The studio is in East Jerusalem, the transmitter in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Half the staff is Israeli, the others Palestinian. Some on-air programs are in Hebrew, others in Arabic. 

From its founders to its employees to its musical offerings, the mission is equality and peaceful co-existence at All For Peace radio, the only jointly run Israeli-Palestinian radio.

The station started broadcasting music and talk radio over the Internet in April at www.allforpeace.org and says it gets up to 10,000 hits a day. A few weeks ago, a radio transmitter was put in place to send its signal out over FM radio.

In many of the 18 to 21 hours each day the station plays music, at least one Arabic song and one Hebrew song are played.

On talk shows, 30 hours throughout the week, newspaper headlines in Hebrew are read in Arabic, and vice versa.

Interview subjects run the gamut, from members of the Israeli parliament to representatives of the militant group Hamas, said station co-directors Shimon Malka and Maysa Baransi-Siniora.

Malka and Baransi-Siniora visited the United States this month to raise funds.

They launched the station with a grant from the European Union that covers about 80 per cent of the budget, but that money will run out soon. They say they need about US$750,000 a year to run the operation.

"We started with no clue about what we were going to do," said Malka, 37, an Israeli whose prior media work was in television. "Every day we're climbing a bit higher."

The station is a joint project of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva and the Palestinian organization Biladi, which publishes The Jerusalem Times.

The organizations have previously collaborated to put together Crossing Borders, a youth magazine.

The point is to help Israelis and Palestinians know each other. "We're not doing this work for people who are with us," said Baransi-Siniora, 28.

"We want to reach the people who don't know where they stand."

Resisting withdrawal

A Jewish settler leader urged followers yesterday to resist the evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, signaling a shift toward revolt after settlers lost hope of stopping the pullback by political means.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is close to signing a coalition agreement with the moderate Labor Party, which would stabilize his government and guarantee strong political support for the Gaza withdrawal.

For months, settler leaders had been confident they could stop the Gaza plan with political lobbying and bring down Sharon, if necessary.

Last summer, the settlers' political patrons had quit the coalition, weakening Sharon's government. Settlers also enjoyed strong support among many legislators in Sharon's Likud Party.

However, Sharon outmaneuvered his opponents, including those in Likud.

The call to disobedience issued by Pinchas Wallerstein, a former leader of the Yesha Settlers' Council, who sent letters around the West Bank, saying settlers should resist evacuation even if it means going to prison.

The withdrawal plan is accompanied by special legislation that says anyone physically resisting the dismantling of settlements faces up to three years in prison.

The bill requires two more votes before becoming law.

The Yesha Council met late yesterday to decide whether to adopt Wallerstein's appeal, which would mark the first time the organization is formally advocating breaking the law.

Sharon, a former settler patron, said Wallerstein's statement was "harsh." Sharon said he understood the pain of the settlers, but that they must not break the law.

(China Daily December 21, 2004)