TIMEMUN, the longest-running Model UN conference in Israel, held its 24th conference from February 18-20, 2024. Sunday February 18 featured two virtual committees, an African Union addressing the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia over Somaliland, and a crisis committee involving Trump’s legal team. The virtual committees included over 20 participants from 10 countries on three continents.

February 19-20 were on campus at the Walworth Barbour American International School, with 270 students and advisors participating in nine committees. UNEP A and B addressed environmental concerns of rising sea levels and sustainable fashion, CSTD looked at outer space debris and cyber security, the African Union examined political stability and violent non-state actors, and the Knesset committee was tasked with drafting a constitution and preparing for an earthquake. The UN Security Council dealt with conflicts in Afghanistan and Sudan, while the historical Security Council traveled to 1986 to handle the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the Iran-Iraq conflict. In the Trump Crisis, delegates represented members of Trump’s legal team and even his family, while in the Avengers crisis students took on the roles of superheroes.

The students coming from about 40 cities and towns around Israel, gave speeches, debated, negotiated, cut deals and lobbied to pass resolutions and directives in two intense days of MUN. They also competed in other ways, from flag trivia, to pushup challenges and even an airplane construction contest. The delegates teamed up to consume 100 pies of pizza, 500 sandwiches, and an unknown number of cups of coffee.

After two intense days, it was time for the closing ceremony. Secretary General Maria Cheremina thanked the delegates, admins and chairs for their dedication to MUN, and the advisors, WBAIS team and staff for their support. Undersecretary General Ethan Moncarz commended the students for coming together in the shadow of an ongoing war, noting that they had set a lesson for the adults that “we can choose diplomacy over terror”. Following the speeches, the award winners were called on stage for photos and awards, from Best Position Paper, to Outstanding and Best Delegates, to the awards for first time delegates, journalists, chairs, and the coveted Diplomat of the Conference award. All the award winners can be seen here. The resolutions which passed in the committees can be read here and the winning position papers can be found here.

IOMUN 16 on Sunday January 14 brought together dozens of students from four continents to debate the impact and importance of the words we use on the world around us. The conference opened with a keynote speech from Ambassador Atieh, deputy head of the Palestinian Mission to the European Union, who talked about the responsibility to use constructive speech in building alliances and advancing diplomatic solutions to the many challenges around us, from daily life interactions to the most complex global issues. The ambassador congratulated the students on dedicating their time to coming together to discuss these important topics and wished them a fruitful conference, and success in their studies and careers.

Following the opening speech, the delegates split into two committees. The UNHRC committee debated the important topic of balancing free speech with limiting the harmful effects of hate speech. In the Taylor Swift crisis committee, delegates representing pop stars addressed the manifestation of hate speech in public interactions, including social media. 

The delegates engaged in high-level debate and intense negotiations for nearly four hours. After several rounds of voting failed, the HRC managed to secure enough votes to pass a resolution, although there were voting irregularities involving the chairs which are still being investigated. The Taylor Swift crisis was understandably not without its own controversies, and several cases of possible hate speech were raised, but ultimately the delegates consolidated around a directive promoting unity and positivity. 

Following the conference, the awards ceremony was held. Delegates were introduced to the Secretariat behind the scenes of IOMUN, and invited to apply for joining as a delegate, chair or secretariat member at future IOMUN conferences. Then the awards were read out: in the HRC Honorable Mention for China and Luxembourg, Outstanding Delegate for Belgium and Indonesia, and Best Delegate for the Netherlands, and in crisis: Harry Styles won Honorable Mention, Kanye West was Outstanding Delegate, and Kanye West won Best Delegate.Taylor SwiftFollowing the conference, the awards ceremony was held. Delegates were introduced to the Secretariat behind the scenes of IOMUN, and invited to apply for joining as a delegate, chair or secretariat member at future IOMUN conferences. Then the awards were read out: in the HRC Honorable Mention for China and Luxembourg, Outstanding Delegate for Belgium and Indonesia, and Best Delegate for the Netherlands, and in crisis: Harry Styles won Honorable Mention, Kanye West was Outstanding Delegate, and Taylor Swift won Best Delegate.

