Policy Paper: " Youth of Palestine: Charting A Path Out of Extremism”

1. Introduction:

It has often been asserted that the youth are depositories and key stakeholders of a society’s future. This rings all the more true for the Palestinian Territories, where it is often the youth among a largely emaciated population that have the ability to spur sociopolitical and economic welfare. The Palestinian youth are all the more critical when one considers it is they who would have the responsibility of leading the Palestinian society through a tumultuous liberation struggle and eventually govern an independent and sovereign Palestinian state. But, despite their importance to the Palestinian society in general, a deteriorating political, social and economic condition has meant that many young in the Palestinian territories in general and the Gaza Strip in particular find themselves unable to handle the challenging situation or move forward towards achieving their personal, occupational and academic goals. Although, it is undeniable that many of those young people are talented and well educated individuals, who are willing and eager to create a different reality and move towards a better life, they unfortunately suffer, in most cases, from negligence and lack of trust, either from stakeholders, their own families, or even form the society in general. As a consequence, Gaza’s youth, who represent approximately 29.4% of the total population find themselves, socially inactive and lost and with very limited influence on the political and economic agenda