Nonviolence & resistance

Alexander Langer International Award 2024 for the collaboration between the Palestinian association Youth of Sumud and the Israeli Ta'ayush. A reward for perseverance and the desire to coexist.

Nova Gorica - Gorica | 26.02.2025

In the year of the European Capital of Culture Nova Gorica-Gorizia, the representative of the Israeli volunteer organisation Youth Of Sumud (‘Youth Of Perseverance’) and the representative of the Palestinian volunteer organisation Ta'ayush (‘Living Together’), winners of the Alexander Langer 2024 Award, will be in Nova Gorica and Gorizia and will share in a public meeting their testimonies of cooperation and peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.

The meeting will be held on 26 February 2025 in the ‘Incontro’ hall (via Veniero, 1 Gorizia) at 6pm and will be preceded by a press conference at 4pm in Nova Gorica at the Knjigarna kavarna Maks. Youth Of Sumud is an interpreter of the Palestinian non-violent resistance in the area of the hills south of Hebron in the West Bank, while Ta'ayush is an expression of Israeli civil society acting for peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. The joint award is intended to recognise the relevance of the spirit of cooperation and dialogue that animates and guides the two associations in the specific context of the West Bank, which is characterised by heavy violations of international law.

The story of Youth of Sumud bears witness in its name to a decades-long conflict that calls for action from one generation to the next. The current leader of the movement is the son of one of the founders and animators of the ‘Popular Committee of Nonviolent Resistance’ of the South Hebron Hills, a movement of mostly Palestinian farmers and shepherds who have chosen, since the late 1990s, a coherently and profoundly non-violent way to exist and resist. Youth of Sumud is an association of young people that was born within the framework of this experience and has borrowed its objectives and modalities, including a strong openness to the outside world through the presence of international observers and collaboration with Israeli civil society, an example of which is Ta'ayush. Ta'ayush activists continue to be present on the ground, even though they are often beaten, threatened and arrested.

Youth of Sumud and Ta'ayush practice non-violent interposition actions on a daily basis, usually at the call of the civilian population threatened or experiencing violence. They accompany shepherds and farmers in the care of their fields and herds, and accompany male and female students ensuring a safe route to school, despite the armed threat of settlers. Their physical presence acts as a deterrent against violence in an attempt to prevent beatings, demolitions, fires, poisoning of fields and wells, and cattle theft. The two organisations also carry out incessant witness work and photographic and video documentation of the abuses suffered by the Palestinian population. The collection and systematisation of the testimonies makes it possible to denounce the situation of the villages and Palestinian populations in the West Bank to the Israeli authorities.

When it would be more immediate to erect walls and barriers, the Palestinians of Youth of Sumud and the Israelis of Ta'ayush show that they are able to cross the boundaries of ‘ethnic compactness’. This collaboration thus represents a unique implementation of Alexander Langer's ‘Attempt at a Decalogue for Interethnic Coexistence’. The Alexander Langer Stiftung Foundation, established in 1999 with the aim of supporting groups and people who with their work contribute to keeping alive the legacy of Langer's thought by pursuing his civil, cultural and political commitment, with a decision taken at a meeting on 15 July 2024, recognises in Youth of Sumud and Ta'ayush courageous choices of independence of thought and strong social roots. Through their work and constant action, the two associations intend to witness profoundly nonviolent operational choices in favour of the development of human rights, peace policies, democracy and coexistence, against discrimination and ethnic exclusivism.