Daniel Lubetzky

I just read a very kind article from Ruben Navarrette, one of the up and coming journalists of the next generation.  My conversation with him was even more stimulating – exploring issues of identity in our world.

Besides the fact that we have no alternative but to get this thing resolved, the other source of energy from which I derive my continued commitment to push to end the conflict in spite of the sobering challenges is the incredible resilience and commitment from ordinary citizens and members of the movement.

Tomorrow at 7pm Jerusalem time, Yahoo will show something not seen before at http://video.yahoo.com/onevoice.

We had to move fast to provide this, given that it was different from our original vision.

A new friend of OneVoice Israel, a filmmaker named Avi, stayed till dawn the night before helping us compile some files, as did the FTP transfer internet company team that had to stay up till 4 am uploading a file.

This reminded me of last January, when Naim stayed up till 5am in the morning to ensure that certain files were ready for the Davos presentation to 1,000 world dignitaries, together with President Abbas, President Peres, Tzipi Livni, and Professor Klaus Schwab.

As we are moving at such fast pace and growing at such fast pace, we often face fast-approaching deadlines and seemingly impossible timetables.  And always ordinary citizens rise up to give the movement a boost.  They always are so committed and energized to do their part – this is the ONLY reason why this movement has mushroomed to 600,000 people and to such influence on the minds of so many – because it can channel the frustrations and energies from the millions who cherish an end to the conflict into some concrete positive steps that bring us closer.

Article in Globe and Mail

THE MIDDLE EAST

Threats shut down Bryan Adams peace concert in West Bank

MARK MACKINNON

October 13, 2007

JERUSALEM — A breakthrough concert for peace in the West Bank town of Jericho, which was to be headlined by Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams, was cancelled yesterday amid a flurry of political protests and an unspecified threat to attack the music festival.

Concert promoter Daniel Lubetzky said that someone threatened the participants, without giving any further details. "Extremist ideologists have threatened our participants in Jericho, and we felt it is our responsibility not to play with their lives," he said.

The One Voice concert in Jericho on Oct. 18 was to be held simultaneously with another event in Tel Aviv that Mr. Adams was also to headline. The Tel Aviv event will go ahead, and Mr. Adams is still expected to play that show.

The twin concerts were part of a campaign aimed at getting a million Israelis and Palestinians to sign a petition renouncing "violent extremism, occupation, and terror" and calling for a two-state solution to the conflict. So far, 600,000 people, roughly half Israelis and half Palestinians, have signed the online petition.

The Oct. 18 show was to have coincided with pro-peace rallies in Ottawa, London and Washington.

The intentions were good, but this part of the Middle East, where people are obsessed with who did what to whom in the summer of 1967, when Israel won the Six-Day War and began its long occupation of the West Bank, always seemed an awkward fit for Mr. Adams, best known for his hit song about the halcyon Summer of ’69.

Even before the threats were made public, there was a campaign, led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to boycott the concert for "normalizing [relations] with Israel at a time that the latter continues its aggressive policies against the Palestinian people."

Other Palestinians questioned who was behind the concerts. The One Voice non-government organization behind the concert lists a variety of Israeli, Palestinian and international backers.

The decision to cancel the concert came shortly after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidential guard was to have provided security for the Jericho show, issued a statement saying his office would have nothing to do with the concert and demanding the organizers recall tickets and promotional materials that suggested the president’s office was sponsoring the event. Mr. Abbas has "no relationship whatsoever with the activities planned by One Voice," the statement read.

Mr. Abbas’s office issued no further comment yesterday, but his close aide, Saeb Erekat, himself a co-chair of One Voice, said more preparation would have been needed to hold such a large show in the West Bank town.

Had the concert gone ahead, it would have been the first major show by a Western artist to be held in the Palestinian territories since the outbreak of the last Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2000.

The show was also criticized by Israeli hard-liners who oppose the idea of establishing a Palestinian state on land they consider to have been bequeathed to Jews by God. Yuval Steinitz, a parliamentarian from the right-wing Likud party, charged that One Voice had used "bribery" by promising free tickets to see Mr. Adams to those who signed the online petition.

The 47-year-old rocker could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Fathi Darwish, the promoter of the Jericho concert, said the cancellation of that show made the Tel Aviv performance even more important.

