Daniel Lubetzky

Anyone who has been following the news today about the Gaza flotilla debacle and the tragic course of events, including the loss of lives, of hopes, and of peaceful respectful relations would not be faulted for being gloomy and depressed and for throwing in the towel, thinking that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just not going to be resolved and war is going to doom that region for eternity.

Perhaps it’s the contrarian in me, but I’ve heard this tune and just when things start getting as ugly as they seem to be getting now in the Middle East, an opportunity starts arising to awaken people into their power for positive change – in this case based on a two state solution that recognizes the rights of both peoples.

Behind the scenes, OneVoice has been preparing a campaign to inspire Palestinians and Israelis to visualize a two state solution: Imagine 2018.  I shared this campaign with Sir Paul McCartney earlier today and he recognized its potential to shake people out of their complacency or fatalism and into action.

You could argue this is not the time to launch such a campaign – that it is the time to solemnly mourn.  And to recognize that there are major impediments, not the least of which is Hamas control of Gaza (a proxy of Iran) and ideological settlers taking Israel and its government hostage.

But maybe this IS the time to take action.  For otherwise we will be victims to follies and extremism and partisanship forever. 

Maybe the time has come to break those shackles of absolutism and rancor, and to start saying, let’s stop making excuses about why peace is never going to come about, and let’s start building the foundations – in our visions, in our minds, and on the ground – to just make it happen.  Two states for two proud peoples.  It may not happen overnight. And it may not happen across the entire land at the same time.  But you have to start somewhere.

Uri Avnery is in his 80s.  The wisdom of his years – and his fascinating journey – shows in the articles below, but he retains a youthful optimism and a crisp analytical mind that are much needed in today’s world.

Below are two very solid articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the latter being extraordinarily depressing but obligatory reading.  For those who don’t know Uri Avnery, he is very much a man from the left, but he is intellectually rigorous always and thus worthwhile reading even (and particularly) for those from opposite sides of the spectrum.  

[Read more →]

The OneVoice Movement has been running for the past couple years a program called Imagine 2018, where they are asking Israelis and Palestinians to share their vision of what their lives and future would look like if the conflict were to be resolved and a two state solution achieved.

OneVoice will soon be unveiling its next phase in the project – very promising stuff.

In the meantime, I just got a video from my friends Art Winter and Doug Suisman about their vision. In cooperation with the RAND Foundation, they have worked for several years on a Palestinian infrastructure corridor that includes state-of-the-art planning to enable a Palestinian state to prosper and grow in peace with Israel.  Their work is nothing short of stunning.

Take a look at their teaser video below, and visit their site here:

A troubling portrayal in the New York Review of Books by Peter Beinart of American Jewish leadership and Israeli society is a must reading.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

[Read more →]

A new poll by Dr. Nader Said confirms that Palestinians are disenchanted with those who govern them.  Even though Palestinians are traditionally very loyal to one political faction or another, they are fed up with corruption and destruction and are increasingly favor independent technocrats.  Below are some of the highlights from the poll:

• A vast majority (82 percent) support an immediate PLC election.
• Two thirds of Palestinians support the position of Fayyad Government to hold local election in July.
• 37 percent in the West bank and 27 percent in Gaza feel that corruption is on the increase.
• 57 percent of Gazans view negatively the performance of the Haniyeh Government in improving the economy.
• 51 percent of Gazans negatively evaluate the performance of the Haniyeh Government in respecting personal and civil freedoms; while 38 percent of West Bank respondents feel the same way about the Fayyad Government.
• Gazans are much more critical of the Haniyeh Government than West Bank respondents; while the Fayyad Government receives lower evaluation in the West Bank than in Gaza.
• 73 percent support the appointment of a woman (Dr. Laila Ghannam) as Governor.
• Only 8 percent feel that Mr. Obama is serious about establishing a Palestinian state.
• A PLO list will win over an Islamist one in an upcoming PLC election.
• Abbas, Fayyad, and Mustafa Barghouti win over Haniyeh in an upcoming presidential election.
• Independents will play a decisive role in local and national elections.

