Atidna International
We at Atidna International fundamentally believe that Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians are one family, not inherent enemies, and we believe that such a humanizing notion can be revealed by creating joint and civil spaces for interaction between our two peoples. The name Atidna combines the Hebrew word “Atid” for future with the Arabic suffix “na” for our to hence mean “our future.” Atidna has been in existence since April 2022 and we seek to establish chapters at every campus across the nation!
We host two basic types of events at Atidna chapters: dialogue sessions and peace events. Atidna dialogue sessions bring together both peoples to have free and open conversations about anything and everything pertaining to Israel and Palestine on campuses. Atidna is, at our core, a free speech group. Given events in Israel/Palestine and given the suppression of student voices on campus surrounding this topic, we believe the work of Atidna is more important now than ever. Atidna dialogues have ranged from topics concerning 1948 (War of Independence/the Nakba), One State Vs Two State solutions, cultural conversations, modern day conversations about the situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine and much more (we have hosted over 50 dialogues by now).
Atidna only has two rules for a dialogue session, they simply must remain civil and be joint in character. Any view from any individual is welcome. By having these conversations, we begin to understand “the other,” and we learn that we are not “others” but brothers. Our two peoples are more similar to each other than to anyone else and this notion can only be revealed by talking together.
Atidna also hosts one large peace event every semester at each chapter to bring together both communities on campus. The theme of Atidna’s peace events are always to solidify that both peoples are cousins, one family, and not inherent enemies.
Examples of peace events include a joint vigil organized by UT Atidna to honor all innocents, Israelis and Palestinians, taken since Oct 7 (this was done on Nov 7—the one month anniversary of Oct 7). This vigil was led by Jewish/Israeli and Arab/Palestinian student speakers alongside professors and Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faith leaders. This was only one of two joint vigils on a college campus across the nation at the time. Another example of an Atidna peace event includes erecting a table with a sign that read “One Palestinian, One Jew, Two Brothers, Ask Us Anything” between an Israeli festival on UT’s campus and a subsequent Palestine-solidarity counter protest against the festival in order to give students on campus the opportunity to engage with both peoples in a civil and joint space for dialogue (and to allow the UT community to simply see that our two peoples can, in fact, exist in a civil and joint space).
Footage from both peace events is provided below. Other Atidna peace events include joint linguistic events showing the similarities of Hebrew and Arabic, joint Hebrew and Arabic calligraphy events, and hosting Israeli and Palestinian peace activists from Israel and Palestine at our campus chapters.
Joint Vigil: https://youtu.be/flA7mDrcktU?si=Msxgj9XDXpq7oRLk
Joint Dialogue Table: https://youtu.be/jggpEDUgfCc?si=8UZEbJ_sGHrHwmzW
Atidna’s peace and dialogue efforts have been covered in various sources such as ABC News’ Nightline, the Forward, Al Jazeera, CNN, NPR, NBC and others. Atidna is also unrelated to the Atidna Association, a right-wing Zionist Israeli organization. Although we do share the name Atidna, we have no relationship or affiliation.
Atidna International