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  • Assumptions and principles
  • Fields of Interest
  • History of activities
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  • Board
  • International Council
  • Annual Report 2009
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  • Jerusalem: Coalitions for Justice and Peace
  • Creating awareness
  • Security in Israel and Palestine from a Regional Perspective
  • Justice and Peace in Israel and Palestine
  • To be on Speaking Terms
  • Conference with YEDRA and VNG
  • Youth & Metropolis
  • Dialogue with the Islamic-Arab world
  • Indonesia
  • Middle East
  • Sudan
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1. Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In 1989 the predecessor of IDF, RIOP, organised the conference Models of Cohabitation. This meeting took place in the Peace Palace of The Hague. As it was one of the first manifestations, in which prominent representatives of the PLO and Israeli politicians, such as Hanan Ashrawi and Abba Eban, participated, this meeting can be considered as conducive to the process that led to the Oslo and the Washington agreements in 1995. IDF was at that period active in the programme Dynamics of Self Determination, where representatives of Palestinian, Israeli and European Academic Institutions prepared in a series of conferences reports on several subjects which could serve as building blocks for the peace process. In the same period IDF organised a programme of drawings by Israeli and Palestinian children, which were exhibited in several European cities. In the late 90's when the erosion of the Oslo construction could no be longer denied, IDF took the initiative of promoting a discussion on a more active role for the European Union on this issue. In May 2002 IDF organised a public discussion meeting in Amsterdam. The discussions took place in a period, when it became evident that the priorities of the US administration under President Bush were such that strong pressure by the US on Israel for a withdrawal from the Palestinian territories could not be expected. Last November 2004 on the initiative of International Forum Just - Peace, a conference was organised in the Peace Palace to discuss the findings of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the 'Wall'. In this conference cooperated besides International Forum Just - Peace and IDF, United Civilians for Peace and IDF. Prominent legal experts, politicians and diplomats (among them the former Dutch Prime Minister Andreas van Agt) from several countries such as the US, Canada and Japan as well as representatives of the Palestinian and Israeli civil society participated in this conference.

2. European-Arab Dialogue Conferences
In 1996 IDF played a important supportive role in the conference on Arab-European cooperation on education, which was organised by the Lutfia Rabbani Foundation, with a special focus on the role of vocational training. As a consequence of the events of 11 September and the war in Iraq, IDF organised a discussion After the War in Iraq: Justice, Security and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Region, that took place in May 2003 in The Hague. During this meeting it was decided to focus further discussions on the subject on democratization in the Arab world, from the perspective that it should be in the first place the Arabs themselves to give their opinion on this matter. In cooperation with Dutch Civil Society Organisations like Interchurch Peace Council (IKV) and Pax Christi and with the financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the NCDO, IDF organised a series of Arab dialogue conferences on the subject of participation in the Arab world. Conferences were organised on
1. Politicial Participation in the Arab World;
2. Legal and Practical Aspects of the Participation of Women in the Arab World (with the Arab Netherlands Women's Circle);
3. the Role of the Media in the Arab World, in cooperation with IKV and Communication For Development (CFD);
4. Corporate Social Responsibility in the Arab World, in which took part companies like Shell and Aramco and Arab civil society organisations. During these conferences the participating civil society organisations decided to promote the establishment of an Arab European Platform for Justice and Democracy. From the Arab countries civil society organizations and research institutions from Egypt, Syria, Jordan Morocco, Tunesia, Iraq, Palestine, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands were involved.