Jason Alexander often shares with prospective OneVoice supporters that the first thing that drew him to OneVoice was not the creativity, courage or logic of our plans, but the parental empathy he felt when my friend Mohammad Darawshe. 

Mohammad spoke about his efforts to steer his then 9 year-old son Fares away from the commitment to become a Shahid. Back in 2001, Fares had told his Dad that, just like he had met his commitment to make the soccer team, and just like he had met his pledge to score the highest grades in class, he now was committing to achieve martyrdom.  These were heady times, when Israelis and Palestinians were engaged in one of the deepest cycles of violence in their history. Mohammad  took the warning signs seriously.  He more than succeeded in steering Fares towards positive ways to lead his people, and today Fares attends Kings Academy in Jordan and is – like his Dad – one of the brightest hopes that Israelis, Palestinians and internationals have for peace and reconciliation.

This powerful article by Ethan Bronner made me think of Jason’s emotional connection with Mohammad’s plight.  Back then I had no children.  Now I do.  And this piece made me shed more than one tears of hope.

December 31, 2009

A Mideast Bond, Stitched of Pain and Healing

By ETHAN BRONNER, New York Times

JERUSALEM — He can be impulsive. She has a touch of bossiness. Next-door neighbors for nearly a year, they talk, watch television and explore the world together, wandering into each other’s homes without a second thought. She likes his mother’s eggplant dish. He likes her father’s rice and lamb.

Friendship often starts with proximity, but Orel and Marya, both 8, have been thrust together in a way few elsewhere have. Their playground is a hospital corridor. He is an Israeli Jew severely wounded by a Hamas rocket. She is a Palestinian Muslim from Gaza paralyzed by an Israeli missile. Someone forgot to tell them that they are enemies.

[Read more →]

Interesting IPF discussion with Gen. Shaul Mofaz about his new peace proposal…

[Read more →]

Last night I listened to Anderson Cooper on CNN as he analyzed the Netanyahu speech at the UN.  He asked if Netanyahu had naively bitten Ahmadinejad’s bait, and he introduces an excerpt where Netanyahu appears to angrily overreach by attacking every member of the UN for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, saying:

I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?

My immediate reaction as I listened to this edited piece was, man, this is dumb.  Netanyahu should not attack all members of the UN.  After all, the body at the UN is designed for ALL nations – even those ruled by oppressive regimes – to have a forum to speak (as David Gergen explained, pointing to Netanyahu’s moral clarity but criticizing him for not recognizing this).  And how dare Netanyahu say he represents all the Jewish people? I don’t think he represents me – certainly not on how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But something felt wrong.  I may disagree with him on many policy issues but Netanyahu is a smart man with strong diplomatic and public speaking skills.  Was this the real story?

So today I read the entire transcript of Netanyahu’s speech.  And I was shocked at how bad CNN/Anderson Cooper had framed the issue! I’ve written about how FOX over-does the spin in the right-wing direction.  But CNN and Cooper should be embarrassed about how they handled this.  And one of my favorite commentators and real statesmen – David Gergen (perhaps the only excellent one left among dozens of mini-opinionators) probably did not even listen to the speech in full, and certainly did not frame things clearly.  The other commentator (Reza Ezlan?) was way way off.

Here is a quote within context from Netanyahu’s speech:

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.  To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you.  You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.
But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?  A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace!  What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Now, of course that in the age of twitter, you need to keep things brief.  But Cooper/CNN could have easily introduced the segment of Netanyahu by explaining that he criticized not the entire UN audience, but those who stayed to listen to Ahmadinejad.  Denying even monsters like Ahmadinejad the podium is not an option at the UN.  But every nation has a right to get up and walk out – to exercise its right not to be subjected to his vitriolic hate-mongering, and this was a valid position for Netanyahu to take.

