The People's Voice

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The People's Voice (called in Hebrew המפקד הלאומי, literally The National Census) is an Israeli-Palestinian civil initiative dedicated to advancing the process of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Co-founders Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh signed the initiative on 27 July 2002, and officially launched it at a press conference held in Tel-Aviv on 25 June 2003. Broad outlines and some details of the initiative were known months in advance and had engendered responses from competing proposals.

The key proposals of the initiative are:

Two states for two peoples.
Borders based upon the June 4, 1967 lines (i.e. the armistice lines the day before the Six-Day War; this, however, would have the West Bank part of Jordan and Gaza Strip part of Egypt)
Jerusalem will be an open city, the capital of two states.
Palestinian refugees will return only to the State of Palestine.
Palestine will be demilitarized.

Upon the full implementation of these principles, all claims on both sides and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end.

Unlike a number of other proposals, the initiative seeks to resolve the conflict in a single agreement. No phased or interim steps are envisioned.

The initiative seeks to affect the political process by petition, seeking the signatures of enough residents of the area on all sides of the conflict to drive the leaders of the various sides to concluding a peace agreement. As of 26 January 2004, the initiative's webpage reports that 156,000 Israelis and 100,000 Palestinians have joined. On April 2005 the webpage reported that total of 253,000 Israelis and 161,000 Palestinians have joined. It is possible to join the initiative on its webpage, paper signatures are not required.