Daniel Lubetzky

I was forwarded a provocative but interesting article by David Harris, head of AJC.  While I am a fervent supporter of Israel as the haven and homeland of the Jewish people, I am very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian refugees, and I think more will be accomplished by acknowledging their suffering and then moving on to practical solutions along the Clinton parameters.  But Harris does raise some provocative points worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, as with almost everything dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, this line of reasoning will appeal to partisan pro-Israeli views and repel partisan pro-Palestinian views, and nothing will come out of it except to further affirm the partisan convictions of each side – which is why I revert back to the approach of helping each side better understand the other’s narrative and then focus on WORKING SOLUTIONS like those offered in OneVoice’s citizen negotiations and the Clinton parameters.  Anyway, here is the article:

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Thanks to Stacy Perman for a profile about PeaceWorks, KIND, and OneVoice in BusinessWeek yesterday.

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From the OneVoice newsletter:

The results are in!

Ø 50 Palestinian winners and 50 Israeli winners have been selected

Ø Read some of the winning essays

Ø Israel & Palestine to Co-Host World Cup in 2018? Check out one vision for the future

· OneVoice Youth Leadership & outreach update

Ø OneVoice Israeli & Palestinian Youth to Tony Blair: “A Mideast Quintet”

Ø From our Gaza office: Town Hall Meeting in Beit Hanoun

Ø OneVoice is Referenced in House of Lords Debate 5 Times

Ø OneVoice Student Leader at Stanford Organizes Islam-West Unity Event

The Imagine 2018 campaign has only just begun – now that 100 winning essayists have been selected, 10 foremost directors will begin selecting 10 essays to turn into short films. 

These films – the visions of Israeli and Palestinian youth brought to life – will be used to inspire people worldwide to envision some of the tangible benefits peace – to empower people to take action, and to ensure that the leadership acts with urgency and commitment to reach a two state agreement which ends the occupation and all forms of violence, and establishes a viable, independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel.

How you can get involved:

Donate – Sign up to the Movement – Forward our videos – Visit our blog & tell us what you think

The OneVoice Teams in Ramallah, Gaza, Tel Aviv, London, and New York

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I like these quotes from our very own Phil Walotsky on this week’s issue of Food Business News:

"Healthy snacking is very hot," said Phil Walotsky, spokesperson for KIND Fruit + Nut bars, PeaceWorks Holdings, New York. "Where we see a great deal of our growth is adoption by casual consumers who look for a healthy option with emphasis on taste and natural ingredients. We’re finding that nutrition bars are being used less as an activity-specific food — for example, something you only eat after a workout — and more people are adding them as a staple of their diet."

And:

"We also believe consumers will continue to become more educated about the food they purchase, and will reward companies that produce healthy snacks that reflect their more discerning desires, tastes and values," Mr. Walotsky said. "Consumers will continue to look for products that are less processed and foods that don’t contain suspect ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils, and instead turn to foods with integrity that taste great and provide real nutritional value."

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Over the last few weeks, the High Fructose Corn Syrup Lobby has begun a spin campaign to try to confuse consumers into thinking that HFCS is no different from other natural sugars, but studies including one from the University of Texas last week (and one from University of Florida three years ago) have confirmed that fructose causes fat build-up at unusually high levels and with unusually damaging consequences.

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Consumers are increasingly demanding that manufacturers replace high fructose corn syrup with natural alternatives, such as cane sugar, agave syrup, or as in the case with KIND, honey and glucose.  Research has confirmed that High Fructose Corn Syrup is more fattening than other sugars like sucrose and glucose.  And high fructose corn syrup is cheap and concentrated, but hits the blood stream faster and is at least a partial culprit for the obesity and diabetes epidemics taking over.

In spite of the Corn Industry Lobby and their efforts to confuse consumers, after decades of manipulating Americans into higher consumption, including by lobbying to impose tariffs on imports (such as healthier alternatives like raw cane sugar) that compete with HFCS, people are wising up.

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Khaled Diab wrote a nice article about OneVoice‘s Imagine 2018 project, asking Palestinian and Israeli kids to visualize what their lives will look like in 10 years IF a peace agreement is achieved between Israel and Palestine.

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Richard Stengel summarized Nelson Mandela’s eight leadership lessons – Madiba’s Rules (Mandela’s clan name) in TIME Magazine: 

All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

No. 1: Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it

No. 2 Lead from the front — but don’t leave your base behind

No. 3 Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front

No. 4 Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport

Mandela understood that blacks and Afrikaners had something fundamental in common: Afrikaners believed themselves to be Africans as deeply as blacks did. He knew, too, that Afrikaners had been the victims of prejudice themselves: the British government and the white English settlers looked down on them. Afrikaners suffered from a cultural inferiority complex almost as much as blacks did.

No. 5 Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer

No. 6 Appearances matter — and remember to smile

No. 7 Nothing is black or white

No. 8 Quitting is leading too

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I heard Ron Pundak (the CEO of the Peres Center) most recently attended a meeting of a coalition of NGOs working for peace, and he was struggling because he is fighting a particularly noxious type of cancer, currently going through treatment.

I have always secretly and quietly admired Ron, and have always felt we need more people like him.  In a world filled with well-meaning mediocrity down to cynical manipulation, Ron never succumbs and always applies the highest standards to what he does.  We seldom speak about people we admire with the candor they deserve, unless they are no longer with us, which means we lose the opportunity to do the right thing at the right time.  Hoping that Ron will get stronger as we need him to continue to lead, I want to share why I so deeply am impressed with this man:

• Because he is a Doer – he gets things done;
• Because he works for the mission, not for the institution; if they conflict, in everything I’ve ever seen from Ron, the mission always takes precedence; he eschews jealousies in favor of positive partnerships; he thinks long-term; he doesn’t lose sight of his ultimate purpose;
• Because he is humble and down-to-earth, never seeking praise or the limelight, always just doing the right work;
• Because he is a solid manager and coach;
• Because he is an extraordinary thinker;
• Because he is a mentsch – a real human being – who treats everyone with dignity and respect, Israeli or Palestinian, President or janitor.

Just like on the Palestinian side the call for "resistance" has been strengthening, Israeli views towards negotiations with Palestinians are hardening, according to the latest War and Peace Index conducted by Professor Tamar Hermann.  We’ve got our work cut out for us.

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