For over a decade, a small group of unassuming volunteers from Boulder have supported primarily sustainability projects in Israel and the West Bank. The starting point for Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Projects, an organization that focuses on forward-looking cross-border projects, was, surprisingly, a negative event.
As one its founders, Peter Ornstein, tells it, the group began after the contentious debate that erupted after Nablus in the West Bank was proposed as a Boulder Sister City. (The effort, in 2013, failed; a second effort, in 2016, passed.) Ornstein and others, all of whom he describes as having affinity to Israel and the Middle East, felt motivated to do something positive that would “help move the ball forward in the region.”
The timing was ripe. An environmental lawyer, Ornstein had recently retired from the EPA. “It was a good time for me to think about what else I can do,” he said in a recent interview with the Intermountain Jewish News.
At the same time, someone who splits their time between Boulder and Jerusalem told Ornstein about an environmental project in the Kidron Basin, which traverses Jewish and Arab neighborhoods around Jerusalem.
While the grand plan to restore the basin has not yet come to fruition, and Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Projects (SIPP) is no longer engaged with it, it kickstarted a decade’s worth of civil society and environment-related projects that SIPP has been able to support. One, tackling electronic waste, illustrates the complexities that SIPP navigates but also the benefits it offers. SIPP learned of an illicit trade that saw Israeli electronic waste being transported to outside of Hebron, where local Palestinians would burn the waste and recover metals to sell back to Israel.
“This underground economy,” says Ornstein, “was causing significant health effects to people who lived there.”
This is where SIPP comes in. It engaged a Boulder-based electronics waste expert who got so excited she ended up joining their board. She raised the funds to travel to Israel and the West Bank where she led workshops at Tel Aviv University, Al-Quds University in Ramallah and Idhna near Hebron.
But this wasn’t a case of someone from outside coming in to tell people what they were doing was wrong or imposing a vision. While acknowledging that an open burn of electronics is inherently unsafe, she focused primarily on how to mitigate its negative effects if it’s being done.
That’s SIPP’s pragmatic approach, says Ornstein. It’s about getting local Israelis and Palestinians to collaborate on issues that impact their daily lives and are not inherently political.
The environment, he believes, is conducive to such collaboration.
“It provides a neutral place for people to focus energy and for collaboration. Whether it’s food security, energy security, waste management, air pollution, water pollution, instead of pointing fingers, there’s an opportunity for people to put their heads together and try to work toward a common solution.”
He points out that all populations in Israel and the West Bank are growing. “People aren’t going anywhere. So the land has to be able to accommodate those generations forward.”
Staying away from politics also helps SIPP in its ultimate goal, to support individuals in the region and help foster the next generation of leadership. “We’re not trying to point to people as being the bad guys. We’re just trying to figure out a way, pragmatically, to make this work for everybody.
“Part of our motivation is trying to build up people, build up agency, so that people can take control of their lives.”
There’s another reason why working on environmental projects is appealing. This land “is a holy place for so many people,” he says. “Let’s give it the dignity it deserves.”
SIPP partners with a wide variety of on-the-ground partners in Israel and in the West Bank and has even connected some of those groups with local groups like Boulder Rotary. That specific project supported computer refurbishment that not only kept electronic waste out of a landfill, but got the computers into the hands of students.
Those types of connections are a big part of SIPP’s entire approach, from the make up of its board to the kinds of projects it supports.
“We have a board that’s pretty diverse,” Ornstein says. “It’s not all Jewish. We have one Palestinian-American, a couple of other people of other faiths.”
SIPP currently has two board members in the Washington, DC area and one in NJ.
“We also have expertise that varies. One [board member] founded Engineers Without Borders,” helping people solve problems through small engineering solutions. “Someone else does mediation, conflict management. We’ve got a variety of expertise we like to bring.
“For me, that’s the most fun and fulfilling to be able to do that, as opposed to just sending money. The networking aspect is good; we could brainstorm with people how to create a university class on something.”
Access to Palestinian groups, he says, comes through relationships SIPP has made over its decade of work and its membership in umbrella groups such as the Alliance for Middle East Peace. That kind of networking, he says, is itself a goal of SIPP. Through its partners, SIPP is able to connect people in the region with each other.
When the Covid pandemic hit, SIPP changed course. Because it is a small, all-volunteer organization, it began to consider that its time and resources might be better used by people coming to them with ideas rather than SIPP seeking out projects. SIPP is now in its fifth year of mini-grants that it believes have direct impact to people in the region. The projects may be environmental, but many others are more people-oriented. For example, a café that brings Jews and Arabs together, or Hebrew classes for Arabic-speakers and vice versa.
Another project connects Jewish kids from Israel to Palestinian kids in the West Bank; their respective schools were close geographically, but not interacting. SIPP issues six or seven grants a year, up to $3,000 each.
Something remarkable about SIPP is that its work continued, even in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7. The geographical focus shifted because working in the West Bank wasn’t possible and there was a deep breach of trust on both sides, one that wasn’t going to be overcome overnight.
“We pivoted mostly to Jewish Arab community, shared society building, food security and other issues within the Israel border,” he says.
The Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement also made it difficult for SIPP to work in the West Bank. Some Palestinians became fearful of reprisals. To this day, SIPP is very careful about naming its Palestinians partners. Working with Arab communities in Israel was easier, he says.
For the first time since Oct. 7, SIPP is starting its cross-border work again and, for the first time ever, has become active in Gaza. He mentions the project Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza, which is supported by a many groups including the Israeli Arava Institute and the Palestinian organization Damour.
SIPP “wants to give agency to people,” says Ornstein, “something that is more tangible.” In Gaza, for example, SIPP is supporting women who are starting small food-related businesses, such as pickling and baking. Instead of foods, the material required to make the food — pots, pans, stovetops — is provided.
When it comes to a grander, more long-lasting vision for the region, Ornstein doesn’t pretend to have the answers. He remains hopeful that Israelis and Palestinians will grow to feeling more comfortable working together, “but we’re not there yet, it’s a work in progress.”
But he remains bullish on SIPP’s work. “The projects we’re doing are small, but they’re really impactful for the people involved and hopefully the communities,” he says.
Because the projects are small, they can engage a wide variety of volunteers. Ornstein and SIPP are open to hearing from anyone who has expertise in an area that could be translated into on the ground activity in the region. He spends a fair amount of time speaking across Northern Colorado about SIPP and its work.
“What we’re doing gives me a sense of agency,” he says. “For a few people in Boulder to affect people across the world with this is a wonderful sense of accomplishment.
“We want to work with kids, students, young adults, seniors, anybody, to reform and assist the society.
“It’s not a kumbaya. It’s a recognition that this is the pragmatic reality, and we need to figure this out so we can work together. It’s not destroying the other, it’s not kicking the other out, it’s building up. Building up the other builds up yourself.”
To learn more about SIPP, visit www.sipprojects.org.
© IJN 2026