Daniel Lubetzky

Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Darya Shaikh and John Lyndon, OneVoice executives, published a poignant op-ed in the Huffington post.  Darya and John make the crucial point that peace talks on their own will not suffice in reaching a resolution for peace.  Without a newfound commitment to peace and a willingness to compromise, the talks will be empty and futile.  As OneVoice depicts in its “Imagine 2018” campaign, there are two very different possibilities for the future, and these talks may have the power to set the Mideast on the more favorable track.  It all depends on the commitment of the leaders.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Check out this great PBS piece featuring PeaceWorks and Daniel’s efforts to end the Mideast conflict with OneVoice! Thank you Fred De Sam Lazaro for showing how entrepreneurship can enhance relations between Israelis and Palestinians (as well as in other conflict regions) while being lucrative as well.  With the persistence of others who share Daniel’s unyielding passion and belief that economic cooperation can lead to peace, we hope to see a decrease in Mideast tensions soon.

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

The Geneva Initiative has launched a new campaign in partnership with USAID which broadcasts messages from Palestinian leadership for the Israeli public.  The short clips featuring different Palestinian leaders all vary but pivot around one shared message- that there is a Palestinian partner for a peace and the opportunity to reach an agreement should not be missed.  To date, figures in the campaign include Cheif Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat, Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee Yasser Abed Rabbo, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Memer of the Fatah Central Committee Jibril Rajoub, and Former Member of the Negotiating Team and PA Minister Sufyan Abu Zaidah.  Each message begins with “shalom” and ends with uniform, powerful promise: “I am your partner.  Are you mine?”  To watch the first three clips, click on the following image:

I received the following email forward from a friend who is skeptical about my work to build bridges between the West and Islam.  I find the point persuasive that even if extremists are a minority, they can cause enormous devastation when they rule and the moderate majority is silent and hostage.  But it seems to prove rather than dispute the importance of efforts like OneVoice’s to amplify the voice of moderates and empower ordinary citizens who cherish co-existence and respect.

What I asked my friend and ask everyone who reads emails like the below is, what are you doing about it? And is it more effective to draw lines in the sand and turn an entire civilization into the enemy, or to align all moderates together to isolate, discourage and neutralize violent extremists all across?

The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist. A German’s View on Islam A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates.   When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.   So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.   My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’ We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.   Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant.   It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.   It is the fanatics who march.   It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.   It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.   It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill.   It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.   It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.   It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 40 million people.   The peaceful majority were irrelevant.   China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist.   Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery.   Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: · Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. · Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. · Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life. Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand.   So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!   Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late.

Bradley Burston wrote a column that is quite on-target regarding the problem with boycotts of Israel.  He highlights how the progressive Olympia Food Co-op decided not to support a boycott against Israeli goods as it realized it was riddled with anti-Semitic statements and propaganda.  Most of the international boycotts that claim to be against settlement goods, end up targeting ordinary Israeli products.  And most of the organizers behind these boycotts state their goal is to end their occupation (a goal I support), where in fact their goal is the eradication of the State of Israel.  While people tend to focus primarily on the obvious moral advantages of non-violent civic actions in lieu of violence against civilians, it is not enough to be non-violent for an action to warrant support.  The goal itself should also be clear and transparent.  A campaign that advocates an offensive goal does not cease to be offensive because its tactics are non-violent.  Beyond the tactics, it is important for activists to make sure they realize what is their goal, and, in the case of Israelis and Palestinians, whether that goal is truly going to yield peace, security, respect and prosperity.  If you analyze the realistic options, only the goal of two states for two peoples can accomplish that.

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By Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Tom Friedman discusses an appropriately complex documentary, “Precious Life” in this article and then compares its meaning to the appropriately complex reality of the Mideast conflict.  Friedman’s point is not to condone Israel’s behavior unilaterally, rather to encourage her opponents to give constructive criticism, which comes from a place of understanding- a place that “Precious Life” depicts very nicely, according to Friedman.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

This great article in ReadWriteStart features a story about Startup Weekend, a Seattle based team of developers, marketers, and managers looking to facilitate startup launches, who recently partnered with the Peres Center for Peace (PC4P).  The goal? To enable Palestinians and Israelis to collaborate on projects that both produce valuable items and build bridges.  The Startup Weekend philosophy echoes the PeaceWorks belief that populations in conflict regions can cooperate in business endeavors and eventually build something much greater than the good or service they produce.

