The 2024 Alexander Langer International Award is being awarded to the collaboration between two volunteer organizations, one Palestinian and one Israeli. Youth of Sumud (‘Youth of Perseverance’) conveys and brings Palestinian nonviolent resistance in the South Hebron Hills area of the West Bank to public attention, while Ta’ayush (‘Living Together’) is an expression of the Israeli civil society working for peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. 

The joint award aims to recognize the importance of the spirit of collaboration and dialogue that animates and drives the two associations in the specific context of the West Bank, characterized by serious violations of international law. On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued its advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Through practices of segregation and systemic discrimination – the Court argues – Israeli occupation policies cause unspeakable pain and suffering to the Palestinian population. 

The awarded organizations operate in an extremely complex context. The very name of Youth of Sumud bears witness to a conflict that has lasted for decades and that calls to action from one generation to the next. The current leader of the movement, Sami H. Huraini, is the son of Hafez Huraini, one of the founders and leaders of the ‘Popular Committee of Nonviolent Resistance’ of the South Hebron Hills; this is a movement mostly consisting of Palestinian farmers and shepherds that since the late 1990s has opted for a consistently and profoundly nonviolent way to establish itself and resist. Youth of Sumud is a youth association that was born out of this experience and from this experience has borrowed its objectives and methods, including 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. 

Guy Butavia, leader of the Ta’ayush movement and significant Israeli activist, spent a few months in Italy and other European countries after 7 October 2023: he was at risk of serious threats, including lynching, from his fellow citizens for his commitment to nonviolence and dialogue with Palestinians. Ta’ayush activists keep staying on the field although they are often beaten, threatened, and arrested.

 Youth of Sumud and Ta’ayush carry out nonviolent interposition actions on a daily basis, usually at the request of the civilian population that feels threatened or is suffering violence. They support shepherds and farmers looking after their fields and herds, and escort students to school, to safely protect them from the armed threat of Israeli settlers. Their physical presence and interposition acts as a deterrent against violence in an attempt to avoid beatings, demolitions, fires, poisoning of fields and wells, and theft of livestock. 

The two organizations also carry out a relentless work of testimony and photographic and video documentation of the abuses directed against the Palestinian population. The collection and systematization of testimonies allows them to report the condition of the Palestinian villages and population of the West Bank to the Israeli authorities. Unfortunately, these reports are often received and acknowledged by the State of Israel only on paper. However, sometimes the activists’ actions allow Palestinians not to be expelled from or return to their homes. This is the case of Sarura, a village first abandoned by Palestinians because of Israeli settler violence and threats but eventually reinstated, with the help of Youth of Sumud. 

The choice of active nonviolence and the use of creative, bottom-up practices, often involving women and children, aims to avoid any pretext for the use of force, and makes the joint action of Youth of Sumud – ‘perseverance’ – and Ta’ayush – ‘living together’ – a reality that proves the possibility of opposing hatred and its continuous fuelling. Where it would be quicker and easier to erect walls and barriers, the Palestinians of Youth of Sumud and the Israelis of Ta’ayush show that it is possible to cross the boundaries of ‘ethnic compactness’. This collaboration therefore indeed represents a unique and original implementation of Alexander Langer’s ‘Tentative Decalogue for Interethnic Living Together’. 

With the deliberation taken on 15 July 2024, the Alexander Langer Foundation acknowledges Youth of Sumud’s and Ta’ayush’s courageous choices for independent thought and strong social roots. Through their work and constant action, these two associations succeed in witnessing profoundly nonviolent operational choices in favour of the development of human rights, peace policies, democracy and coexistence, and against discrimination and ethnic exclusivism.