Beyond Compromise

“For too long the voices of Palestinians have either been ignored or marginalized by Western elites, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and successive Arab governments. Many in the Palestinian community feel that it is time to say enough is enough and let the world know what the goals and desires of the Palestinians’ cause are,” American-Palestinian Adam Akkad adds. “For too long the desires of Palestinians have been sidelined in the popular discourse.”

So on July 20, Beyond Compromise  blog was launched for this very purpose; to provide an alternative platform for the sidelined voices.Never having the necessary resources necessary to voice themselves directly to the world as their enemies, Israelis, do, a group of six young Palestinians decided to take matters into their own hands to let the world hear their stories firsthand.

Be it refugees yearning to return to their homelands, or simply Palestinians having to see the land of their ancestors suffer decade after another, they were simply looking to share their experiences through an alternative media. The idea of the blog was first brought upbyAkkad, a 21-year-old senior at the George Washington University, D.C who was born in the US but originally comes fro Nablus village. “The idea for the blog was originally mine. I, as well as the other founders of the [web]site, noticed that there are many Palestinian bloggers out there who are trying to do the same thing, which is to tell their stories and share their ideas,” says Akkad.“We realized that if we combined our efforts on a single platform we could not only build a sense of community, but also amplify our message.” Akkad says that he and the co-founders, YasirTineh, MaathMusleh, Nadine Liddawi, Nour Salman, and Nader Elkhuzundar, realized that they all have the same aspiration, to have their“voices heard” and to “bring justice to Palestine.” The blog, however, isn’t restricted to feature the work of the founders only. The main objective of Beyond Compromise is to be a community blog for all Palestinians around the world to contribute to. “The site does not affiliate itself with any political or religious group, but rather takes a rights-based approached. We believe that denial of Palestinian rights is unacceptable and that they are ‘beyond compromise',” says Akkad. “We hope to bolster a sense of agency and unity among Palestinians, particularly the youth, all around the world. We refuse to be divided, ignored and excluded from shaping Palestine's future.” Beyond Compromise publishes works in Arabic and English languages, although most of the posts are in English so far. It also features poetry, analytical pieces, opinion columns as well as photography and art. The articles are professionally written, provide a sense of personal understanding of the Palestinian cause, and trigger the reader’s curiosity to understand. Despite that it’s a bit premature to predict how far Beyond Compromise will go, in only a little over a month it was able to garner nearly 800 followers on twitter and many posts are shared over a 100 times on social networks. Akkad says that the feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive and encouraging,” and one of the most common comments they got on Beyond Compromise is that it’s “long overdue.” Follow Beyond Compromise on Twitter: @BCompromise