Daniel Lubetzky

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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How bad is the situation for the Lebanese? This is how bad:

1. Hezbollah’s militia is destabilizing in and of itself – no State in History has ever been able to call itself a stable State if there is a non-State-controlled militia that challenges the authority of the State;
2. For years the UN and the world have indicated that all Lebanese militias had to disarm, in order to allow Lebanon to evolve into a vibrant integrated country; Hezbollah is the only militia that refused to turn in their arms and allow re-integration; even though Israel fully evacuated from Lebanese territory according to the UN and all observers, Hezbollah used its "struggle" against Israel as an excuse not to disarm;
3. Hezbollah continues to smuggle arms from Iran and Syria and send its fighters to train in Iran; it uses the Beirut airport with impunity, and effectively controlled it, along with a separate communications infrastructure;
4. The Siniora Government sought to prevent the continued smuggling of arms by firing the Airport manager that was following Hezbollah’s guidance.  It also sought to ban the separate communications network
5. Hezbollah responded with a semi-coup – attacks against other Lebanese and against Government ministries and employees.
6. The Lebanese Army stood by; now, in which country is it considered normal for the Army to be required to stay "neutral" when a militia initiates attacks against the Government? The Lebanese Army stood by because a) they are too weak against Hezbollah’s passions, training, and weapons; b) they sense in the winds that Hezbollah is becoming stronger and the ruling government is going to fall;
7. The gutsy Hezbollah shiite fighters give their lives to the Movement and will go to the streets or to wherever their admired leader Nasrallah sends them; the Westernized Sunni and Christian moderates on the other side would like to live a fun life and hang out in bars and restaurants, or pursue greater education in the US or Dubai, and they have no undying allegiances to their leaders;
8. Now the "compromise" to prevent further fighting cemented Hezbollah’s control of the airports and their communication network, as well as a change in the government laws; General Suleiman, the head of the Lebanese Army, who was once seen as the only possible candidate for President capable of being responsive to both sides, is increasingly seen as tilting to the Hezbollah side;
9. Iran and Syria have been emboldened by this development and will further invest in their proxy Hezbollah; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, other Arab states and the Unite States, seen as the counterbalance to the Iranians, do not have legitimacy on the street, or the stomach or roadmap to invest themselves into strengthening Lebanese civil society and investing in the people.
10. Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah has built a mythical reputation as a direct and straightforward and humble leader (it still confounds me how he achieve this, but he did), seen as a model in the Arab world, not just by Shiites loyal to him, but also by Palestinians and Sunnis across the Arab world;
11. The epicenter of struggle is now moving from Iraq to Lebanon; Iraq, even if stabilized, is already Shiite-controlled and significantly influenced by Iran; there is still hope the Iraqi Shiites will demand openess, stability, and progressive policies towards the world, in contrast to the Iranian regime’s apocalyptic totalitarian revolutionary zeal; but they are certainly not going to be any counterweight against Iran; now the threat is that Lebanon will become as oppressive and regressive as Iran;
12. This may be the most alarming development even for Israeli-Palestinian relations; the hope of a two-state agreement between Israel and Palestine is dimmed by the prospects of interference and destabilization from the North and from Iran, via Islamic Jihad and Hamas.  It is now far less likely that Hamas will agree not to to be a spoiler in the negotiations between Abbas and Olmert.  It sees it can become the Hezbollah of Palestine.
13. Lebanon’s dream, and with it the dream of a peaceful Middle East based on harmony, respect, tolerance, economic liberalization, democracy and openess, is in greater jeopardy than it has ever been.

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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Malaka Samara and Shani Gershon just completed a OneVoice Tour to Southern California – one of six regional tours with young Israeli and Palestinian OneVoice activists completed over this last year by Laurel Rapp, International Education Program Coordinator.

Neither of them had ever met someone from the "other side" before, so they did not just impact the hundreds of people they spoke to but also

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Hezbollah is training Iraqi militias in Iran, while we stand by.

I just got this very cool invitation from Laurel Rapp, who runs our International Education Program…

You’re Invited: Global Town Hall Meeting
(webcast live to your classroom!)

Ever wonder what young Israelis and Palestinians growing up in conflict zones hope for, dream about, and are working to change?
Ever wonder what both groups are doing to end the conflict between their two peoples?  
Ever wonder what our role as citizens of the world should and can be?

If you’ve ever wondered and would like to know more, please join Empower Peace and OneVoice on Monday, May 19, for a Global Town Hall Meeting webcast from East Jerusalem linking Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders with students and young people from around the world.

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In a very serious development, Hamas has passed an edict that any gathering of more than 20 citizens anywhere in Gaza must receive official written pre-approval.  This includes any gathering, even if non-political. This will of course intimidate ordinary citizens and civic groups.

The media has not yet reported on this worrisome impingement on the freedom of Palestinian citizens.  Iran’s regime created a repressive totalitarian state by ferreting out any and all freedoms to congregate or express oneself.  If Hamas gets away with this measure, it will start imposing other measures until it destroys any possibility of a democratic process to reunite Gaza and the West Bank, let alone for Palestinians in Gaza to vote on a possible two-state-solution referendum.

In sharp contrast to Carter, Israeli President Shimon Peres gave an important presentation to Foreign Journalists where he highlighted Iran’s proliferation threats to the world, and warned against appeasing Hamas. Peres also emphasized the imperative of developing new sources of energy as an environmental and geo-political imperative.  Here is a good article on it:

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