"We are facing extremists all the time here, but they cannot stop our struggle," he said, without expanding on who the extremists were. "I think that most Palestinian and Israeli moderates want to send a message, one message from both sides: that we are fed up with the situation, that we want to end the occupation, that we want to end the conflict."

Dion Nissenbaum from McClatchy Newspapers just posted a story about what we are doing for October 18th.  A lot of the questions in his interview made it quite clear that he was biased and apparently is friendly with the extremists that are attacking us, and throughout the course of the interview it was clear he already had reached some conclusions about the state of affairs and impugned that on me. 

This is a challenge, when you notice a reporter has a particular bent and wants you to answer questions conforming to his philosophy, and you try to bear their bias in mind to get them to understand your message.  It is difficult.

My thoughts:

• the first quote is mangled and I do not believe I said things as quoted and is probably out of context; at any rate, I meant to point out this is not a dreamy peacefest but a practical effort designed to once and for all do away with extremists and come up with practical solutions;
• the quote that is accurate and captures the sentiment shared by most people about the situation (even if it is negative) is that:

  [Those who advocate absolutist solutions and counter OneVoice's goals for an end to the conflict are '"a group of fringe extremists and false messiahs" who've led the region into a dead end.'

  "If you want this absolutist vision, keep it in your mind, but shut up and let us move on so those that want to end this conflict can move forward."

Advocates of a "one-state" non-solution (one state solution is an oxymorron b/c there is no such thing! You cannot solve this conflict through an absolutist position, certainly not unless you eradicate the other side) are posting in hatred-filled fringe blogs all their displeasure at our momentum, and falling into their own trap, exactly as we wanted all along.

By opposing the work of OneVoice they are slowly exposing themselves – and helping us gain more momentum!

We have been getting tons of new donations online – from people that only first heard about us after seeing the postings from these extremists, and got upset at their radicalism and rose up to help us overcome that!

This discussion is EXACTLY WHERE WE WANT TO HAVE IT…we are finally re-framing the conflict as it must be properly understood by people – not as a conflict of Jews vs. Muslims or Israelis vs. Palestinians, but as a conflict of the overwhelming majority of mainstream moderates that want an end to the conflict and are prepared to recognize their neighbors’ rights and humanity to achieve this, versus militant extremists or hatred-filled intellectual absolutists who insist on a "solution" that denies the humanity of the other side.  Extremism and absolutism is the enemy.

Etgar Lefkovits just broke a big story on the OneVoice Movement in the Jerusalem Post.

This is a very assertive story that pulls no punches.  It will elicit a lot of feelings from all sides, and further redefine the debate.  Like with Palestinian extremists trying to undermine the OneVoice Summit on the Palestinian side, Israeli extremists will try to undermine it in Tel Aviv.

But this will only help uncover them.

For the record, some of our Honorary Board members’ affiliations in the article are wrong: Avishay Braverman has since moved from being President of Ben-Gurion to be a member of the Knesset; and two of the Board members listed have been very inactive for at least 2 years so they are practically not involved or part of it.  But there are another 50+ that were not listed and are far more engaged…

Another clarification is that the 600,000 signatories do not necessarily agree with a lot of the specifics written in the article.  They all agree on the OneVoice Mandate, which calls for immediate negotiations to establish a two-state solution, but leaves all details to the Heads of State elected by their people.

Still, the article is powerful and strong, worth reading.

I went on CNN just an hour or so ago, just a few seconds after they aired Nasrallah’s threats against the Arab world not to participate in the November conference sponsored by the US. 

Why am I not surprised that Hezbollah, created and funded by Iran, is opposed to negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This doesn’t serve the needs of their Iranian patrons, who seeks to use Israelis and Palestinians as peons in the ideological quest for hegemonic control over the region.

It was a good opportunity to juxtapose the will of the overwhelming majority of citizens that are FED UP with EXTREMISM, vis a vis. absolutist apocalyptic visions that are keeping all of us chained to violence and hatred for far too long.

The contrast is clear and people need to once and for all understand there are only TWO options.  You cannot say you are for peace but want the whole thing to yourself.  You cannot say you want peace but on your own terms only.  You cannot say you are representing the hopes of the Palestinian people but the Palestinian people have no right to negotiate or talk with their enemy.  You cannot say you are upholding the rights of the Israeli people but the Israelis have no right to negotiate with their counterparts.

