About Us

bridges, the first Israeli-Palestinian Public Health magazine was launched on the 7th December 2004, with the specific goals of promoting the exchange of public health information of common interest between the Palestinian and Israeli public health professionals; establishing and/or consolidating links between the two scientific and professional communities; providing a forum where locally significant research, programs, activities and cooperative ventures can be published; reaching otherwise isolated professional communities and individuals with key information and research; disseminating international health policy and strategic information relevant for the local and sub-regional context; and, ensuring that WHO recommendations /guidelines as well as models and best practices in other conflict areas are widely disseminated to both sides.

Each issue of bridges is prepared on the basis of key guiding principles such as the importance of showing both the adverse impact of the conflict on both sides and the positive cooperative efforts that are taking place; a focus not only on scientific, health issues but also on issues of dialogue/peace, human rights, and the socio-economic determinants of health. Special emphasis is given to the health-related daily life on both sides; and the human dimension of the overwhelming features of the public health emergency of the Palestinian population.

The structure of the magazine is composed by three main bodies:

• A broadly-based Advisory Committee comprised of thirteen distinguished personalities of the health and social field from the Israeli context and nine from the Palestinian context.
• An Editorial Board comprised of two Palestinian, two Israelis and one representative from WHO. The Board translates the outputs of the Advisory Committee decision making process into specific topics for each issue, identifies potential sources for articles, identifies potential writers, reviews each submission critically, and works closely with the production team.
• An Israeli-Palestinian production team responsible for the administrative, production, design and distribution oversight.

Brief background:

The mission of the WHO office for the West Bank and Gaza is to promote the health of the Palestinian people by improving health sector performance based on equity, effectiveness and sustainability, as well as by addressing the broader social, economic, environmental and cultural health determinants, particularly those which are most affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As part of the strategic approach to the current situation, WHO has recently started to devote special attention to the promotion of links among Palestinian and Israeli professionals. "Joint action in a technical space" is an expression referring to Health as a Bridge for Peace initiatives where health personnel belonging to different parties work jointly in the areas of health policy training, service delivery and health information. Field experience shows that health-related goals may be shared among conflicting parties, giving them the needed basis for cooperation. This may create an opportunity to build a negotiating framework, to counter dehumanization of the other, or even to demonstrate the possibility of ending violence.

The on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict has started to show features that are associated to any conflict situation and that should be tackled on time. Increasing isolation is strengthening features such as polarization, stereotyping, lack of empathy, use of selective communication, contraction of space and time perspectives. These features slowly provide the basis for the existence of fixed standpoint aims, where the distance between the conflicting parties is widened, barely anything connect the parties and there is a denial of possibility for change.

In the context of public health, these features can only bring a negative outcome on both sides. Of the many areas where exchange of information, cooperation and joint activities are crucial, the public health sphere certainly stands out as an area of great potential and need.

For this reason, WHO strongly believes that there is a real need for greater understanding between the Palestinian and Israeli public health communities that could be enhanced through the initiation of a health magazine.

The overall aim of the magazine is to provide a neutral and stimulating forum under the umbrella of a UN agency in order to raise and discuss key public health issues of common interest to the two societies. In both structure and content this effort is a cooperative endeavor that builds relationships, links and common understanding.