapons to join forces and nonviolently co-resist the occupation, leading to the creation of Combatants for Peace. Today, the CfP movement is made up of former fighters, refuseniks, and nonviolence activists committed to co-creating a just peace.
Combatants for Peace works to achieve its mission and goals through four domains of work: direct nonviolent action and work on the ground to support Palestinian communities impacted by violence stemming from the occupation, international awareness and advocacy, Palestinian-Israeli community building, and youth education and empowerment work.
This group has not paused their efforts following the attack on October 7th and the ongoing horrors in Gaza. CfP’s Palestinian and Israeli activists have stayed committed to one another and pressed ahead with public meetings despite intense pressure to support war. In interviews and films, members of Combatants for Peace have recounted the pro-war myths they grew up believing and the realities they came to understand. Having learned the hard way the futility of violence, they seek to advance a just peace in the region.
Accepting the award at an online public award ceremony on July 22, 2024, will be . . .
Eszter Koryani was born and raised in Hungary, and has lived in Jerusalem since 2015. Eszter has a BA in economics and an MA in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest, and has been involved with non-profit organisations since 2003. She has been employed by Combatants for Peace since 2017 and is an experienced project manager, with a specialism in designing and implementing large scale non-formal educational programmes. Eszter is also an experienced trainer and youth educator, and is a leading figure in Israeli-Palestinian cross-border youth peace initiative. Since February 2024, she is the Israeli CEO of CfP.
Eszter Koryani
Rana Salman is the Palestinian Executive Director of Combatants for Peace. She is the descendant of a Palestinian refugee family that was expelled from their home in Haifa in 1948. Rana was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Bethlehem under the Israeli occupation. She came to Combatants for Peace after several years working in tourism in the West Bank, organizing political and educational tours for visitors from abroad.
Rana Salman
The award will be presented by Irish military veteran and Board Member of World BEYOND War Ed Horgan.
“Thank you to World BEYOND War for this award. We are proud of our joint grassroots work towards a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and will continue striving towards our vision of a reality based on our shared humanity,” said Rana Salman.
“We are honored to receive this award from World BEYOND War that recognizes the importance of our bi-national activities, including educational programs, solidarity work, non-violent direct action, and nonviolent communication training (NVC). We deeply appreciate your support,” added Eszter Koryani.
The timing of the awards ceremony will be July 22, 2024, at 16:00 UTC, which is 6 a.m. in Honolulu, 9 a.m. in San Francisco, 10 a.m. in Mexico City, 12 noon in Washington D.C., 5 p.m. in Dublin, 5 p.m. in Yaoundé, 6 p.m. in Berlin, 7 p.m. in Rafah, 7 p.m. in Jerusalem, 7:30 p.m. in Tehran, and 9:30 p.m. in New Delhi.
The event is free and open to the media and the public. Register for the Zoom link here.
World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its awards to go to educators or activists intentionally and effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory Board and Staff, made the selections.
The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND War’s strategy for reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book A Global Security System, An Alternative to War. They are: Demilitarizing Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.