IOMUN 16’s Secretariat was led by Yaniv Becker (Chen Young Ambassadors school), Maria Cheremina and Ethan Moncarz (Walworth Barbour American International School), Nana Awadeie (Greek Catholic high school), and Angjelina Glasnović and Źiva Benedejčič (Pristina High School). The chairs included Dvir Karniel and Katya Khoury (UNHCR), and Dev Chheda (Crisis), with a crisis team composed of Christine Bonita and Sami Kammoun.

Congratulations to all of the delegates for their participation in IOMUN 16! We hope to see you at future conferences! Click here to apply for the IOMUN Secretariat Team.

I wonder all the time

through the day and through the night

with every step I take

my mind brings me back.

I wonder to escape my pain

to make it better in my brain

I imagine all my dreams come true

And wonder if it would happen too.

I wonder If love can change

And hate can take revenge

I wonder why people lie

Even when it makes their loved one’s cry

I wonder if peace exists

A place without haters and racists

I wonder what is real and what is fake

And if there is a place, I could be myself.

I wonder why people believe in god

Even though reality still hits them with a sword

I wonder why people sacrifice themselves

In order to save somebody else

I wonder when will roses lose their smell

And the sky will become blur

I wonder when my time will come

and what will happen afterward.

I wonder all the time

With every minute and every hour

I wonder who I am

I wonder, where do I begin?

Where am I from?

I am from this land,

the place where my ancestors were born to 

but still I’m just a small part of the great mosaic. 

The mosaic that gathers us all together:

from the lands of Ethiopia to Morocco, from Persia to China, from Russia to Argentina

we are all a small part of something big

the great mosaic 

We are, we are the oldest nation on earth 

the nation that survived the greatest tragedies

and fought the greatest armies 

I’m proud to be part of this generation in this land,

The generation that understands the meaning of the mosaic.

King David, Hannah Szenes, and I

we are all part of this mosaic

our enemies wouldn’t understand; for them one person doesn’t matter 

they would say “you can erase one dot and it wouldn’t matter”

but for me, for my people

every dot and dot matters 

from King David, Hannah Szenes and even you.

I’m proud to be part of the nation of Zion

the land full of nature and beauty, the land of the people of Israel, my own painful land

I’m glad to be a tiny dot in this great mosaic.

I find myself saying I’m stressed most of the time. It’s a word I use to express myself whenever anyone asks me how I’m feeling and I don’t feel like going into details with my emotions.

However, during the last few weeks I learned what stress really means to me. Stress is a heart that’s aching, crying out and dying. It’s being overwhelmed and being under a lot of pressure but still not knowing what to do – how to handle it. It’s not being able to sleep because youare overthinking every little thing that comes into your mind. It’s a pain that is so hard to get rid of and seems to linger around. 

I’m stressing over things no teenager should stress over. I’m stressing over things like wanting to do my absolute best and never stop because I’m alive and I’m in good health. I can’t take being alive for granted because I have the chance to achieve my dreams unlike those many children who have been unfortunately killed before their dreams could be fulfilled. They each had dreams and goals and some of their dreams might have been better than mine, I will never know. 

I can’t stop thinking how they might have become something big in this evil world and how we let these children down and made them face consequences they aren’t involved in. I can’t stop stressing over the fact that I can’t fail them again in the future, that is if they are able to survive.

I stress so much over the fact that my parents can get fired for saying anything that expresses how they feel and I stress because my sister might get kicked out of college because of her nationality and identity. I stress over losing one of my friends that’s fighting for their lives right now. I stress because of my worry and pain that control my thoughts all day every day. I stress I stress I stress.

I’m stuck between my thoughts and reality. I’m lost. I’m trying to find a way out but yet every door seems closed and I’m suffocating and I’m scared. So scared. I didn’t choose where to be born. I didn’t choose what nationality my ancestors should have. I didn’t choose this life but yet I’m still handling it well…I think. It’s good and It’sbad and although it’s killing me from the inside I wouldn’t trade my nationality for the world because my people have faith, my people know life. My people will never give up.

60 days have passed since the war began. 60 days in which I feel empty. 60 days of an emotional roller coaster that doesn’t have a rising trend. All I hear around me is the word “death”, the whispers at school were all gossip and teenage drama, now it’s all about the horrors, the murders, the unspeakable. Social media is covered in videos of people’s last phone calls to their loved ones. I see posts from people describing what they saw when the Hamas terrorists broke into their homes. How they beat, kicked and burned their loved ones and beheaded them in front of their eyes. I break down every time I see an influencer who has changed my life, support and raise money for the people trying to murder me, my friends and my family merely because I am Jewish.

