The use of public diplomacy and social media can both be powerful tools in sharing ideas and messages that counter extremism and properly convey the cultures and ideas of countries, a senior US government official said at Zayed University on Wednesday.

Social entrepreneur and educator Aziz Abu Sarah describes how he came to lead tours in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians cross contested borders to spend time in each others cultures.

"We are ready to expand and strengthen contacts with Muslim and non-governmental organizations in the region along the line of 'people's diplomacy', we are ready to help the peoples of the region to overcome armed conflicts by sharing the experience of Russian Muslims..."

Many studies have shown that global-terrorist threats cannot be solved solely by an individual state. In this sense, the practices of dialogue and cooperation, both through government-to-government and people-to-people contacts, should be maintained by Indonesia and Egypt.

Local Muslims must actively participate, as well and reach out to, neighbors and friends not as missionaries, but as members of the community to help educate about their beliefs and the Quran for instance [...] The only way these kinds of things will stop is to help the community be educated on what is real and by way of caution, build bridges of trust within the local community.

By building ever larger institutions, non-profits, regional religious federations, and promoting cooperation between the democracies of the West, you can (and you must) model a new form of Muslim unity, one which enables Muslims to pool their resources without setting them at odds with each other, or holding one another hostage to mutually exclusive claims. That can be your answer, your way forward, your way of empowering your community, and your country.