After a decade of silence, the Voice of Peace is about to make itself heard again in a joint Israeli-Palestinian venture to put peace back on Middle Eastern airwaves.

Voice of peace partners Shimon Malka, Hana Siniora, and friend.

For 20 years music and peace-orientated programs were beamed throughout the region from a pirate ship anchored 3 miles offshore belonging to veteran Israeli peace activist, Abie Nathan. Broadcasts began in l973 and ceased when Nathan, broke and bitterly disappointed at not being able to carry out pumping peace over the air, scuttled the Peace Ship 'somewhere in the Mediterranean.'

The popular station is remembered fondly by Israelis, hundreds of thousands of kibbutz volunteers from different countries and foreign journalists who spent time in Israel during the Seventies and Eighties. The jingles from the peace ship became so much part of the local lingo that many still today associate the Voice of Peace with Sadat's message of his announcing, "no more war, no more bloodshed," being beamed out many times a day as well as Nathan announcing, "We are the Voice of Peace, broadcasting from somewhere in the Mediterranean."

The ship's crew, broadcasting technicians and DJ's were a multi-ethnic mix who volunteered in the main to keep peace afloat for nothing more than a narrow bunk, food and the opportunity to calm the stormy waters of conflict in the region.

Although the new Voice of Peace will be beaming the same messages as did the nowadays physically ailing pioneer peacenik Abie Nathan from l973-l993, the new station will be manned by landlubbers and the studios operated by both Israelis and Palestinians. The main station will be physically situated in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

Relay stations in both Israel, West Bank and Gaza will carry the beat of peace to a very wide and diverse audience with the targeted age group being 20-40.

Unlike the Peace Ship's English only broadcasts, the new Voice of Peace - a joint venture between Israel's Givat Haviva Jewish-Arab Center for Peace and the Palestinian English language Jerusalem Times publisher and businessman Hanna Siniora - will be broadcasting in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The focus will be on popular and classical music as well as that of the different cultural backgrounds of the regions peoples in a quest to create a stereotype-breaking wave length leading to better understanding of each other. Interviews with personalities from the peace camp on either side and updates on activities of Israeli and Palestinian NGO's are also on the agenda.

To the strains of the late John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band pleading to 'Give Peace A Chance' coming from a small cassette player propped up in the corner of the Beit Agron press center in Jerusalem, the Israeli and Palestinian partners this week launched the Voice of Peace, with the blessing of Abie Nathan who has donated all his memorabilia to Givat Haviva's library and archives.

"Our goal is to promote understanding, tolerance and coexistence between the two peoples," Mossie Raz, Deputy-Director of Givat Haviva and Palestinian partner Hanna Siniora jointly announced at the Beit Agron press conference this week.

Sitting together facing a battery of foreign and local media folk, the Jewish and Palestinian partners in the radio venture, backed with 600,000 euros from the European Union and substantial amount from the Japanese government, proved that they were on the same wavelength of understanding by translating everything that was said for each other into English, Arabic and Hebrew!

The Israeli and Palestinian coordinators of the project, Shimon Malka and Maisa Baransi have spent a great deal of time over the last year researching the needs of the people on either side of the divide.

"We do not have fantasies such as within a few weeks we will have brought about a lasting peace in the Middle East, but on the other hand we are certainly aiming to build a new trust, to encourage each side to see the other side as people with needs and that we all have, and should be entitled to have, dreams," said Malka, who has also been working with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian youth for the last 3 years producing an English language magazine, Crossing Borders. Givat Haviva and Hanna Seniora are also partners in the magazine project involving hundreds of young writers and a new group that began to work together last week.

"The media is a very powerful tool and the radio will offer the opportunity to reach far more people and we hope, slowly, slowly to build up confidence amongst the listeners and lead them toward listening to each other," explained Mossie Raz, a former member of the Knesset and well known public speaker for Peace Now in Israel.

Slated to press the 'On the Air' button on November 4th, Seniora explained why that specific date had been chosen.

"November 4 is the eighth anniversary of the assassination of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Arafat always called Rabin his partner in peace and we want to find a way to let people know that Rabin's assassination did not kill off the peace process but that peace is possible," he said.

Asked if Arafat was aware of the new station, Seniora said not only did Arafat know about the project but that had also given his blessing.

Both Seniora and Raz made the point a number of times that there is a silent majority on either side that supports peace but that the tone was set by those who wanted to derail the peace process.

Speaking in Arabic, Hebrew and English, Palestinian coordinator Baransi, an attractive thirty-something, commented: "Everybody is suffering and everybody wants peace. The question is how and we are here to try and explain to people what peace means - to tell them more about each other's culture, education and daily lives and, of course, about coexistence."

Ten years ago Abie Nathan stood on the deck of a boat and watched as his much loved Voice of Peace ship was scuttled. That day was for him and many others, the day that a rather special type of music and peace message mix really died.

During the last decade of horrific violence in the region, the Voice of Peace lay locked in Davy Jones' locker on the floor of the Mediterranean.

Hopefully, the Voice of Peace of the new millennium will have sufficient volume and support from both the Israeli and Palestinian side to drown out those intent on sending its message back down to the bottom of the sea.