Laurel Rapp watched as a Palestinian and Israeli student emotionally embraced - it was a touching moment for everyone in the audience. The Palestinian, Duroub Yacoub, had just described to an audience of Ohio State University students how her cousin was killed in an Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during the second Intifada. After the presentation was over, an Israeli student stood up and told Yacoub that his family had been killed by a bus bombing during the second Intifada and that he had been one of the soldiers at the Church of Nativity.

Yacoub and Rapp were speaking at OSU as a part of the OneVoice International Education Program. As an initiative of OneVoice, a grassroots movement designed specifically to work towards a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, The International Education Program is at the forefront of finding a peaceful resolution. The program uses college tours as powerful teaching devices for American students.

According to Rapp, the International Education Program Director of OneVoice International, the college tour program first began in 2005. Its inception was a response to an outbreak of violence at Columbia University in New York and Concordia University in Montreal related to the conflict. Visiting colleges across the country, including Northwestern University, UC Santa Cruz, New York University, Georgetown and more, both Palestinian and Israeli leaders have spoken about the importance of learning about the conflict in Israel. Perhaps more importantly, they have presented students with the tools to take action on their campuses.

“We try to visit universities with strong traditions of activism on this issue, that have suffered from negative relations between different student groups because of this conflict,” said Rapp.

Daniel Lubetzky, the son of a Holocaust survivor and a Mexican Jew, first formed the OneVoice movement in 2002. OneVoice’s mission, according to its Web site, is to “amplify the voice of Israeli and Palestinian moderates, empowering them to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution and demand their leaders achieve a two-state solution.” In response to the collapse of the Camp David peace process and continued violence in the Middle East, the organization aims to tackle the rising conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Even though OneVoice has members of all ages from all over the world, it has recently turned to college students in the United Kingdom and America in its attempt to end the conflict.

“I want [the college students] to take our ideas to the politicians,” says Rotem Yossef, a OneVoice Israeli Youth leader who, like Rapp, spends time speaking with college students in the U.S. “The idea is to make sure the politicians understand that there is a majority for a two-state solution, and if the politicians understand then we are doing our job,” said Yossef.

China Sajadian, the International Education Program coordinator for OneVoice International who has also participated in these college tours, agrees.

“Israelis and Palestinians widely recognize the U.S. as a powerful broker and force of constructive change in this process,” Sajadian says. “That’s where American [college students] can come in - by promoting on a small scale on their campus support for the mainstream political process, and on a more specific level they can contact their decision makers directly equipped with this knowledge that they’re getting from OneVoice.”

The series of tours, which takes place during the academic semesters, brings “youth voices straight from the region,” Sajadian says, “to promote a message of the fruits of mutual recognition and compromise and bring a constructive and forward-looking perspective on the conflict.” She says that while both Israel and Palestine have very nationalistic positions, they can in fact come to an agreement.

Young voices like that of Rami Rabayah, a OneVoice Palestinian youth leader, are essential to spreading the message to college students.

“In a conflict situation like we live in today it is very important for people to come and join us at OneVoice and to build trust,” Rabayah says. “The situation is not very good and it is dangerous, so people need to know that we can have a better way to end the conflict.”

Especially because the conflict is taking place overseas and not on American soil, the organization considers it imperative to keep Americans in the loop.

“We aim to give internationals-especially students-the tools necessary to educate themselves about the conflict, raise awareness about what Israelis and Palestinians see as the solution and deliver this message to Washington,” Rapp says.

The next step for OneVoice International is the unveiling of a major public polling initiative. The poll asked thousands of Israelis and Palestinians multiple questions in order to assess public opinion about a two-state solution, trying to find where the majority of them currently stand on the issue.

Of those polled, 74 percent of Palestinians and 78 percent of Israelis are in favor of a two-state solution, according to the OneVoice Web site.

“The good news is the two-state solution is still the most widely accepted solution,” Sajadian says. “But it also revealed that there is still some consensus to be made on the final status issues.” Sajadian added that the next level is to assess the public opinion of college students in America.

The plan is not only to reveal the results in America, but also to involve American students in intensive congressional internships, where they will learn how to lobby or call representatives to personally deliver the results.

A solution has not yet been reached, but as long as there is the possibility of a two-state solution, OneVoice will continue to enlist the help of American college students.

Text By: Grace Weitz