A website that encourages and facilitate widespread exchange of ideas across political borders, social gaps and mental prejudices.  

Armed only with the slogan of "behind every uniform is a human being", Daniel Nisman and his two partners, Josh Mintz and Yagil Beinglass, set out to change the face of Middle Eastern social dialogue.

Their website, Friend-a-Soldier, allows anyone around the world to ask any question about Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Israel Defense Forces or any other related issue, of a specific soldier from the bank of soldiers who volunteer for the website. Stemming from a desire to promote open discussion free of political agendas, Nisman recognized the unique potential of the internet as an ideal medium to encourage and facilitate widespread exchange of ideas across political borders, social gaps and mental prejudices.

The website is accessible around the world and all visitors and questions are welcome. However, Nisman hopes that it will garner considerable attention and traction specifically in the Arab world, enabling people-to-people dialogue directly with Arab populations in the Middle East. In fact, after launching an Arabic language marketing campaign in May that featured the phrase: "Find out what is going on inside the head of an IDF soldier", the Friend-a-Soldier website received hits from every Muslim country in the Middle East, with the exception of Syria, within 20 minutes. Beyond their impressive reach into the civilian Arab world, the Friend-a-Soldier website has had 17,500 hits since their public launch in February, from over 120 countries worldwide.

Although most exchanges consist of a visitor asking a specific soldier a question and receiving a response, occasionally the visitor responds to the soldier's answer, thus engaging in reciprocal conversation of up to ten exchanges of emails and responses. According to Nisman, these conversations often burst misconceptions and lay the groundwork for mutual understanding. For instance, by the end of his conversation with an Israeli soldier, one Arab visitor agreed that Israel has a right to defend itself.

The website maintains its credibility without compromising the security of its members or the State of Israel by maintaining a response policy similar to that of the IDF spokesperson: refusing to comment on operational capabilities, specific names, numbers or equipment or any potentially incriminating details. This policy ensures that the focus of the site remains on the opinions and experiences of the participating soldiers; remaining in the ideational realm instead of sinking into the technical realm.

Moreover, beyond the principal format of personalized question and answer responses, the website also offers a database of past questions and responses for public perusal, in addition to a video section in which one of the soldiers presents his/her story and personal ideas in video format. These additions to the basic format allow for increased engagement and involvement with the public who choose not to actively write a question to the soldiers on the site, but prefer to take a more passive approach.

According to Nisman, the most commonly asked questions revolve around daily life in Israel, the potential for future peace, if Israelis hate Arabs and Palestinians, if the soldiers have personally killed Palestinian children, and the conflict from the point of view of the Israeli soldiers. Occasionally, Iraqi and Egyptian Sunni Muslims will express the view that they see Israel as an ally against Iran. In fact, a former official from the foreign ministry of Iraq sent a question to the site pertaining to combatting Iran through a Facebook alliance between Iraq, Israel and Turkey.

Despite numerous death threats, which Nisman nonchalantly characterizes as "annoying", he is proud of the immediate success of the website, but will only consider it a full success when there is real peace in the Middle East, hopefully enabled by the global agenda-free discourse that Friend-a-Soldier is working to promote. In a world characterized by open discussion across political chasms, there will hopefully no longer be a need to remind the world that behind every uniform is a human being.

Website: www.friendasoldier.com

Founder Daniel Nisman: Daniel@friendasoldier.com

Adena Goldberger is a recent graduate of IDC Herzliya's Argov Fellowship, where she was a weekly contributor to the campus magazine.