Daniel Lubetzky

It is not PC to admit that Anglo-Americans often have problems distinguishing Asian faces (or for that matter, any other ethnicity).

 But from China Southern Air comes some comforting confirmation that for the Chinese, the opposite is true – Americans (or Westerners) all seem to look alike to them.

On the plane on the way back from Dalian to Beijing, I caught this hilarious variety news item where an intrepid reporter had paired Western soccer players and Hollywood celebrities that, apparently to Chinese eyes, looked fantastically alike – at least fantastic enough to be tv-worthy.

What is hilarious is how far these people look alike!

Here are some of the editors’ wise matches: (click on any of them to enlarge and see it closer – and click again to expand)

Will Smith -with some black soccer player:

The only thing these have in common is that they are both black!

 Ben Stiller with some white soccer player:

 The only thing these two have in common is that they are both white!

Here are close ups of the twins:

Ok, they did get a couple slight similarities, not sure they are worthy of a tv story, but here is Matt Damon’s soccer alter-ego…

But Brad Pitt’s?!

And the Dude from Dude Where is My Car’s alter-ego?

And Mel Gibson’s nephew?!

But the punch line is that their long-lost twin matches included some 23-year old soccer player with 80+ year-old Clint Eastwood!

Here are the close ups confirming how much they look alike (not!)

12 surfing boards were delivered by Doc and David through Mowaffaq’s facilitation, amidst enormous media attention.  Here are a couple, amidst hundreds of stories that were picked up on TV and Newsprint:

New York Times Story – Prescribing Surfboards for Peace

 The Guardian Story – Reuters – Surfer Promotes Israeli-Palestinian Peace

 And a couple pics, some public and some from behind the scenes:

More pics here:

Dorian being interviewed, David watching over

Mowaffaq from OV Gaza and Ayelet from OV Tel Aviv

The Boards Made it through to their intended recipients!

Now Americans David and Dorian are heading tomorrow morning with Ayelet Daniel from OneVoice Israel to deliver a lot more boards for the Palestinian surfers to be able to teach others to surf, with coordination from Mowaffaq Alami, from OneVoice Palestine in Gaza. 

They are also hoping to surf together in Jaffo later this week!

Surfing for Peace will have an official launch on October 18th in partnership and coordination also with the OneVoice Summit – www.OneMillionVoices.org – and the campaign to reach One Million Voices to End the Conflict!   David and Dorian may be bringing world-famous surfer Kelly Slater to surf with them here, along with an entourage of world-famous musicians who will perform that night at the OneVoice Summit in Tel Aviv.  David may perform his OneVoice song that night also.

Suddenly there is a lot of media commotion and CNN, ABC, and others are trying to do a story on this.

So, not only did we locate the Gaza surfers and their federation, but through the amazing work of Adi Balderman of OneVoice-Israel, we were able to secure permits for one of their representatives to come meet with David, Doc, and Arthur, who is Doc’s loyal apprentice and also a very good surfer, who also runs a surfing magazine in Israel.

The meeting started a bit weird because the “representative” was not a surfer himself, which took David and Doc aback. But they quickly learned that he was indeed representing the surfing federation, because Ahmed Abu Hasera and Mohammed Abu Jayab were not able to get permits that quickly, and were actually scared to go to Israel – they have never left Gaza before.  When Mowaffaq called Mohammed and Ahmed on the cell – all excitement took them over and they started planning how to really help surfing take off.

 I love these guys – Doc and David.  They are savvy and sincere at once.  Doc brings the wisdom of the 86-year old surfer and teachere that he is – and he explained that if surfing could take off in Gaza, it could generate tourism, jobs, etc.  But above all, it would help build a bond that no politician can break – a bond of freedom riding the waves.  David brings the heart of gold and purity of a citizen of the world – his commitment is so pure that he makes all barriers come down.

 So, before you knew it, Doc, David, and Arthur, arranged to get some surfing boards donated to the guys in Gaza – and Mowaffaq was kind enough to try to get them through.

 You can imagine that when Mowaffaq tried to cross Erez, he had a bit of a challenge.  He spent over two hours trying to carry the boards across.  The officer on the border said he had never seen this before, and Mowaffaq said there was always a first time.  Eventually, Adi Balderman interceded and convinced them to let Mowaffaq through. 

Every time I visit the OneVoice office in Ramallah, I am happy to meet my colleagues who are so talented, hard-working, courageous, and committed to our shared mission – really an exceptional bunch.

Every time I visit the office after an absence of a week or more, I am greeted by kisses by the men, not by the women.  And depending on the village or city that each person comes from, I get two, three – or, in the case of Abu Rami, FOUR kisses – one cheek, then the other, then again the first one, then again the other.

Abu Rami comes from a small village and does not speak English.  He is the office’s janitor and jack-of-all trades, and he comes from a very humble background, so I make a particular effort to connect to him.