Our television is on the news channel constantly these days, I don’t know what I want to see, maybe it’s the hope of seeing some good news; for a change. I saw on the news a live footage of Hamas terrorist pro-camera throwing grenades at children, toddlers and babies while they screamed for their parents. But their parents won’t come, they are already dead on the kitchen floor.

I’ve tried hundreds of times to think why? Why would people walk around the street whistling and shooting people? Why would anyone take a life; someone you don’t know, a complete stranger, on the sole fact that they are Jewish. I thought about it for a while and remembered one of the worst things that have occurred in history: The Holocaust. At school, on Holocaust Memorial Day, survivors tell us how they had to live for days in a hole they had dug themselves, without food, without water, without air. They told how the Nazis broke into their homes and beat and executed their father, raped their mother and burned their siblings alive. One of the Holocaust survivors came to my school and told me that the Nazis took him and about two hundred other children and babies to a small house, they locked them in there and set it on fire. He heard them laughing outside without caring at all as he struggled to breathe, fighting for every bit of oxygen. Luckily, he survived, unfortunately his two other siblings died in the fire. I always think about how they felt, how incredibly scared they were, how helpless, confused and extremely frightened. However, I could never really understand it, I was not there, my house wasn’t broken into, no one came and murdered my family in cold blood.

One Saturday, I was doing my homework and listening to music, it was a sunny day, the weather was perfect. Suddenly I heard a notification on my cell phone, I opened it and felt my skin burning, it was as if a million little needles had pricked me all at once. I had goose bumps. I was cold, the color had drained from my face, I looked like I had seen a ghost, but I didn’t, I saw worse. I saw three new articles had been published. One was about how a Jewish man was murdered in California after an altercation at an Israeli-Palestine protest. The second was a photo of a Jewish man’s front door in Germany with a swastika spray-painted on it. The third was the worst of all, more photos showing hundreds of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn with swastikas spray-painted in red.

I found it hard to breathe; I couldn’t breathe, a painful shiver went through my body. It was at that moment, when I realized that this war is not between Israel and Palestine, but worldwide. People in Germany, France and even in the United States, friendly countries, want me dead, but why? They do not know me and I do not know them. It was then when I understood a little of the fear that the Jews had to go through during the Holocaust. The unimaginable fear of existing. I understood the fear when you hear a faint noise outside that makes you jump, thinking they are outside ready to break in and take your last breath. I felt the horrible feeling of something I only heard of in stories.

Will this war turn into another Holocaust? It already feels like it, Jews being tortured, raped, abused, beheaded, burned alive, drowned, electrocuted until their last breath, swastikas sprayed on doors and tombstones.

Will I have to be walked with my eyes closed and my hands tied to a place that was built specifically to kill me? Will I have to hide my three-year-old sister underground with me so they won’t find us?

Will I have to change my identity to keep my life?

It was late in the night, probably Saturday, but he had already stopped counting, it wasn’t important anyways. It’s not like he had any appointment worthy of remembering, or anyone worth meeting, for that matter. He just had his 28th birthday, but there was no celebration, well to be fair there was, and he even attended but he wasn’t really there. He wanted to end it, he hated every person in it… even those he usually liked. But most of the people who knew him, did not care. All that was important to his so-called friends was that he would show up to work.

To be fair he wasn’t quite emotional, and certainly he did not like showing his emotions, but to miss his state of being you had to be blind, oh no, they all knew but did not care. It was the same every day, he would go to work in the advertisement agency. He would be signing a lot of papers that no one would read, making a few calls to very rich and posh people that usually could not be bothered to answer because they were busy doing… something. Then he would have his lunch, the only good part of his day. After that he usually would go to check on a few of his men who were writing the papers he signed. 

Twice a week, sometimes even more he would go to a few of the agency’s offices in different locations. He really wanted to go by car but his boss would only agree to pay for the train ticket, so that’s what he did. In origin he was from some forgotten town in Canada but he moved across the pond around a year or so ago, so he didn’t get used to the traffic moving in the other direction. He really hated that, and any big English city, and the food, he hated everything apart from reading (and his lunch).

One day he got a new destination to travel to, he had to go to Portsmouth for some reason. He really tried to be happy because it was the only city he liked in England. But no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t be happy.   

