Mobilizing hope: Beyond the shame-based model in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Author Ronit Avni left her position at WITNESS, a nonprofit organization that trains nongovernmental institutions worldwide to incorporate video and digital media into their human rights advocacy campaigns, to launch Just Vision. Just Vision is dedicated to documenting, exposing, and supporting that which is not seen in mainstream broadcast images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as local Palestinian and Israeli civilians working to build a grassroots consensus for peace. Avni discusses the reasoning for her shift from human rights monitoring within the context of the conflict to promoting civic models for peace building using documentary film and the Internet. She also examines some of the implications of this shift: How they play out in the work of Just Vision, and what they might tell us about the limitations of conventional human rights documentation practices in specific contexts.