Sievershäuser Ermutigung 2024 honors Combatants for Peace
Israeli-Palestinian initiative is awarded the Sievershäuser Peace Prize
The Sievershäuser Ermutigung Peace Prize, which has been awarded every two years since 1988, was announced this year for outstanding projects and initiatives of constructive peace work in escalated conflicts that attempt to make a contribution to a more peaceful present and future under the most difficult conditions
In the end, despite a strong field of applicants, the jury unanimously decided to award the peace prize, endowed with 5,000 euros, to the movement of former fighters on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "Combatants for Peace". The movement has been committed to a just peace for many years and is now institutionalized as an association. The jury is thus honoring the courageous peace efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In her justification, she emphasizes: "The Combatants for Peace organization has been committed for years to dialogue and cooperation between people from Israel and Palestine who were once on different sides of the conflict. Their unique approach promotes non-violence, mutual understanding and joint efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict. This award recognizes their courageous commitment to reconciliation and peace in one of the most conflict-ridden regions in the world, as well as their tireless efforts in the face of external and internal resistance."
The Combatants for Peace is an association made up of former Israeli soldiers and former resistance fighters from the West Bank. They were founded in 2006 after the second Intifada to break the spiral of violence, to awaken mutual understanding of their respective situations and to jointly implement peace initiatives. For more than one and a half decades, they have been carrying out non-violent actions such as guarding against attacks by settlers on farmers, based on the shared values of freedom, democracy, security and human dignity for all. Programs such as "Learning Peace" and "Face-to-Face" bring people from both societies together. In dialogue groups and training courses on non-violent communication, participants learn about each other's suffering and learn ways out of violence. For a year now, Israeli and Palestinian women have also been meeting in dialogue groups. In 2018, Combatants for Peace were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The jury, this year consisting of the former Federal Minister and Deputy President of the Bundestag Edelgard Bulmahn, the communications scientist and journalist Angelika Hirschkorn, the Director of the Evangelical Mission Worldwide (EMW), Rainer Kiefer, the youth social worker Jens Ussat and the peace worker at the Service Agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Felix Paul, had a difficult selection to make in two meetings and was impressed by the quality of the applications submitted. She highlighted the contributions that, for example, the Gondscharenko couple, who fled from Russia, the Bana Group for Peace and Development (Sudan), the "History(s) in the Migration Society" working group of Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, Fadwa Mahmoud, founder of the organisation Families for Freedom, and the international peace activist and diplomat Hooria Mashhour, each in their own way, have made and continue to make to promote peace and justice.