It wasn’t always like that. It only started about a year and a half ago. Before that time he loved all his co-workers and he enjoyed his work even though it was dull. It was the same job but in Canada. As a matter of fact he used to go out every few days. He was always surrounded by people all day long. He liked it, he lived like that for years, since school and college. He had one good friend, a girl around his age, and quite a few acquaintances. Overall, he was quite a social and talkative person. 

His good friend who was a tall and thin woman, around 25, who met him in high school and since then they have been together. Even though they were quite different they went to hell and back. He liked going out as often as he could. While she enjoyed the comfort of her own fireplace and most impressive collection of novels. She stayed home because every occasion of the few times she actually went out somehow ended with the police involved. Once she drank too much and hit the barkeep. Another time she almost stabbed a waiter when running to the toilet. But the last time was when she got a bit drunk in an empty bar, (empty except for herself, the salesman, another and another big man whom they did not know but introduced himself as John). That night she messed with some gangster, a friend of this John, who tried to steal a few bucks from the register. The robber did not see her ‘bravery’ in a kind way so he beat her until she lost consciousness… . Later when she gave her deposition at the police station she revealed that she had stolen the gangster’s watch and phone, which contained enough information to arrest about a dozen members. And so she was put under protective custody. But it all changed one day when she was killed, apparently by the gangster or someone in the gang who came to seek revenge. 

At first, for a month, the poor salesman just sat at home doing absolutely nothing, but he was lucky enough to be understood, he wanted to be alone. And his friends let him, while constantly checking on him. That was until he decided to try and go back to society; though he changed, it was alright. He started to value his privacy more and he started to take walks just to be alone at night, he tried to be happy, and for a few moments, though brief, he was. He had supportive friends and family, and he even enjoyed his alone time, it was then when he started reading partly in memory of his late friend, and partly as a way of escaping reality.

It was a few months after his friend’s death,  when he thought that he might just be okay, and life was as good as it could be under the circumstances. But he wasn’t fine, nor was life. Every little thing drove him to a state of depression, he started crying, he never did before. But then came a point where he just couldn’t stay in his small town in Canada. He just wanted out. so badly he wanted out that he asked for relocation. and so headquarters moved him to Leeds, England.
He, at first thought it would help but very quickly he learnt how wrong he was. It all just got so much worse.

So there he was on a cheap second class seat, going to his favourite city, the one place where he could be happy. It was a long journey, so he was reading, until around six a big bulky man with blue eyes lightly touched his shoulder, saying ‘excuse me?’  

‘Yes ?’ he answered.

The man looked at him with his blue eyes and said ‘don’t you remember ? From back in Canada’ After a moment the salesman answered ‘ no, unfortunately i don’t ?’
‘ oh, a pity, i am John Burnton’ the salesman replied ‘ well when i think about it you do look familiar, but i can’t remember where from, how are you anyway?’.
Burnton turned around slightly and said ‘ I am alright, though I cannot say it about you from your look’ ‘ really? You can notice ?!’ jumped the poor salesman, ‘notice?’ laughed Burnton and said, a bit tactlessly 

‘Boy, everyone in that train can notice… it’s about that dead friend of yours, right?’

‘Yes it is about her’
‘Well here’s what we will do, when this bloody train will stop I will show you around the city, to my flat and we will have a drink. Though I try not to… it got me in some troubles’ ‘thanks, I would like that. You know my friend always used to get himself in trouble when drinking, funny isn’t it ?’
‘ oh yes, coincidence’ said Burnton ‘ well i have to go now, see you at the station’.
When Burnton left, the salesman remembered his old friend and the pain this caused him made him think that should perhaps skip Mr. Burnton’s opportunity. After all, he could not remember whether he actually knew him or not. At the end he decided to try and meet him after all, and so he did. 

After a few hours of walking through the streets of Portsmouth they were almost finished wandering when the salesman felt for the first time in a long year and a half that he was not alone, he grew to like John Burnton. It was already past midnight when Burnton said ‘ here we go to the left and in 15 minutes we will be at my flat’ they entered a dark small street between to car parks when John stopped reached for his overcoat and said ‘ well I would like to apologise to you in advance’ his companion stopped looking utterly confused, ‘well you see mate’ John continued ‘ I never told you where we met. Do you remember that night at the bar with your friend ?’ 

