I thought I’d share the letter I shared with our Honorary Board and Trustee Advisory Council members on the occasion of OneVoice‘s 6th Annual Board Meeting in Jerusalem this last month..
Gerald Seib wrote a straightforward, clear, and to-the-point column in the Wall Street Journal on the "would you meet with leaders of rogue states" 
question haunting Barack Obama – using Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s approach towards Syria as a very good example of how to do things.
As Ami Isseroff points out, it’s not about stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but about stopping an apocalyptic fatalist regime from enslaving a people and a region. It’s not just about one tool, but about the tool-makers and their gloomy designs. Diplomats should keep their eyes on the ball.
Lebanon’s army stood by as the Hezbollah militia rampaged downtown Beirut and attacked the government’s offices. Its alleged rationale? The army was not going to take sides – as if "neutrality" is the call of the day when an armed militia tries to bully and dominate (if not yet overthrow) the democratically elected government.
Then equally embarrassing and stupefying but with a diametrically opposite logic all of its own, Maj. Gen. Martin Chedondo, a top Zimbabwe Army General, called on his soldiers to be "partisan" and be tools to Dictator Robert Mugabe as opposed to defending civic society:
Soldiers are not apolitical.
Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party‘s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform. (emphasis added)
All of this comes as Mugabe’s forces have proceeded to intimidate the non-violent democratic efforts of the opposition party and civil society.
Maybe if you send Zimbabwe’s army to Lebanon, and Lebanon’s to Zimbabwe, you might actually get somewhere.
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.
David Ricardo introduced the theory of "comparative advantage" – advising that each country has the ability to produce a good at lower cost, relative to other goods, compared to another country.
Ricardo’s theory advises countries to specialize in the production of goods and services they can produce most efficiently – or with lowest relative costs.
Complementary Comparative Advantage involves identifying countries (or parties or companies) where each has a comparative advantage over complementary areas of production – so that partnering will bring both economic benefits.
This was the language I used in my college thesis and law school work to explain the economics of peacemaking.
When we started PeaceWorks in 1993, we relied on this theory to encourage Israeli food manufacturers to purchase their olives from Palestinian growers, their sun-dried tomatoes from Turkish growers, and their glass jars from Egyptian manufacturers.
Another requirement of PeaceWorks is to ensure symmetry in economic relations, which is another prerequisite to ensuring or maximizing the chances of positive impact from economic cooperation. Besides the agricultural field, where Israelis and Palestinians and other Arabs can make symmetrical contributions, other areas in the Middle East where there are symmetrical complementary comparative advantages include the textile sector, and the area of Dead Sea cosmetics, where we dabbled in 1993. Furniture (where Palestinian craftsmanship from Gaza has a lot to offer) is another area ripe for collaborative cooperation, as is construction, and of course tourism. Business leaders like Dov Lautman have spearheaded cooperation in the textile industry between Israel and Jordan, between Israel and Egypt, and within Israel between Jews and Arabs cooperating side by side.
As my prior post notes, Zvi Schreiber has now also proven that even in the hi-tech world you can achieve worthwhile synergies between Israelis and Palestinians.
About two and a half years ago I was approached by Zvi Schreiber with a dream he had: to build a hi-tech joint venture between Israelis and Palestinians. I had started joint ventures in the food industry between Palestinians and Israelis and we had a mutual friend, Alvaro Aguirre, who had encouraged Zvi (who was a very successful internet entrepreneur) to exchange notes. I believe we spoke briefly and I tried to share a couple thoughts, but in the back of my mind I frankly was worried about his project and a bit skeptical whether he’d succeed, given all the obvious challenges during the political and economic environment, but also the prospect of cooperation in the tech space given the overall disparities between Israelis and Palestinians in high-tech skills. After all, economics of peacemaking that PeaceWorks bases itself on require complementary comparative advantages.
Well, Zvi more than did it. G.ho.st is a hot start-up with a hot product and great potential. The New York Times just wrote about it. And in Ramallah, G.ho.st is the pride of the town. It is also winning rave reviews from Wall Street to Sillicon Valley. And it is at the forefront of efforts where Israelis and Palestinians are cooperating on a daily basis to build a business platform and in the process build understanding.
What most excites me about this is that my pessimism was proven wrong. So many times people have ideas and are discouraged from pursuing them. Yes, it is healthy to have someone to question all your assumptions and to ask the tough questions. But it is also important for people to JUST DO IT some times. And Zvi is doing it! Read the NYT article…
Bahraini king selects Jewish ambassador
Bahrain’s state news agency says that King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa issued a royal decree appointing a female Jewish lawmaker to the post of ambassador. "It is a great honor to have been appointed as the first female ambassador to the United States of America, and I am looking forward to meeting this new challenge," Nonoo told AP by telephone.
Goldman Sachs reckons consumers are handing over $1.8 trillion a year to oil producers.
These states include Iran, Venezuela, Russia… No wonder "authoritarian-driven economies" have looked so good over the last few years. No wonder Iran and Venezuela can afford divisive hegemonic policies.
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
-Herbert Clark HOOVER
31st President of the United States (1874-1964)
This, indeed, is one of the paramount challenges faced by democratic systems. Democracy cannot exist without freedom of expression. And yet how can it safeguard from demagogic populists who once in power may seek to dismantle democratic systems? Nowadays it is fashionable to criticize democratization efforts in the Middle East – after all, look at what Hamas is doing in Gaza, and what is going on in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and the rise of salafis and fatalists wherever any openness is shown.
There are three keys to a successful democratic system: