Daniel Lubetzky

Wowa!  Two delegations of OneVoice Youth leaders met with fmr UK Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier today, where he warmly and enthusiastically endorsed the OneVoice Summit.  A press release should come out soon.

Blair is one of the most impressive global leaders, in my opinion highly under-appreciated by the British people, but then again, it is very common that some of the best leaders that are beloved in the world are less popular in their own countries (Gorbachev, Peres, et al.).

Blair’s seal of approval to OneVoice is another step showing MOMENTUM IS GATHERING!

As we deal with so many logistical challenges and so many fast-coming opportunities and hurdles, it is so energizing when we get more great news and support from inspiring leaders!

Darya Shaikh, our US Executive Director, just gave us the great news that Her Majesty Queen Noor, a long time friend of the OneVoice Movement and an inspiring leader who is fulfilling the late King Hussein’s legacy of leadership and kindness, has joined as an Honorary Co-Chair of the OneVoice Summit on October 18th.

Her Majesty Queen Noor is in good company with other foremost dignitaries and Heads of State driven by a very different set of primary goals – some committed to end the occupation, some committed to bring security – but all joining as OneVoice to End the Conflict.

Our Honorary Co-Chairs for the OneVoice Summit include:

               Queen Noor

               Stu Eizenstat

               President Mary Robinson

               Klaus Schwab

               Saeb Erakat

               Dennis Ross

We also have a long-standing impressive Honorary Board of Advisors similarly across an unprecedented spectrum of religious beliefs and politics joining the call to empower moderate voices, including Muhammad Ali, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Palestinian Islamic Justice Sheikh Tamimi, Ambassador Martin Indyk, and other great leaders we are grateful to.

And a great Trustee Advisory Council of global business leaders guiding and helping us.

And an awesome Entertainment Council helping us put a spotlight on the voices of moderation.

Let’s do this!

Let me introduce you to Michael Shapira, who is in charge of our signatory member outreach campaign on the Israeli side.

He is one of our newest staff members, and yet already an integral part of OV.

He has built a network with chapters of recruiters across different parts of Israel…

He takes OV very seriously and passionately and believes about its mission as much as any of our most die-hard activists.  And he passes on this energy to his activists:

He brings great energy to the team, and a lot of great ideas, as I will share in another post…

My friend Alan Khazei, who founded City Year, is on to a very bold new effort to build a national youth service movement network among social entrepreneurs. 

He quotes President Truman to remind people that the highest office in the land is that of Citizen.

Alen is looking to hire a whole slew of new team members for this new venture, called "Be the Change."

If you are interested in applying or getting more information, email Emily at Cherniak@gmail.com.

Here are the type of people I really like and admire: doers with a heart and a purpose, without inflated egos, with a can-do attitude and the resourcefulness and creativity to get things done and not allow anyone to stop them.  Imagine all of this and you get Laura Ziskin.

Laura produced the 3 Spider-man movies (with Avi Arad), as well as last year’s Oscars, among other things.

But as of yesterday she is now to be best known as a new member of the OneVoice Movement’s Trustee Advisory Board.

Adee and I were impressed at her level of commitment and resourcefulness yesterday.  My favorite part was when she brainstormed that Larry King should cover the OneVoice Summit, and she just picked up the phone and cold-called to pitch the story to the producer, who she did not know.  She did not even mention who she was or throw her weight around.  And when the producer somewhat roughly indicated he was on deadline and didn’t have time, she matter-of-factly took a pen and agreed to just drop him an email.  Please understand she is a very powerful producer, but she is successful because she is Laura, the doer, and instead of wearing her accomplishments on her sleeves, she just continues to get things done.

She continued to brainstorm on several other BIG ways in which she was committing to help advance our efforts for October 18th.

And by that night she had cranked out six poignant emails following up on everything she promised – and more!

Tom Friedman has turned into a global icon by taking complex matters, synthesizing them, and explaining them in easily understood sound-bites that everyone can relate to.  He is excellent at creating clear contrasting images and analogies to our daily experience.  While in the process he often over-simplifies an issue and turns it into pop, this is sometimes precisely what society needs to absorb and popularize a vision or mission.  He also for the most part REALLY gets it.  And he tends to be way ahead of the pack in anticipating trends and understanding recent developments.

That is why it is regrettable that he has stopped talking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 

At a talk in Dalian, Tom Friedman reminded the audience of some of his insights: 

               * Steve Jobs dropped out of college, but not without first taking a calligraphy course that influenced his sense of style and contributed to his creation of APPLE; inference: Liberal Arts are an integral component of education; engineering and sciences are important; but creativity, curiosity and design are even more important to the process of innovation. 

               * CQ (Curiosity Quotient) and PQ (Passion Quotient) will beat IQ (Intelligence Quotient) anytime 

               * China is like a beautifully paved super-highway, orderly and efficient, but with a huge speedway bump ahead – called political transition; it could end up being a smooth ride, or the wheels could fall off; India is like a messy dirty and pot-hole ridden super-highway, but with a flat road ahead that looks almost like an oasis or a mirage; who will win? Only time will tell… 

               * Grandma Friedman says ‘don’t assume the 21st century will belong to a country that censors google’s flow of information.” 

I approached Tom after the talk and asked why he had been silent on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for such a long time. 

“I don’t know what to say anymore,” he replied with stunning and depressing honesty. 

He, and many others, are starting to tune-out, as they are just turned-off by the lock that fundamentalism and violent extremism have placed on the region.  The whole world will soon tune out the entire Middle East, if the Middle East doesn’t get its act together. 

