New Palestine Remix of the Arab Revolution: Pre-Released March 15

No, nobody in Palestine actually composed a song about the Arab Revolution (although if anyone would do it, it would be these guys), but their new message might be as just catchy as any Timbaland re-make – quite possibly even the BEST Timbaland re-make.

Years of division between the Fatah and Hamas political parties and the recent wave of revolutions in the Arab world have caused the next generation of Palestinians to realize that there is more than one way to make a beat – a message – a revolution and just because those superstars are on top doesn’t mean those superstars will always be on top, as proven in Egypt and Tunisia and the celebrity lives of Britney Spears and oh, let’s say, Milli Vanilli.

Their latest remix doesn’t begin with the call for the end of Israeli occupation, but with the call for Palestinian unity. On March 15, a loosely-organized group of youth networks staged a successful non-violent demonstration across Palestine to show their support for the reinstatement of the formerly functioning Palestinian National Council.

“The goal here is to liberate the minds of our people,” says Najwan Berekdar to TIME Magazine, an Israeli-born Arab women’s rights activist. “We want to get past all the old identities – Fatah, Hamas, religious, secular, Israeli, and Palestinian Arab – and create a mass non-violent movement.”

If these words had come from any other Arab nation right now, it is likely the world would be listening with a full ear, yet many are so accustomed to connecting Palestine with violence that this fledgling paradigm shift is going relatively unnoticed…or maybe even purposefully ignored.

A large part of this lack of interest is due to the economic forces at play. A division between the West Bank Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip means that war games continue to pan out between Israel and Palestine and between Palestine and Palestine. The arms trade is a world best-seller…and as long as the conflict exists, hundreds of smugglers will continue to make money off the goods they sell on the other side of the border.

But we, the good people, can fight back with our own economic interests as well. Below, I’ve compiled a short list of social enterprises and organizations that support or have supported the struggle for peace in Palestine.

- Aloha Palestine
- Outward Bound
- Search for Common Ground
- Canaan Fair Trade
- Lend for Peace
- MEDJI Tourism Services

In the meantime, we need to be listening to what the people of Palestine are saying. They are watching their neighbors and taking careful notes. They are logging onto social media, blogging, and meeting in open-air cafes instead of mosques and caves. This is the new generation of Palestinians and their new “Non-Violent Remix” might be just what it takes. As an organizer concludes in TIME Magazine, “I only hope that we are not too well-educated to be courageous.”