3. Sudan
The involvement of IDF with Sudan started with the request of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to organise discussion meetings in the Netherlands on the occasion of the visit of Turabi in 1995. After this IDF started consultations with both the Sudanese Government and the SPLM during visits to Khartoum and Nairobi. The commitment of IDF for Sudan stems from the fact that in Sudan two of the main fields of interest of IDF come together. In 1998, IDF organised a conference on Constitutional Perspectives of Sudan, which took place in the University of Durham (UK). Among the speakers were the Secretary-General of the Sudan National Congress, Dr. Ali el-Hag Muhammad; Dr. Peter Nyot Kok, Dr. Bona Mawal, Dr. Hamin Makki Medani and Dr. Ahmad Ibrahim Diriage.
At a later phase in 2003, when the peace negotiations gained momentum the Dutch Ministry of Affairs invited IDF to organise a public discussion meeting to discuss the results of the conference organised by donor countries and -organisations in Noordwijkerhout, which was chaired by the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne. This meeting took place in April 2004 as a follow-up of this conference, IDF was asked to prepare an inventory of organisations and experts specialised on Sudan.
In 2005 IDF worked on the preparation of a project on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Sudan.

4. Indonesia
Among the more spectacular initiatives of IDF were the establishment 1995 of a Forum Nederland Indonesie (FNI) and its Indonesian counterpart FINED. Both organisations played an important role in paving the way for the restoration of the Netherlands-Indonesian relations after a long period of a standstill in the development cooperation between the two countries. Later, during the Asian economic crisis and during the last days of the Suharto regime, IDF, together with some representatives of Indonesian civil society organisations took the initiative towards consultations that could lead to a more constructive relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands. These consultations took place in 1997 in Oosterhout (Netherlands), where it was decided to organise a conference in Brussels on the promotion of Indonesian European relations from the perspective of support to the democracy movement in Indonesia.
During the Habibi period, in February 1998 a conference was organised in Brussels, in which participated a broad variety of Indonesians, which included generals and human rights activists in May 2000. During the presidency of Abdul Rahman Wahid a conference was organised in The Hague on The New Indonesia and the European Union: Perspectives for Cooperation, which was chaired by Ruud Lubbers (former Dutch Prime Minister) and Prof. Emil Salim In 2001, IDF organised a trip of the Mollucan peace activists organised in Baku Baey, which took place in the European Parliament and was followed by meetings with representatives of the Mollucans in the Netherlands, Dutch politicians and Dutch civil society organisations. At present IDF is involved in the preparation of dialogue activities between Papuans and non-Papuan Indonesians focussing on the present structural problems for the Papuans like their dramatic health situation and their educational arrears.

5. Kurds
The commitment of IDF to the Kurds goes back to the very early days of RIOP when a international conference was organised of Kurds from different countries in which participated prominent leaders like the Kurdish leader from Iran, Abdul Rahman Khassemlou and the leader of the Iraq movement PUK Manjlal Talabani. In 1993, IDF organised a conference in Driebergen (Netherlands) where the economic support by the European Union for the free - zone in North Iraq was discussed with large Kurdish delegations headed by the KDP leader Massoud Barzani and the PUK leader Manjelal Talabani. Both conferences was coordinated by Fuad Hussein, who was at that period member of the Board of IDF.
In 1996, IDF started consultations on the position of the Kurds in Turkey. These consultations were started in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation from Germany. Among the advisors were Piet Dankert of the European Parliament, Professor Baskin Oran from the University of Ankara and Professor Martin van Bruinesse from Utrecht University. In 1997 a seminar took place in the Turkish Parliament on the subject Freedom of Expression for the Kurds. It was in particular, the aspect of the threat of national identity, as it is experienced by the Turkish authorities, which played a prominent role in the development of the concept of Layered National Identity.

6. Layers of National Identity
In September 2005 Dr. Peter Idenburg gave ñ on invitation of the Omani Ministry of Religious Affairs ñ a presentation of a paper on Layers of National Identity:
The position of Muslim migrants in Europe in the Grand Mosque of Muscat. The discussions lead to the decision to start with a dialogue programme between European and Arab-Islamic countries based on this concept of Layers of National Identity. The conference and Public Discussion meeting on Youth and Metropolis, to be held in November 2006 and to be followed by an Open European Youth Parliament can be considered as a start for this programme.