Our regional profile was brought to center stage in 2002, with the conference, An End to Borders: Arab Civil Society Takes up the Challenge. The conference, sponsored by Ittijah and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, created for the first time, working links between Palestinian civil society organizations inside the Green Line, and their partners in the Arab world. The conference strengthened ties between Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world after 54 years of isolation, misconceptions and estrangement.

Ittijah’s international profile was brought under the spotlight at the Durban World Conference against Racism in 2001, where Ittijah gathered, facilitated and directed the vision and position of the Palestinian NGOs inside Israel on racism, particularly Israeli-state racism towards Palestinian citizens, and the apartheid the State practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Ittijah’s inter-Palestinian profile has been asserted and strengthened by the 2000 Cyprus Conference, which brought together, for the first time, Palestinian civil society groups from all parts of historical Palestine and Lebanon, under the direction of the three Palestinian networks in the region: Ittijah: Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, PNGO: The Palestinian NGO Network in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and The Collective Forum for Palestinian NGOs in Lebanon. This conference, sponsored by Ittijah, outlined the indivisible nature of the Palestinian people, warned against divisions imposed upon them, and clearly set out the role of three networks in fostering, advocating and strengthening Palestinian civil society in communication and cooperation with each other. The conference’s declaration clearly noted for the first time, the historical role Palestinian civil society institutions play in each area: historical 1948 Palestine, the 1967 Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the large Palestinian refugee populations in Lebanon.