Daniel Lubetzky

Following on the footsteps of Rudyard Kipling’s IF, and the message, Don’t Give Up, Senator Clinton spoke today with the same tenacity as she displayed during her campaign, yet somehow with more passion, sincerity and inspiration than any time before:

To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.

Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in.

And when you stumble, keep faith.  And when you are knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.

-Senator Hillary Clinton, June 7 2008 Speech Endorsing Barack Obama and giving one of her best speeches ever.

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and His Majesty King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein are among the most impressive leaders I’ve ever met.  Almost a decade before other dignitaries started realizing that the challenges we face are not between religions or between nations, but between philosophies of tolerance versus philosophies of extremism, Queen Rania and King Abdullah were already spreading this message, consistently, always on point, always ahead of the game, always as an inspiration to OneVoice.

Now Queen Rania is also at the cutting edge of diplomatic communication and efforts to build global understanding, having launched a webpage on Youtube.  Before you visit her webpage, you can also listen to her welcome clip.

We need more leaders like her.

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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Like Hotel Rwanda, Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) peers into the genocide in Rwanda, here from the eyes of an older priest and a young teacher who witness the slaughter by Hutu militia wielding machetes on Tutsi refugees as UN peace-monitors stand by.  Less than 15 years ago this true story took place.  After witnessing the inhuman carnage from close, helpless to save a mother and her baby, Joe Connor, the idealistic English teacher, asks Christopher, the exhausted Catholic priest:

Joe: How much pain can a human being take, do you think?
If you feel enough pain, does everything just shut down…
before you die?

Christopher: I don’t know, Joe.

Joe: ’cause you’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think there’d be some, something in the design, some shut-off valve, if you feel enough pain?

Christopher: I hope so.

Joe: Yeah, God knows.  [chuckles] Maybe we should ask him…  If he’s still around.

Christopher: I think it’s time we packed our bags.

The UN then begins a withdrawal, evacuating foreigners, but abandoning the compound, and the refugees.  What could Joe do? What can the priest do?

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You may be surprised to learn about some of what is happening in Gaza.  Read this letter:

Dear All,
Onevoice movement in the Gaza Strip expanded its campaign and organized its fifth Town Hall Meeting in the North of the Gaza Strip.
The Objective to introduce the Movement & gather support for the two states for two people notion.

The Participants about 60 activists from Jabalia refugee camp and Bait Lahia city.

Ezz started the meeting by introducing Onevoice Movement vision of Ending the Israeli military occupation which started in 1967, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state next to the state of Israel. Ezz then moved to the issue of not allowing other states in the region in particular Iran & Syria to dictate for us Palestinians what to do. Ezz talked about the importance of delivering a message to our President Mahmood Abbas telling him to move forward with the direct negotiation with the state of Israel and to reach at least by the end of 2008 a comprehensive framework agreement with Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert.

Moafaq talked about the need to abandon violence as a mean to resist the Israeli military occupation, and adopting nonviolent methods to resist the occupation. he also introduced the notion of imagining 2018 if Palestine and Israel reached a peace agremment in 2008. Moafaq went on saying that Palestine will not be a poor state, but rather a rich state since Palestine will generate money from the religious tourism and from natural resources such as the gas mines off the shores of Gaza cost.

The participant told us that this is the first time that they actually hear something like this in Gaza. Usually what they hear is enticement against Israel and calls for revenge, the audience congratulated us on our brave decision to continue our public activities in Gaza and the majority asked us if they can become active members of the movement.

We explained to the participants that this meeting and other like it are only the beginning, and we are planing on holding a massive gathering sometimes this summer. Also, we told the participant to check our website and to add their comments to it..

This guy, Randy Pausch, is truly inspiring.  Make sure you tune in till the end of his presentation.

When I wrote Re-Imagining Ourselves in Our Fallen Heroes, I was inspired after starting to read the first couple paragraphs from Taylor Branch’s op-ed in the Sunday New York Times’ Week in Review and his comment that "more than once, the dominant culture has turned history upside Down to make itself feel more comfortable."  After reading the whole article, I was also struck by his comment that the "civil rights movement rose from the the fringe of maids and sharecroppers."  This should resonate among modern activists…

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A couple years back, a comment that was making the rounds among Israeli policy-makers was that "Palestinians need to have their own Altalena."

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