Using existing funding, programs and social media to get young people jobs in the Middle East and end unrest

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A poll of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza conducted in July by Stanley Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that they “focus more on how to get more jobs, lower prices, and improvements in health care and education,” than on violence or negotiations.
 
However, if you Google “how to start a business,” “how to write a resume,” “how to get a small business loan” in Arabic, you will find that, unlike English, there is almost nothing online in Arabic on finding jobs or creating small businesses.
 
Our group, The Israel Project, a non-profit educational organization, has created a prototype website that combines an “Online Jobs Toolkit” with information on coexistence between Arabs and Jews, between Israelis and their Arab neighbors. Our Arabic media program has 25 million hits on our Facebook page in Arabic and 200,000 Arab “fans.”
 
This idea is too big for an NGO alone, however. It can — and should —be expanded by the U.S. government to help Arabic speakers throughout the Middle East get jobs. Here’s how;
 
A portion of existing USAID funds would be set aside for modestly priced initiatives that would help Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis and others in the Middle East search for jobs and start enterprises (how to get started, find financing, hire qualified workers, and ultimately expand operations). The U.S. government is already undertaking such training programs, but they are not being filmed and put up on a website in a searchable fashion. There is no “Monster.com” or “Ted Talks” on job creation in Arabic.
 
USAID and others could utilize existing technology to create an Arabic-language Monster.com. This program could record, translate, and make available online ongoing employment training seminars. These videos could be featured on USAID, Al-Hurra, YouTube and other sites. It’s easy to start this by simply taping existing programs already funded by Congress and putting them on the web with their Arabic-translated sound track kept in. Eventually original content would be created.
 
Various U.S.-based NGO’s of Arab-Americans would be given the means to set up and run web sites focused on Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Libyans, and so on.
 
Societies in which young people can actually get jobs would be good not only for Arabs, but also for stability and peace in the Middle East and for American interests in the region. This initiative could also include messages designed to foster peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians, Israelis and Egyptians, Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians, and more.

“We do have a role” in the Arab Spring, Secretary Clinton said in her address. “We have the resources, capabilities and expertise to support those who seek peaceful, meaningful democratic reform.”

We can’t afford to wait for agreements to be reached or new orders to take root before using these resources. We can begin building peace, reform and stability in the Middle East from the bottom up right now by using existing funding, tools and programs and the Internet and social media to create jobs in the regions that’s critically important for American interests.
 
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is the founder & President of The Israel Project, a Washington-based organization that gets factual information about Israel and the Middle East to press, policy makers and the public.