Daniel Lubetzky

The Israeli Government has just announced its agreement to procure the "release" Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, in exchange for releasing several Lebanese prisoners including Samir Kuntar, the man who in 1979 murdered 3 Israelis in their home, including a 4-year old, and who caused the hiding mother to suffocate her 2-year-old daughter as she tried to quiet her crying.

What is the problem?

• Sheikh Nasrallah ordered the attacks and incursions that brought about the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006 with the stated goal of releasing Kuntar; Nasrallah outlined how he would capture Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips to bring about the release of Kuntar; now, 2 years after such devastating war and a month after having turned his guns on Lebanese people that supported the Lebanese government, he is being rewarded;
• Goldwasser and Regev are apparently dead, so the Israeli government is inviting terrorists not just to try to capture Israeli soldiers, but to kill them if they so please, as Israel will be willing to exchange their bodies anyway, for precisely the objectives that terrorists wish to attain.

I feel horrible for the families that lost Ehud and Eldad. But besides the perverse and ominous incentives this deal creates, it is also going to turn Hezbollah’s Nasrallah from a formidable hero into a mythic legend in the eyes of many in the Arab world.

The timing is particularly regrettable because for the first time in 20+ years, Nasrallah had lost a little of his luster when he showed his color and attacked fellow Lebanese civilians.  This will restore his stature and more.

Unless there is a secret grand bargain in the making that, with Lebanese/Shaba farms, Syrian, and Palestinian negotiations will settle the Israeli-Arab conflict and distance Israel’s neighbors from Iran, today is as tragic a day for civil society as it is a cause for celebration for those who espouse violence as a tool for political leverage.

Below is the text of the Israeli government’s outline for the agreement on releasing the abducted soldiers in Lebanon:

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This article from the Christian Science Monitor summarizes pretty well the political developments that have for now kept the current Israeli parliamentary coalition afloat.

Instead of recriminations and fights for personal political advancement, for once these considerations were borne in mind:

…it’s not as if we don’t have a few other things to keep us busy… …Israel’s shaky truce with Hamas, which is just six days old and already being tested by militants who fired rockets into Israel Tuesday; possible negotiations with Hezbollah over Israel’s captured soldiers; indirect talks with Syria; and nuclear tensions with Iran.

…not to mention the little detail about Olmert’s commitment to achieve a framework agreement with Abbas within 2008.

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If you really want to understand the implications of our lifestyle, you should take a look at this scary presentation about the impact that plastic bags are having on the environment, and how this will come back and haunt us.

Look at this picture up close and you see Albert Einstein.

Now step back 15 feet.  What do you see?

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Tony Blair Meets With OneVoice Palestinian and Israeli Youth Leaders in Jerusalem

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– As we gear towards the general election, a word of caution for US Presidential candidates about an important constituency that will not vote for them –

According to conventional wisdom, Presidential candidates can take campaign stances that will curry favor with particular constituencies of voters, only to be forgiven for adjusting campaign positions once they face the realities of the highest office.

The truth is that a campaign defines how the electorate will see their President – and this all the more true when shaping the President’s image in the eyes of the largest constituency that will actually not vote for them: the international community.

While domestically the President may be able to somewhat reshape his/her image through defining moments and actions, this is far less feasible internationally.

Only Americans vote for their President, but foreigners care almost as much – and sometimes more – about who will lead the most powerful nation in the world.

International impressions about a candidate are forged quite early, and they are far harder to change. Longer distances yield local media coverage that tends to be more one-dimensional and absolute, less nuanced, and more sporadic. Foreign coverage will also tend to be defined more narrowly from the prism of a particular nation’s foreign affairs agenda, as opposed to a plethora of domestic issues.

President Bush caused particular suspicion abroad during his 2000 campaign mocking Al Gore, and then again John Kerry in 2004, for their ‘multilateralism.’ He made it a pillar of his campaign to emphasize he would only pursue narrowly-defined American interests. He rejected the Kyoto protocols not only on their substance but on what they implied – that American policy would be harmonized with – or subservient to – global agendas for climate control.

Perhaps this stance helped him win over nativist constituencies. And he had little to fear about alienating foreigners who by definition could not vote. But global karma caught up with him and has as much to do with his Administration’s ultimate ineffectiveness as any other factor.

Foreign Heads of State in rare uniform fashion viewed him apprehensively, and large swaths of people reviled him across the globe. They could not vote him out. But they could vote with their policies and their currencies. Not only did Bush struggle to build his coalition in Iraq, but the ‘America’ brand was tarnished, American goods disfavored, and the dollar weakened.

America’s perceived weakness today is directly connected to displeasure with Bush’s unilateralist policies, whose perceptions were cemented during his campaign pronouncements even more than through his Administration’s work.

Even when Bush did positive international work, his image (and that of his Administration) had been unalterably shaped. He funded the fight against AIDS and pressed against poverty through far greater foreign aid than his predecessors. But he got no credit for it. Once international personas are shaped, it is close to impossible to alter them.

The same is true with foreign leaders from other nations – Putin vs. Gorbachev, Chirac vs. Sarkozy, Sharon vs. Peres – they are a brand unto themselves and will be hard-pressed to change it abroad no matter what different policies they may enact.

Starting with this general election, future candidates for the US presidency will hopefully bear in mind that the world is watching, and their statements will not be forgotten after the dust settles.

Both Obama and McCain seem to be more in tune to the foreign-policy-shaping impact of their campaign statements than President Bush was. Their visions for foreign policy could not be in greater contrast. McCain projects unwavering strength against militant absolutism and nihilism. Obama urges soft power and diplomatic engagement in tandem with military might. Neither perspective can be dismissed as unfounded or demagogic. Not even history will help us judge such a poignant question to such complex and dire circumstances.

But both will do well to remember that their campaign pronouncements will shape their international personas and will thus have almost as much impact on their ability to advance American (and possibly global) interests as the policies they enact thereafter if elected.

Full Transcript here.  Some excerpts:

Q151 Hugh Bayley: I agree, from my visits to the region, that a majority on both sides want peace, and the only prospect for that is to have a two-state solution, but the majority who want peace are marginalised time and again by acts of violence, whether it is a missile being fired over the border into Israel or the use of violence by the Israeli security forces. You can take the parallels with Northern Ireland too far, but it was undoubtedly the case in Northern Ireland that community groups on both sides – the Falls Road and the Shankhill – started saying, "We want peace", and they reduced the political space within which the terrorists operated. You have talked about a series of high-level talks you are involved with, but I think there is a need to nurture and strengthen community organisations of moderate Palestinians and moderate Israelis to try and nurture that space for discussing a future of co-existence. To what extent would you like to see DFID and other donors working in this area and what should they be doing?

Mr Blair: I think it is a very worthwhile exercise for them to work on. If you take an organisation, for example, like One Voice, which is for the young people, who are lovely young people, if that is the future on both sides it would be bright. I think it is very important to encourage a sort of civil society exchange at the same time, and I think that those are things that are easy to do and very worthwhile.

IDF To Remove West Bank Roadblocks as ‘Reward’ for Efforts to Clamp Down on Militants

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The line may be blurry on this one.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions - an effort to prevent diabetes and obesity from the Japanese government by strictly imposing waistline limits on the population, with penalties for corporations and local governments that do not meet guideposts…

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I thought I’d share the letter I shared with our Honorary Board and Trustee Advisory Council members on the occasion of OneVoice‘s 6^th Annual Board Meeting in Jerusalem this last month..

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