TH UR SDA Y , M A R C H 9 , 20 17
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‘Spectacular’ study trip Oswegoan makes journey to sites in Israel, West Bank with nonpartisan group By TONY SCOTT tscott@kendallcountynow.com Oswego resident David Edelman travels a lot for business, but he recently traveled for the fourth time to a place many Americans only know about from watching or reading the news. Edelman traveled to Israel last November on a study group with the organization Americans for Peace Now, his third trip with the group. He took his first trip with them in 2012. Edelman, who is Jewish, also took a trip to Israel with his daughter last spring, as part of her bat mitzvah celebration. “I look forward to going, and every trip I learn something new and something different,” he said. Edelman said that he had never traveled to Israel when he was younger. He got the opportunity with the Americans for Peace Now organization, stating that it’s a nonpartisan organization aiming to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together. He said he and the group of a dozen or so Americans were able to meet with government officials, activists and other figures on both sides of the issue. “I always wanted to go and
I learned about this organization through a family member, and I went and it was a pretty amazing experience,” he said. “It’s a nonpartisan organization, and the trip gives you multiple angles: it gives you the Israeli perspective, it gives you the Palestinian perspective, and then kind of everything in between. Retired military, activists that you talk to, government officials. We met with our ambassador, now former ambassador, Dan Shapiro. We went to the consulate in Jerusalem that acts as a liaison between the United States and people of the West Bank and Palestine.” However, Edelman said it’s a “tough time right now” for the area and for the future of a two-state solution, which Edelman said he believes in. Israel for decades has built settlements among Palestinian areas in the West Bank, and the two sides have lived among each other. “What’s happening is, the settlements are continuing to expand and it’s throughout the entire West Bank,” he said. “The issue and the argument is, the more that they go deeper and expand and they spread, it makes a two-state solution become incredibly difficult.”
See STUDY TRIP, page 8
David Edelman of Oswego standing in the auditorium at the Palestinian city of Rawabii during his Americans for Peace Now study trip last November.
Photo provided