Encounter Point

Joline has represented Encounter Point for audiences throughout the Arab World, Israel and the US. She conducted many of Just Vision’s online interviews with Palestinian peacebuilders. She currently lives in New York with her husband and daughter and is a reporter for Egyptian Television.

Syrian born Kareem Roustom is an Emmy nominated composer who has composed music for film, television, the concert hall and album projects. Steeped in the musical traditions of the Arab Near East and trained in Western music, Roustom is a musically bi-lingual composer who has collaborated with a wide variety of artists ranging from the Philadelphia Orchestra to Shakira.

In 1996, Tzvika's daughter Bat-Chen was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber outside a Tel Aviv mall. She was fifteen years old when Tzvika identified her body at the morgue. During the period of mourning, Tzvika and his wife Ayelet discovered that their daughter's diaries were full of poems about peace. They published Bat-Chen's poetry in Hebrew and Arabic, and became founding members of the Bereaved Families Forum, working with hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian families to end violence and occupation.

Ali went to Saudi Arabia in 2000-2001 for medical treatment after an Israeli settler shot him in the leg. While there, he learned that his brother Yusef had been killed by an Israeli soldier. Ali had spent years in Israeli prisons for actions like demonstrating against the occupation, throwing stones, and membership in a political party. When Yusef was killed, Ali joined the Bereaved Families Forum to work with Palestinians and Israelis who advocate nonviolence and reconciliation.

When the phone rings in Rutie's unobtrusive ground floor office in the heart of Tel Aviv, it is most likely news about military curfews in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or army-issued travel permits for her Palestinian partners—information that determines whether their workshops can go on. Rutie is the director of Windows, an organization that publishes a children's magazine in Arabic and Hebrew, and brings together Israeli and Palestinian youth.