The Common Ground News Service is an excellent source for thoughtful perspectives on current Middle East issues and the relationship between the West and Arab and Muslim communities.
The CGNews board of editors comprises individuals in Amman, Beirut, Geneva, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Islamabad, Toronto and Washington, with extensive knowledge of the Middle East, Muslim-Western issues and a "common ground" orientation. They commission original writing, as well as monitor local and regional media daily. The news service distributes articles that:
- Provide constructive and solution-oriented perspectives;
- Promote dialogue and cooperation;
- Encourage peaceful and non-violent means to resolve conflicts and ease tension;
- Express constructive self-criticism;
- Highlight positive experiences between communities and nations that humanize the other and offer hope;
- Highlight organizations and people working for a better regional and global environment;
- Interpret information, events, polls and analyses in ways that encourage rational, moderate and positive thinking.
Each week, CGNews editors select five articles of relevance to the Arab-Israeli conflict and five to relations between Western and Muslim communities to distribute through CGNews. The former are published in three languages, Arabic, English and Hebrew; the latter are available in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French and Urdu, allowing different communities to read moderate and solution-oriented voices not normally available in their native tongues. As copyright permission is obtained for all articles, media outlets are free to republish them as desired.
In addition to its weekly distributions, CGNews commissions special series on important topics such as: non-violence, the Arab Peace Initiative, the Geneva Accords, the Greater Middle East Initiative, the relationship between the Arab/Muslim world and the US/West, enlarging the window of opportunity in Israeli-Palestinian relations, the dynamics of public opinion, the role of women in US-Muslim relations, ijtihad: interpreting Islamic law, religious revivalism in US and Muslim-majority countries, economics and Muslim-Western relations and secularism. It also commissions articles from young writers for a "Youth Views" column.
You can subscribe to CGNews and receive weekly publications.
