The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project was founded in 2003 by a group of concerned citizens in Madison, Wisconsin seeking to forge person-to-person relationships with Rafah, Palestine. We also wanted to increase public awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to influence U.S. public policy to benefit both peoples. Although our project was denied “official” Sister City status by the City of Madison in 2004, we have continued as an unofficial sister city group since.