The salesman’s heart sank for he understood finally where he knew this John from ‘ i’m the friend of the guy your buddy robbed and got into prison, 15 years. And all that for some minor theft. We badly needed the money, you see, so we joined this stupid drug operation, and then your friend came and we became the reason the gang fell. He got into jail, somewhat safe, and I ran for my life. But here it ends, they caught me, it’s me or you, they said. Either I shoot you or they shoot me. I am truly sorry.’ 

The salesman understood that he would not live for much longer. He tried to beg, but that did not work. Finally he said ‘ you know what is the funny thing here ? Until I met you on the train and since she died there was no one who understood me, no one to be there for me, I was so lonely yet surrounded by people at work, and now in this street ? There is no one for me, yet I do not feel alone. I know I will meet her once more, do what you must, for God’s sake’ at that exact moment a gunshot was heard and the poor salesman fell down to earth cold and bloody, but for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, somehow not alone.                               

Does modern life give technology the right to change people’s emotion? 

Categorizing them into groups and names by the lie of globalization

To convince them that people are different peoples of more than a nation 

which lets them live behind the screens, till they turn with no appreciation 

killing the union of belonging and fighting to get it back by organization

Struggling not to lose containing the other through the coming generation 

God created the universe putting his beauty and specialty into his creation 

And made all people equal and free but differences are found in education

He prefers educated scientists who will treat the sickness and passion 

Gave them to mind the brain, looking and searching for any information 

Teaches people about the beauty of special people of syndromes’ situation 

And raised the feeling of containing and love for them with consideration

They are “The Special Ones” that have ever found in the whole creation

In one spot of the globe, there was a garden in an unknown location 

Roses grew up of lavender smell and one different rose got the attention

It was a daffodil between the lavender field, a foreign rose of creation 

flowers went far from jealousy and captured it in the prison of isolation

Till the farmer came and defined its beauty that decorated the location

Watered it carefully, and took care of it with a fear of coming pollution

It was strange to feel like the daffodil calling for any communication

The wise farmer got the gift from God as the specialty in differentiation 

And was showing off that he was chosen to get God’s selection

To send him this daffodil that is not found in any other location 

decorates his simple hut to be a great castle in a world of imagination

Teaching each one of us the meaning of being thankful with appreciation 

and being aware to value even the smallest thing that may cause a revolution that may change life for the better and gives the real meaning of “pure relation”

I am a lily, and you are a dove,

Destined to blossom and destined to fly above.

Yet, how can I blossom with no water and light,

And how can you soar, wings clipped, in this fight

A gilded cage they craft, illusions so fine,

Yet beneath the gold, it’s metal that binds.

They plucked my petals, stripped your feathers too,

Chained us with threads unseen, an insidious brew.

Your actions, brushstrokes, objectify our youth,

Assigned us names, played us as pawns, a ruthless truth.

They asked, ‘What will you be when grown up, pray?’

Yet long before eighteen, life’s road grows dim and gray.

In war’s cruel dance, where innocence is the cost,

Children, once lilies and doves, too often are lost

Once a lily, once a dove in skies above,

Now a black rose, a reflection of a raven’s love.

Take that as you please but we beg you to see,

The lilies and doves you once used to be.

We seek not pity or pledges hollow,

But a plea to cease this game, compassion to follow.

We were lilies and doves, innocent and free,

Cease before more innocence fades, let children be.

                            They say, that the fallen angel sowed evil on earth, once he landed. 

                      They say, they pray to the Lord, asking the fallen angel about the lost paradise that Milton wrote about.    

                      But weren’t people created in the likeness of angels? Yes, but why do people choose the fallen angel side?  Why did my brother try to kill me while I was asleep? Why did my brother, with whom I wanted eternal peace, stab me in the back? 

I’m sorry brother that you are suffering for your choice, I’m just trying to protect myself.

I’m sorry that because of your choice, my other brothers got closer to God. 

But I’m not sorry for protecting the promised people of my God.

And I am not sorry for protecting God’s promised land to his chosen people.

Angel, I’m sorry that the fallen angel set you up

Angel, your soul found the lost paradise that Milton wrote about? 

And I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from that fallen angel who stabbed your back. 

Angel, I’m sorry I couldn’t  protect you in that bloody morning. 

But now, I finally know that you found that lost paradise.