Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel Records

Originally called "Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine," the name was later changed to "Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel." It was often abbreviated simply as "SEARCH." The mission of Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel was to inform members of Congress, journalists and other opinion makers about aspects of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israeli Jews that did not always get a hearing in the political establishment and the media. The organization published a newsletter, the Palestine/Israel Bulletin, which published articles from the Israeli press that were critical of Israeli policies.

The founder and executive director of the organization, Edmund R. Hanauer (1938-2006), also known as “Ned”, was born on March 1, 1938, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science from American University, Washington, D.C. Hanauer frequently drew a parallel between the fate of the Native Americans and that of the Palestinian people. His op-ed articles and letters-to-the-editor on the rights of the Palestinian people appeared over the years in many newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek.

Hanauer's work stood "in a long line of Jewish critics of Israeli policies from Achad Haam, who believed that one cannot push the native population out of its homeland without resistance, to Martin Buber, who sought reconciliation of Palestinians and Jews, to Rabbi Elmer Berger, Israel Shahak, and many, many others." As a pacifist, Hanauer was committed to bringing about reconciliation between the parties by nonviolent means, something SEARCH consistently advocated. The organization's motto was: “SEARCH believes that justice for Palestinians and security for Israeli Jews are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent.” Before founding SEARCH Hanauer was an academic teaching at the University of Maryland and Babson College. He received Ph.D. in political science from American University, Washington, D.C. His dissertation was titled "An Analysis of Conflicting Jewish Positions Regarding the Nature and Political Role of American Jews, with Particular Emphasis on Political Zionism." The advisory council of SEARCH included academics and peace movement leaders such as Daniel Berrigan, William Sloane Coffin, Scott Kennedy, Barbara Lubin, David McReynolds, and Pete Seeger; academics such as Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Edward Herman, and Don Peretz; business and media figures such as Casey Kasem and Jerry Levin (founder of HBO), as well as Jewish leaders Arthur J. Kobacker and Arnold Jacob Wolf. With the death of Edmund Hanauer in 2006, SEARCH closed down.