On the  invitation of Israeli and Palestinian members of EWI’s International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy, the core group of the task force held meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah from November 9 to 11, 2008.

Task force members agreed their program of work for 2009 and 2010, which will culminate in the Global Summit on Conflict and Security on October 10, 2010, and start reframing traditional security and development policy to include conflict prevention.

The Global Summit on Conflict and Security will provide the first ever forum that brings together traditional security elites, including military elites, and development policy decision-makers in the peace-building community. The summit will arrive at a global action program and operationalize early and effective diplomatic actions to prevent violent conflict. It will also mandate an International Panel on Conflict Prevention and Human Security, which was called for in December 2007 in the Task Force Declaration, Making Conflict Prevention Real.

In Jerusalem, the task force met with members of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, a network representing more than 100 Palestinian and Israeli organizations that cooperate across boundaries, nationalities and religions and help build peace from the ground up.

In Ramallah, task force members met with high-ranking Palestinian leaders, including former prime minister and current chief negotiator with Israel, Mr. Ahmed Qurei (a.k.a. Abu Ala). Fatah Foreign Relations Commissioner Abdallah Frangi, hosted a dinner. The group also met with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, three of whom agreed to join the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.