Abu Rami always offers me “babounish” to drink – chamomille tea – and he sincerely gets hurt if I don’t take him up, so I always have to be prepared for Babounish, a few times a day.

In our own way we’ve developed a warm relationship, and he seems to get particularly excited and proud when he sees me leading a meeting.

Last Thursday there was a lot of movement in the office because the OneVoice staff from Gaza had come to visit with their colleagues in Ramallah, something which is hard to organize, so we took advantage of the opportunity to do some in-depth strategic planning.

Abu Rami is modest and reserved in general.  He self-selected to appropriate a tiny closet into his mini-office, where he tends to do small chores when no other task is needed.  This happens to have been located right across from where I was seating, and I found it particularly charming that Abu Rami kept smiling and winking at me from within his tiny “office” throughout the staff meeting – so I couldn’t resist and I took a picture – which delighted him even further.

Can you find him? (you may want to click on the picture and zoom in)

Just in case you want to meet him more formally, here is a picture of the charismatic and sweet Abu Rami in his “office” (a lot of the boxes you see behind him are filled with OneVoice Mandates filled out by signatories and Citizen Negotiators, which we keep in their original form for auditing purposes):

Ron Mueck is a London-based photo-realist artist. Fiberglass resin or flesh? I just thought this too cool not to share…

OneVoice Gaza’s Executive Director Mowaffaq Alami moved fast and has reached the Gaza Surfers.  It turns out there is even a fledgling Surfing Federation in Gaza.  We are endeavoring to connect them to “Doc” and David this coming week…

I set out to help Doc and David find Mohammed and Ahmed, who Doc and David want to help get free surfing equipment and “just surf” as a way to establish a “Surfing for Peace” initiative. 

I called Dr. Fathi Darwish, our older statesman General Director of OneVoice Palestine, based out of Ramallah. 

“Doctor,” I said, “do you know what is surfing?”

“Uh?”

“Surfing.  The sport where people get on big boards and glide on the sea, propelled by the waves.”

“Uh?”

“Do you know Baywatch?”

“Uh?”

“You know Hawaii?  With the guys with the nice tans and long hair, who ride the waves?”

“Well, Daniel, to be honest, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Who am I to wonder? I didn’t know who “Kelly Slater” is – or Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz for that matter.

But there is certainly something very powerful in the philosophy that surfers bring to our world. “Just have fun, surf, focus on your connection with the moment, and leave everything else behind.”

During our meeting, I also remembered that we have been explaining that the OneVoice Summit is designed to be a massive mobilization of moderates that creates an unprecedented shared reality – the first time that Israelis and Palestinians will participate in a historic moment with the same perspective and understanding.  Unlike the 1948 “Independence” for Israelis or “Naqba”  (catastrophe) for Palestinians, or unlike the Lebanon war where Israelis thought Nasrallah a vicious criminal and Palestinians by and large considered him a valiant hero, here we have an opportunity to create a special moment in the region’s consciousness, where Israelis and Palestinians in parallel stand up and say, Enough, we are going to end this conflict once and for all.

 And as in surfing, the goal is that the WAVE OF MODERATION will be so massive, that it will potentially drown out violent extremism and help attract the mainstream majority to ride the positive wave.

It is a narly undertaking, yes.  But a ride we cannot afford not to take – or prevail on. 

Earlier today I had one of the most fun, bizarre and fascinating meetings in a while – and I’ve been having a lot of these lately!

SAKAL, one of the largest retailers in Israel, heard about our OneVoice Summit: One Million Voices to End the Conflict to happen on October 18th, and the CEO got in touch because they had had a similar vision and we are exploring cooperation.  Impressive guy and operation. 

 But the funnest part is that with him were two colorful characters.  The first turned out to be the famous Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, an 86-year old surfer, one of the fathers of surfing – who has been surfing for 74 years.  The man embodies goodness and healthy living – hasn’t eaten sugar in 50 years.  He founded the famous “Paskowitz Surfing Camp” that has trained some of the best surfers.

His son, David Paskowitz, is a producer and performer – and showed us a very cool song he had created and sang – ominously titled, yes, OneVoice!

Besides partnering with Sakal and OV on the OneVoice Summit to mobilize moderates against extremism, David and Doc, who introduced surfing to Israel, are now determined to do the same in Palestine.

You may think this is  crazy – but then check out this story by Louise Roug of the Los Angeles Times: Gaza Surfers Find Freedom In The Sea:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-gazasurf29jul29,0,5906618.story?track=mostviewed-sectionfront

 Here is a glimpse of the article, describing Mohammed Jayab, “the top dog on the beach” who “developed his tricks and technique by imitating surfers on TV. …Like the other Gaza surfers, he watches reruns of ‘Baywatch’ episodes. But he doesn’t ogle the bikini-clad lifeguards on the show, he said.  ‘I close my eyes and watch through my fingers.’”