One Voice is one of the most dynamic peace-building organisations in Israel and Palestine today. Over 3,000 activists, equal numbers of young Palestinians and Israelis many of whom are students, have been working from Gaza City, Ramallah and Tel Aviv, touring the towns, villages and cities mobilising citizens to demand conflict resolution through political process. One Voice isn't a dialogue organisation and it's not trying to make Israelis and Palestinians love each other. Its approach is began as iterative, parallel consensus building which has given 180,000 Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to vote and comment on the ten most contentious aspects of the conflict - the issues which need to be resolved prior to a lasting peace settlement, and the issues which the elected representatives must keep in mind in order to represent their people. We know from One Voice's work highlighted findings from other surveys that the majority (here 76%) of both Israelis and Palestinians want a two state solution.

Based on this One Voice has made its current focus of the past two years the collection of at least one million signatures for a mandate which demands immediate, uninterrupted resumption of negotiations towards a two-state solution. This mandate is infinitely more than a set of demands - such things are for stable democracies with secure borders and no serious threat from extremists - not, in other words, Israel or Palestine. One Voice is building a mandate because it knows how vulnerable peace talks are to wreckers - its aim isn't to work out details of a final status agreement but to empower Olmert, Abbas and other negotiators to make the necessary commitments for two states secure in their own borders. This mandate is a commendable attempt to give voice to ordinary citizens, moderate majorities far away from decision-making. The Israelis and Palestinians of One Voice recognise that their heads of state need supporting and shoring up against the extremists every step of the way - even to the extent of restating the obvious: "the right of both peoples to independence, sovereignty, freedom, justice, dignity, respect, national security, personal safety, and economic viability". These things are what people sign up to when they sign the mandate.

But the vulnerability of what should be uncontroversial has been clearly and unpleasantly illustrated by recent events. One Voice had organised huge peace concerts to take place in Jericho stadium and Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv this Thursday in advance of November's peace talks. At the satellite-linked events activists, performers and citizens would call on their respective leaders to act 'against violent extremism, occupation and terror'. The event would be free, with signing the One Voice mandate a condition of entry. Steps had been taken to amplify the call and satellite-linked support, or 'echo', events had been scheduled across the world that evening, including one at the Friends Meeting House in London. These events have now been derailed.

In early October, PACBI, assuming the mantle of Palestinian national interests, moved to oust One Voice from its territory and in doing so acted in a way which strengthened the region's hatemongers. For those like the International Solidary Movement who don't want a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict, an organisation with the gathering momentum of One Voice presents an enormous threat. So PACBI officiously identified One Voice as violating the terms of its Boycott and Divestment Campaign and proceeded to call on those who planned to attend, the performers, and also the Palestinian One Voice board members - including Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, Jibril Rajoub, Islamic Chief Justice Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, Arab-American Institute President Dr Jim Zogby, and Founder George Salem - to withdraw their support the peace concerts.

A Ramallah-based group called Another Voice undermined the concerts by rubbishing the way One Voice builds support, dismissing its supporters and signatories as ignorant or misinformed, and fabricating a conspiracy that One Voice was planning to sign away Palestinian rights. Like PACBI, Another Voice insisted that these concerts would be 'celebrating apartheid' - again, a clear message that short of shelving their states, there's nothing that Palestinians and Israelis could do as separate nations which anti-Israel activists wouldn't brand as apartheid. Trying to hide behind Palestinian nationalism doesn't work - it's entirely clear that PACBI's principle problem is with any popular movement which acknowledges Israel's right to exist.

Despite a lack of any alternative constructive proposals to end the conflict, this wrecking work had effects – several of those who had been supporters began to falter. The organisers received intimidating anonymous phonecalls threatening that the performers at the Jericho event would be harmed and that One Voice's Ramallah offices would be blown up. The West Bank organisers were made to feel like collaborators rather than peace activists. Mahmoud Abbas is reported to have released a statement distancing himself from the event. To their credit, all but one of the eight bands on the Jericho programme decided to withstand this intimidation (rap group DAM succumbed to the pressure dropped out for ideological reasons concerning a one-state solution). However, a week before it was scheduled to take place One Voice organisers released a statement calling off the event. The wreckers hurried to downplay the risk of violence and attribute the cancellation solely to the boycott.

It doesn't make any sense. Who in their right mind would call for a boycott of a peace concert? Look at the climate - Nasrallah urging Hizballah to fight Israel to the death. Hamas holding Gaza to ransom, sabotaging the border crossings and the entry of vital food and supplies, whose demands for a place at the negotiating table entirely omit the matter of their citizens' welfare. Wreckers who spread misinformation, threaten One Million Voices performers with violence and say they're going to blow up One Voice's Ramallah offices. And adding its voice to the cacophony is PACBI, which told its members to boycott One Million Voices because they considered it a "normalization" event. PACBI is "suspicious" of simple encouragement for heads of state to negotiate for the good of their citizens and inexplicably interprets the absence of blame in One Voice's approach as evidence of a "hidden agenda" to negotiate away the rights of Palestinian refugees and Israel's obligations under international law.

PACBI repeatedly shows itself as incapable of any real support for Palestinians. Its limited repertoire consists of recriminations, grating litanies on Israel's transgressions and tacit encouragement to extremist fringes of Palestinian resistance - in short, approaches which have always prolonged the conflict and are an entirely counterproductive premise on which to begin a peace summit. Palestinians need strong, united voices to represent their interests at the negotiating table but in the run-up to the summit with pressure already ramping up to unbearable levels PACBI's strategy - the foregrounding of the most intractable aspects of the conflict and the apportioning of blame - is calculatedly undermining. But then, PACBI doesn't want two states – in the absence of any concerns or assurances for the welfare of its 5.3 million Jews, it wants Israel to dissolve into a single Palestinian state.

So PACBI has helped to cancel a global event whose sole aim was to send a loud message of support to Palestinian and Israeli leaders in their negotiations towards an outcome which, after all, is supported by most Palestinians and Israelis. British boycotters who responded to the PACBI call and believe that their activities are simple gestures without side effects should think again and take stock of their current position - they're on the opposite side from the people who want a negotiated settlement, the same side as the people who threaten violence, and they've helped to cancel a peace concert in Jericho. Who can take PACBI's claims to be a movement for "genuine peace" seriously now?

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Sign the One Voice mandate and send messages of support to the Palestinian One Voice team in Ramallah whose members are understandably devastated.

Mira Vogel
Goldsmiths, University of London, UCU