Millennial Group To Produce New Solutions to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

image
Published: 10 Sep, 2014
2 min read

Over the past year, the media has made a ton of fuss over the dominance of Millennials in the Silicon Valley. Older workers are often pushed out for innovative young thinkers to expand the boundaries of technological advancement.

One of the mediums for Millennials to disrupt technology has been through hackathons, events where coders, designers, and hackers gather together for anywhere from one day to several to take on a joint technological challenge and produce a tangible solution.

Now, this idea is moving into the policy world.

Evanna Hu and Julia Hurley are both accomplished women who have worked in the foreign policy world for over a decade. They joined forces to create Polithon, a group that seeks to bring together Millennials from a variety of backgrounds to work on concrete solutions to some of the most “critical issues facing our generation.”

The polithon idea evolved out of the success of Millennial hackathons. With a diversity of opinions, they hope bringing together a variety of perspectives outside the echo chamber will allow the group to examine the “bigger picture” and produce an actionable policy paper.

Their first project is no easy task, either. The group is taking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a seemingly intractable problem that world leaders and many U.S. secretaries of state have failed to effectively address over the last half century. The problem reignited over the summer, which even now has only a tenuous reconciliation between the two sides.

The group, however, is hoping to move beyond Washington’s political deadlock and engage the next generation in difficult policy making, bringing them into the fold of creating solutions rather than being relegated to mere social media activism.

Therefore, in late September, it is bringing together ten Millennials (5 female and 5 male) who can discuss and produce a long-term solution to peace in the region. Three experts on the topic will join the group who will represent various backgrounds and “outside-the-box thinkers.”

Applications for the event closed on September 8, and the group of ten should be announced any day. In the meantime, the group is seeking funding for its initial project, mainly for space, media, and printing its materials.

New data is emerging that shows Millennials are increasingly frustrated with Washington politics. A recent poll by Harvard indicated that 38 percent do not affiliate with either major political party in Washington.

IVP Donate

Increasingly, this group of voters are seeking their own solutions to some of the nation’s most pressing problems. Polithon is taking this attitude and applying it to foreign policy. The beta project will be a good test to see how well the approach works.

Photo Credit: Polithon

You Might Also Like

Trump sitting in the oval office with a piece of paper with a cannabis leaf on his desk.
Is Trump About to Outflank Democrats on Cannabis? Progressives Sound the Alarm
As President Donald Trump signals renewed interest in reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III, a policy goal long championed by liberals and libertarians, the reaction among some partisan progressive advocates is not celebration, but concern....
08 Dec, 2025
-
5 min read
Malibu, California.
From the Palisades to Simi Valley, Independent Voters Poised to Decide the Fight to Replace Jacqui Irwin
The coastline that defines California’s mythology begins here. From Malibu’s winding cliffs to the leafy streets of Brentwood and Bel Air, through Topanga Canyon and into the valleys of Calabasas, Agoura Hills, and Thousand Oaks, the 42nd Assembly District holds some of the most photographed, most coveted, and most challenged terrain in the state. ...
10 Dec, 2025
-
6 min read
Ranked choice voting
Ranked Choice for Every Voter? New Bill Would Transform Every Congressional Election by 2030
As voters brace for what is expected to be a chaotic and divisive midterm election cycle, U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin (Md.), Don Beyer (Va.), and U.S. Senator Peter Welch (Vt.) have re-introduced legislation that would require ranked choice voting (RCV) for all congressional primaries and general elections beginning in 2030....
10 Dec, 2025
-
3 min read