There are only two options: a two state solution recognizing the rights of both sides to freedom, dignity, respect and security – along the lines of the Clinton parameters which 76% of Israelis and Palestinians polled support – OR ETERNAL CONFLICT.

There is no third option.  Let’s be clear about it.

The OneVoice Summit is starting to gain traction…

Much of the coverage below is not as precise as we would like it at OV – b/c we want to emphasize this is a MASSIVE MOBILIZATION OF MODERATES TO END THE CONFLICT, not a "concert" or a "festival" but a Summit of the Peoples dedicated to break the shackles of extremism and mobilize to once and for all demand an end to the conflict, but it is starting to come together…

Rocker Bryan Adams to appear in Israel for peace initiative

Israel 21c – 9.30.07

Sep. 30 – Canadian rock star Bryan Adams will headline a gala outdoor free concert on October 18th at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv as part of an event organized by the grassroots organization OneVoice. Through parallel summits in Tel Aviv and Jericho, (where Adams will also perform), OneVoice will be calling for the citizens of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to make their voices heard and call on their governments to immediately initiate uninterrupted negotiations toward a two-state solution. Also slated to appear at the concert are top Israeli performers Mashina, Fortis, Hadag Nahash and Ehud Banai. Adams spent part of his childhood in Israel when his father was on a diplomatic posting.

Bryan Adams heads here for peace

By Mariam A. Shaviv

The Jerusalem Post 10.1.07

Eighties pop star Bryan Adams is optimistic that with the power of song, Israel and the Palestinian Authority can come together to end the decades-long conflict between them.

Joining him in Tel Aviv at the ONE VOICE concert on October 18 will be an array of Israeli stars including Ehud Banai, Boaz Sharabi, Hadag Nahash, Knessiat Hasechel, Mashina, Mosh Ben Ari, Ninette Tayeb, Fortis and Keren Peles among others. In addition to the Park HaYarkon event, shows on stages in Jericho, London, Washington D.C. and Ottawa will take place simultaneously under the banner "One Million Voices to End the Conflict."

Bryan Adams to perform in Tel Aviv, Jericho

Canadian singer to take part in One Voice festival calling for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

By Or Barnea

Ynet News 9.30.07

Canadian singer Bryan Adams will perform in Israel and the Palestinian Authority as part of the One Voice festival, which will hold simultaneous peace events on October 18 in Tel Aviv, Jericho, London, Washington, Boston and other cities in the United States and Europe. According to the festival’s official website, Adams will perform both in Tel Aviv and in Jericho alongside Arab artists, including the DAM rap and hip hop group.

And more:

NRG

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/5/ART1/641/269.html

עכבר און ליין

http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,405,209,15831,.aspx

וואלה

http://e.walla.co.il/?w=/214/1175205

YNET

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3454727,00.html

תל אביב סיטי

http://www.telavivcity.com/article.asp?articlecode=374

נענע

http://bidur.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=514816&sid=123

1909

http://www.1909.co.il/default.asp?id=3&sub=6&pageid=1177

יוסמיוזיק

http://www.yosmusic.com/news.asp#n267

מפה

http://www.mapa.co.il/NG/buildrecord_locked.asp?id=77584

רזידנט

http://www.resident.co.il/aspx/Article.aspx?id=593

מומה

http://mooma.keshet-tv.com/Article.asp?GroupID=1912&ItemID=83584&ArtistID=177

ע. 24

http://www.music24.co.il/print-magazine.aspx?mag=1051

E און ליין

http://www.eonline.co.il/content.asp?sid=15&id=35713

מפיק

http://www.mefik.co.il/page.asp?page_parent=1315

MSN

http://bidur.msn.co.il/msnEntertainment/Music/News/200709/2007093018549.htm

BIN

http://www.bin.co.il/article.php?article_ID=1375

From the printing press…

To distribution,

To posters across Israel advertising Oct 18

To people as walking signs…

To "VanVoice" – the OneVoice Van!

Here are a couple of hits on the Israeli press about our meeting the important milestone of signing up over half a million citizens against violent extremism and towards a two-state solution…

On Ynet, the largest portal part of the largest newspaper group in Israel

On Kol Israel Radio

Can this be true? Is it a dream? A reality? Or does that depend on us?

And also visit www.Goal2018.org – the campaign site!