Israelis, Palestinians, Middle Easterners, and the Jewish and Muslim worlds should take seriously the fact that most people are just fed up with the Middle East, with Islamic Fundamentalism, and with the lack of resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If the people on the ground don’t start taking action to take their lives back from the fringe of active and passionate militant absolutists that have hijacked the region, the world will just close its doors to them and will just contain and bypass them.

It is starting to happen.  People are just shutting-out the region, and I often hear people say “let them kill each other.” 

It is high time that THE PEOPLE STAND UP and inspire the world to get back behind them. 

Thomas Friedman, where are you? And will you come back to speak for the moderates that are fed up with violent extremism? 

Only if the moderates start showing they’ve got what it takes to do their part.

Then they will inspire Friedman and armies of others to rally behind them.

But the people on the ground have to lead. 

On October 18th the people of the region have a historic chance to stand up and speak up!

One of the most stimulating meetings I had at the YGL conference was with Arthur Mutambara.  I had not gotten the chance to connect with him during the conference, until I heard him ask a question at a session with the CEO of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou.   

China Mobile is the world’s largest and fastest-growing cell phone company, and we were wowed at the enormity of their growth: 330 million subscribers, and 90 million more anticipated within the next 12 months. 

Arthur was not awed or intimidated, and yet was very elegant and logical in the way he asked Mr. Jianzhou a question.  He basically asked him, as an engineer and business executive, how he could reconcile technological growth and innovation with a closed political system and whether he felt that in the end China would be able to competitively innovate (as opposed to just emulate) and create new products, if it continued to censor the web and block political development. 

Mr. Jianzhou’s reply was that these matters are very complicated. 

I was struck that Arthur’s question was particularly gutsy, given an otherwise artificial atmosphere of total adulation that ignored the big elephant in the room.  It takes strength of character to be able to ask tough questions that could be controversial but important, and it takes elegance and sophistication to do so in a professional way. 

Later that night I got to learn where this passion and eloquence emanated from. 

Arthur leads a political party of the opposition in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change.  Leading an opposition party in Zimbabwe is not an easy proposition: the ruler is an authoritarian dictator whose government has jailed, tortured and decimated opponents, and brought Zimbabwe down to shambles. 

Arthur actually felt he had not done enough.  “I live in a country where people may be jailed.  Where I may be jailed when I come back to my country.   I could be tortured.  I don’t know how many civil rights leaders or activists are being kept inside dark rooms here in China.  But I feel a duty to stand up and call for freedom.  If something happens to me, will others stand up?” [I am paraphrasing to the best of my ability] 

 Arthur reminded a group of YGLs that leadership is about “taking risks, self-sacrifice, and rebelling for justice” where necessary. 

Gutsy guy.

Israeli Taxi Drivers are very special. They are also psychologists,
political scientists, and socialites all packed into one.

Unlike NY taxi drivers where seating on the front is only done when
there are too many passengers, with Israeli drivers you are just as
likely to sit in the front, and the drivers can – and will not
hesitate to – speak knowledgeably about almost any topic.

Many Israeli cabs are brand new Mercedes Benz cars (partly because of
a culture of pride in the car driven, partly becuase of the lo g-haul
quality, and partly because Taxis don’t need to pay the massive 45%
government tax). Fares are reasonable AND tipping is an appreciated
exception.

The best way to get a feel for the sentiment on the Israeli street is
to talk to Taxi drivers. Even though I have a car there, going to
meetings within Tel Aviv can cost you more in parking and give you
more headaches finding a spot than just taking a cab. And there is
the added plus of the taxi drivers.

Trying to get taxi drivers to believe in the power of the people is
not easy – they are skeptical creatures. But they are far more
skeptical of politicians. And when they eventually come on board,
they are strong emissaries. Some have agreed to hand out OneVoice
Mandates from their cabs.
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  Today we met with Dr. Saeb Erakat in Jericho & he agreed to join the
OneVoice Honorary Board and to help us with the OV Summit.

Erakat is the tough but fair, pragmatic and constructive head
Palestinian negotiator.

(here he is in center with me on the left and Dr. Fathi Darwish on the right)

Last May at the WEF conference in the Dead Sea, Dr. Erakat stunned the
audience by publicly chastising Iran’s delegation for their negative
interference in Palestinian-Israeli affairs.

Iran’s Minister was waxing poetic about the Palestinian struggle and
the Zionist satan when Erakat called Iran for its hypocrisy and asked
the panelist, "please, don’t help us. You are hurting us with your
calls to annihilate Israel. Please don’t help us. I am telling you
now as a Palestinian. Stay out of our affairs."

Erakat recognizes the importance of public opinion and grassroots
efforts. He also serves on the board of Seeds of Peace. He committed
to speak at the Oct.18 summit.

Sent from my iPhone – pardon typos
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Driving up to Jerusalem with one of my mentors and Board members, Ian
Fisher, we discussed the importance we put in self-analysis and self-
criticism, and the essential need for objective constructive criticism
from others, both re. personal management and strategic substance.

Being a CEO in charge of taking ultimate decisions and guiding your
team, it is very valuable to find team members you trust to give you
earnest feedback re. your internal management. Board members, peers,
and mentors are also invaluable sources of feedback.

But the most important source for keeping grounded is the internal,
constant analysis of your own actions, behavior, ideas and failures -
not to chastise yourself but to help you improve. A self-imposed
methodical and introspective daily examination of the day – through
prayer, meditation, writing, or structured thinking – is healthy.

Precisely when you are succeeding the most, that is when self-
criticism is most vital to keep you grounded.

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