6Uncovering the Indigenous Intelligence: A Case Study of Israel and Palestine
Elza Maalouf
“The exercise of getting ready for statehood was a concern for some as it represented unilateralism by the Palestinians. I am here to tell everyone it is indeed unilateralism. This is as it should be because it is about building a Palestinian state. It is about getting ready for Palestinian statehood. If we Palestinians don't build it, who is going to build it for us?”
Prime Minister of Palestine
Herzliya Conference on Strategic Governance, Israel
February 3, 2010
The Birth of New Indigenous Thinking
On a moonlit night in late October 2004, two men sat at an outdoor café in the Yemeni Quarter in Tel Aviv engaged in casual conversation over light Middle Eastern fare. Raffi Nasser was a successful securities trader on Wall Street, and came from an Arab Jewish family with a long history in the region. For centuries, his ancestors were a part of the cultural fabric of the ancient city of Aleppo, just a few hours’ drive to the north-east. His family migrated to Europe soon after the creation of the State of Israel. The other man, Neri Bar-On, who would become the head of the Center for Human Emergence in Israel in later years, came from an ancestry of European Jews. He looked deceptively ordinary in his attire but, in reality, Bar-On was a celebrated star in the micro-chip industry for his contribution to nano-technology.
A Palestinian co-worker and engineer, Mounir Bannoura, ...
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