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Further to this post by Adeena regarding the rising attacks against the Mosque being erected in downtown NYC, let me provide some more background to the thousands of people that are attacking this project without taking the time to do a little bit of research about it.

I received this video post by Pat Condell from my sister, attacking the project.

Here was my response to my sister:

The mosque near Ground Zero is being opened by a dear friend and member of the PeaceWorks Foundation’s Honorary Board, and a remarkable human being who our Dad would have loved as much as he loved Rabbi Scheinberg [our Orthodox Rabbi in San Antonio, TX, who we all admire for his deep humility, warmth, and respect of others]. He is a humanist and a pluralist, a tolerant sweet man, and the role model of what we should want EVERY religious leader – Muslim or otherwise – to be like.  Please forward back to Oren and anyone else who shared this with you.

To briefly expound on this note, let me respond to some of the assertions made by Mr. Condell.

He attacks the religion of Islam as an ocean of hatred, violence and intolerance.  But intolerance and hatred are sadly not exclusive to Islam. All major religions have their regrettable elements of excess.

Incidentally just a couple days ago I saw a fantastic movie – Goya’s Ghosts – starring another PeaceWorks Foundation Honorary Board member, Natalie Portman, as a woman who is jailed, raped, and oppressed by the Spanish Inquisition.

There is no question that there are monstrous people who I call "pseudo-Islamic terrorists" who usurp a religion that can be about love and respect, and hijack it to advocate extremism and hatred.  But they do not represent the Islam that many of my friends follow, a religion of humility and striving to be better human beings. 

The real challenge is who is going to win – the tolerant and progressive leaders of Islam, or the regressive ones?

It is up to us to uphold the tolerant and enlightened and respectful leaders who dedicate their lives to peace – as is the case with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.  Demonizing and isolating and chastising them is not a way to strengthen the moderate voices within Islamic countries!!!

Pat Condell writes about how Islam divides people into us vs. them, but he seems to miss the irony in that this is precisely what he does in his video posting by trying to portray all of Islam as intolerant. 

It is true that diversity and tolerance are critical to a functioning democracy.  But sermons like the one by Pat Condell are just as offensive to this notion as intolerant Muslims.

Contrast that to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Mr. Condell clearly has never met him.  But more disturbing, he hasn’t even taken the time to research the Cordoba Initiative.  The initiative was conceived by Imam Feisal almost a decade ago to celebrate the CO-EXISTENCE and DIVERSITY that characterized Cordoba during its golden age.  Condell claims that the Cordoba Initiative was named that way to emphasize the conquest of Christianity by Islam.  He should have started by doing some research!

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

The International Trade Union Confederation called for peace in the Middle East.  In the process, the ITUC rejected BDS and encouraged action by Histadrut, Israel, PGFTU and Palestine to revisit negotiations to achieve a resolution to the conflict. The ultimate goal is for both parties to accept a non-violent and lasting peace.

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A lot of Israeli and Jewish friends often ask me about Palestinian textbooks and whether they teach about peace and co-existence.  During the early part of the Abbas-Olmert administrations, I recall that Prime Minister Olmert mentioned to me that the Abbas Administration had done a remarkable job on this front, in contrast to many prior Palestinian Ministries of Education.  It was also around this time that OneVoice did an incredible job working in partnership with both the Israeli and Palestinian Ministries of Education to launch the Imagine 2018 essay contest for kids ages 13-17, to ask them to visualize what would their lives look like in 2018 if their countries entered into a peace agreement and implemented it in the coming years. 

Alas, Palestinians have regressed and apparently so have Israelis.  An interesting article in Ha’aretz points out that the Israeli Ministry of Education under Prime Minister Netanyahu is objecting to inclusion of the Oslo negotiations and peace treaty in its texts, even though it does mention more recent events, like the peace agreement with Jordan.

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