With this post I do not mean to endorse all of Netanyahu’s foreign policy positions – quite the opposite, in some areas I feel he harms Israeli and Palestinian interests alike. But as a student of the media, following on my prior post about editorial spin, I am yet again alarmed at how dangerous unchecked news sources can be.  Indeed, a big part of why the Middle East and the world are in the shape they are is because partisan media feeds each audience what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear, and they don’t constructively engage audiences to better understand each other.

For students of oratory and for students of history, Netanyahu’s speech is actually constructed extremely well, and will probably become a historical piece that others will study for decades.  The transcript is provided below in full for those who want to examine it for themselves:

[Read more →]

To get a sense of how radically an editor of a newsletter can spin a story, take a look at the two different ways that an identical story is summarized by two different newsletters:

From OpinionSource, which is pretty mainstream, maybe slightly progressive but reliable reporting:

Israel’s Gaza Indication
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post, 9/21/2009
Most of Washington’s predictions regarding the adverse outcome of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza strip (locally known as Operation Cast Lead) were correct. Yet Israeli leaders consider the attack a success. Why they do so bears consideration as Israel prepares to weigh Washington’s opinion regarding an attack on Iran. Israel points to Operation Cast Lead as bringing a respite from Gaza’s attacks on Israel, which had been nearly continuous since April 2001. Yet this view of victory does not take into account the loss of life, Palestinian suffering, and the subsequent offense to UN leaders. Nor does Israel recognize that Hamas is stronger since Operation Cast Lead. As Israeli leaders debate whether to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, they may well decide, as with Gaza, that temporary respite trumps long-term repercussions.
Diehl is deputy editorial page editor of The Post. He is an editorial writer specializing in foreign affairs.
Link to full text in primary source.

 

And now look at the way it’s redacted in the "Daily Alert" which is put out "for" the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization BY the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing outfit managed by Dore Gold:

Israel’s Gaza Vindication – Jackson Diehl (Washington Post)

• When it was launched last December, Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. But today, the three-week operation is generally regarded by the country’s military and political elite as a success.
• Between April 2001 and the end of 2008, 4,246 rockets and 4,180 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 14 Israelis, wounding more than 400 and making life in southern Israel intolerable. During what was supposed to be a cease-fire during the last half of 2008, 362 rockets and shells landed. Since April there have been just over two dozen rocket and mortar strikes. No one has been seriously injured, and life in the Israeli town of Sderot and the area around it has returned almost to normal.
• Hamas remains in power and unmoved in its refusal to recognize Israel. It is still holding an Israeli soldier who was abducted in 2006. It is still smuggling material for weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border and, if it chose to, could resume rocket attacks on Israel at any time.
• However, Israel has bought itself a stretch of relative peace with Hamas, just as its 2006 invasion of Lebanon has produced three years of quiet on that front. "They will never change their ideology of destroying Israel," a senior government official told me last week. "But you can deter them if they are convinced you are not afraid of fighting a war."
• As for the Goldstone report, the heat it briefly produced last week will quickly dissipate; the panel was discredited from the outset because of its appointment by the grotesquely politicized UN Human Rights Council.

You can draw a conclusion from the above:

• briefs and summaries are useful time-savers, but always view them with even more skepticism than their original sources, which you should also be wary of, as everything regrettably seems to have some spin and pure fair objectivity is hard to come by, or non-existent;

The above is not the most extreme example of spin.  I have noticed over time that the Daily Alert is  a partisan effort to scare people off with paranoia. It is very professionally written and redacted – far better than most newsletters put out by mainstream, center, center-left and far-left newsletters I get or review; but regrettably it is full of spin and not objective.  Too bad because it loses much of its legitimacy that way.

Btw, here is the original story the two sources above aimed to summarize:

[Read more →]

OneVoice Glasgow is a purely-volunteer-driven chapter that has risen above the rest of the international support efforts to such degree that it is worthy of attention.  They receive zero funding from OneVoice, yet deliver so much in their community and beyond. If we can decode what has made them so extraordinary, international support for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution will really take off.  Witness what a few committed volunteers have done: