Daniel Lubetzky

With regards to the Hezbollah-Lebanon-Doha debacle, and the article by Barry Rubin that I blogged about here, I received some interesting comments from Ami Isseroff, who runs MideastWeb and who I consider one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking analysts on the Middle East:

There is no use comparing everything bad that happens to Munich. This was more like Abbyssinia – including the toothless sanctions. Iran can only be stopped in Iran. Nothing could be done in Lebanon. As for us [in Israel], we have Iran in the north and Iran in the south. There cannot be peace as long as Hamas exists. Your Gaza correspondents are right, and the Palestinian public opinion surveys confirm that Hamas have little support. But in elections, it doesn’t matter what people think. It matters who has the most guns and counts the votes. Read the book Point of No Return about Iran/Hezbollah by Ronen Bergman . …Iran cannot be negotiated with. They will not give up until they are confronted with overwhelming and decisive force. A blockade by sea and air at least,

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The New York Times periodically rotates bureau chiefs and reporters across cities and regions.  When tracking the Jerusalem bureau, it is interesting (and sad perhaps) to notice a trend where many of them arrive with a positive outlook and are moved elsewhere after they start adopting an increasingly dour (if not pathologically cynical) perspective with regards to peace prospects.  Steven Erlanger used to write extremely insightful and diverse stories, then slowly gave in to total bleakness, and now I notice he is writing out of France, as he has eased Isabelle Kershner into the position.  She seems to be much more balanced on the topic.  Will she also be overcome by despair before too long?  I recall years ago noticing how Clyde Haberman went through this arch of perspectives, from positive to balanced to pessimistic.  Peter Bennett seems to have avoided the curse, but it is quite hard, perhaps impossible – and arguably it is a sign of dark wisdom.

The Economist wrote an interesting piece on what they think are the motivations of Olmert and Assad to negotiate.

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A Palestinian truck packed with 4 tons of explosives rammed into the Israel-Gaza border crossing and caused an explosion that was heard 12 miles deep into Gaza and out to Israel.  By miracle or defensive design, the bomber was the only immediate casualty as the crossing includes a long tunnel that acts as a buffer (see last picture of this post).

(this picture is of a getaway car that was destroyed by an IDF missile; no pictures were allowed to be taken at the checkpoint/crossing)

Given the war with Hamas in Gaza, I should not be surprised. 

But I was sobered up.  Darya Shaikh, our US Executive Director, and I were planning to be exactly where the explosion occurred the following day to meet Ezz and Mowaffaq, Palestinian Executive Directors of OneVoice Gaza.  They had not been able to get a permit to join our Board meeting, so we were going to meet at the Erez crossing to bring them up to date.  I have not gone back inside Gaza since the Hamas coup 11 months ago, but we had received permits to go through the Israeli checkpoint and meet at the end of the tunnel with Ezz and Mowaffaq.

This is the tunnel between Erez/Israel and the Gaza entrance, which was targeted by the Palestinian terrorist, apparently from Islamic Jihad, a 22 year old recruited into a suicide mission.

M.J. Rosenberg wrote an excellent column on whether it is dangerous or wise for Israel to even negotiate with Syria for a possible peace agreement.

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A lot of people are worried that 2008 will pass without an agreement among Israelis and Palestinians to define a Palestinian State – and presumably and hopefully start implementing such vision.  I, too, get worried about this, every day.  But listening to Tzipi Livni is quite reassuring.  She genuinely speaks with the OneVoice language and framework and today recommitted herself and the Israeli government to the timeframe and the goals set out in Annapolis.  Most important, she was asked tough but valid questions by Palestinians, and she treated them all with respect, without dismissing any of the human pain inherent in the questions.  I need to check with those who asked the questions, but my impression was that, even though they hate the Israeli government, they recognized a sincerity and goodwill on her part.

Here is how my taxi driver related to world leaders and movements, which I found to be quite akin to the heartbeat of the Arab street from conversations over the last few months (and years). 

Mohammad Ali (not the boxer who serves on our board – the other one!) knew I was born in Mexico and a US citizen.  I asked him to rank people or countries, thumbs up or thumbs down.  Here were his rankings on 24 questions from Bush to Ahmadinejad, from Olmert to Nasrallah, from Bin Laden to Anwar Sadat:

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Ben Smith highlights some excerpts from an excellent article by Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic.

Smith explains about Obama:

He’s trying to do something hard, and unusual: Associate himself with a strong pro-Israel line, but also refuse to be associated with the hardest line on everything, calling settlements "unhelpful" and, elsewhere, distancing himself from a reflexive Likud line. This isn’t strange in terms of Israeli politics, say, or scholarship of the region; but it is in American politics.

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Wouldn’t it be great if ordinary citizens all joined together and said, "I have had enough – and I am going to do something about it!" and then pushed their Heads of State to once and for all deliver a two-state-agreement?!

They could draw inspiration from this:

"I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take this anymore!"

- From NETWORK, the movie (let’s just hope that the civic action wouldn’t be hijacked by corporate networks, though it could turn into something like this):

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OneVoice recently launched one of its most ambitious and impactful projects: an essay contest asking every Palestinian and every Israeli child to dare visualize what 2018 would look like if we were to get our act together and achieve a framework 2-state-agreement in 2008.

You can see here a video of the Imagine 2018 essay contest being imparted at a school in Gaza.

While it’s an essay contest, in addition

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