Daniel Lubetzky

The first set of sad news for the people of Gaza this last week was that Hamas again violently suppressed the popular non-violent protest driven by the people. 

I had reported a couple weeks ago that the people in Gaza were self-organizing a day of prayer outside the mosques, as an expression against the hijacking of religion and co-opting of all mosques by Hamas.

After the demonstrations took place, Hamas lashed out and reacted violently.

That did not deter the citizens, who last Friday again demonstrated by praying outside the mosques.

But for some reason the media is reporting that these demonstrations are organized by Fatah, and that Hamas is lashing out against Fatah supporters.

Certainly many of those demonstrating must be Fatah supporters.  But to dismiss this as a political move on the part of the Fatah party is to miss the big and real point – that these demonstrations were truly driven by civil society, by young people, by different NGOs upset at Hamas’s oppression.

This is not about power struggles between two factions.

This is about suppression of liberty, vs. citizens’ quest to regain their freedom.

So the second set of sad news is that Fatah is trying to co-opt a courageous move from ordinary citizens and claim it as its own, causing harm to the cause.

This is not the first time this happens.  Many times when OneVoice has taken important initiatives, one political party has tried to co-opt our work, forcing us to not take such initiatives, because OneVoice must remain non-partisan and not aligned to any existing political party.

On September 11th, I wrote a piece wondering about Bin Laden’s motives.  Could he really believe that his actions would make us surrender?

But as much as we revile him, we must assume he is calculating and smart.

Bin Laden’s goal could not have been to defeat America in one blow or make America retreat from engagement in the Middle East.

Bin Laden’s goal must have been to divide the West from the Muslim world, and to that extent he has succeeded far more than he deserves.

If we are to truly deny him a victory, we must not allow him to define who are the parties in the battlefield: it is NOT Muslims vs. Infidels.  It is NOT the West vs. the Arab world; it is those who have a vision of militant absolutism and who will use violence to advance their intolerant visions, vs the vast majority of humans of moderate persuasion who just want to live in peace.

If we are to defeat Bin Laden, we need to recognize that the enemy is NOT a religion or an ethnic group.  Bin Laden would like us to think so, to alienate the groups and prey upon these divisions.

If we are to win, we need to reframe the conflict and work TOGETHER, denying him the mantle of representative of a religion. 

The overwhelming majority of Muslim religious leaders think Bin Laden a rogue who has no right to speak on behalf of one of the world’s great religions.  But they are seldom heard, because for the media this is not interesting.

We must amplify their voice.

A third particularly insightful and counterintuitive thought that Avraham shared:

Arab Israelis increasingly see themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel and that can be a very good thing for Jewish Israelis.  It can help heal Israeli Jewish identity.

But it needs a Palestinian culture that can flourish and not be feared, so that Palestinian citizens of Israel will be a healthy minority, proud of their heritage and able to thrive in their culture without feeling disloyal, while Israeli Jews would also be happy that their fellow citizens can be proud of their ethnicity, religion and nationality, without a necessary
inconsistency – or less of one than if there wasn’t this healthy parallel.

Both Palestinians and Jews need to each have their own State for them to develop this healthy culture that each can be tied to, and then Palestinian citizens of Israel will ideally be both proud Palestinians and model contributors to Israeli society in the very same way that Jewish Americans can be proudly connected to both Israel as the homeland of the  Jewish people and to the their nation as patriotic Americans.

When fighting nihilistic, authoritarian, repressive, totalitarian and/
or fundamentalist movements or governments, those on the side of
freedom need to keep in mind the big picture: no such negative
structure has ever withstood the test of time or can compete in a
clean race against liberty of thought and expression.

Acts of terrorism and sabotage as such do not pose an existentialist
threat and cannot be allowed to hijack the mind with fear, which is
their only real threat.

And States built on fear will eventually self-destruct if left to
their own devices.

But two questions remain:

• Is it moral not to aim to liberate or at least support citizens
suppressed within such a system? For children of Holocaust survivors
this is a difficult proposition.

• Is there an existentialist threat from regimes lead by apocalyptic
ideologies and working to develop weapons of mass destruction? Even
if those systems would eventually implode on their own, can you afford
to wait and see if they don’t seriously harm you first?

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!

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.
.

This last Friday, Gazans organized a protest against Hamas. They
called on people to pray outside the mosques.

The background to this is that Hamas has seized total control of the
mosques, banning any Imam who does not follow the party line, and
using the pulpit for their political and ideological propaganda.

Needless to say, the people are fed up about Hamas’s abuses. What is
remarkable is that this protest came from the people and from civil
society groups, not from political parties.

This is thus a potential milestone, when the fight is not just between
Fatah and Hamas, but now also between Hamas oppression and popular
disgust.

Hamas reacted with harshness, beating up people praying on the
streets, which will only further alienate the public.

Reporters were injured in an effort to intimidate the media from
sharing the news.

Sent from my iPhone – pardon typos
.

Palestinian negotiators invoke the fact that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution is closing and will soon be replaced by the call for a “One State Solution” in order to incite fear among Israelis and push them to the negotiating table.  But this negative tactic is unwise, both because a “One State Solution” is akin to a state of war, because Israelis will never accept it, and because it causes bad will among the Israeli public.

Israelis use the path of unilateralism as a means to redress the perception that time is not on Israel’s side and that Palestinians should thus not be in a hurry to negotiate.  By being willing to unilaterally extricate themselves from the Palestinian lands and impose a solution, Israelis hope that Palestinian negotiators recognize they will not be able to use time against Israelis, and that they will get less if they don’t come to the negotiating table with a pragmatic approach.  But this strategy, too, is unrealistic, because there will not be a bilaterally and internationally agreed end to the conflict without an agreement among the parties.

In the end, both parties are barking a lot, but neither of their barks has bite.

The only bite is from militant absolutists and foreign fundamentalists that will use this incessant leaderless back-and-forth bickering to drive a wedge and pray on the situation.

Both sides need to recognize that time is not on the Israelis OR Palestinians’ side.  Time is not on the side of moderates that want to end the conflict. 

 The Clinton Parameters lay out clearly how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be resolved.  The Heads of State of both Israel and Palestine were elected on a platform to end the conflict.  Both Olmert and Abbas want a two-state solution. The Israeli and Palestinian public have clear supra-majorities that support a two state solution (at least still now, though not forever!).  It is time for the politicians to sit, lock the door, and not exit the negotiating table till they work out the details for an agreement premised on the Clinton parameters (which the OneVoice Pillars from the People are based on).

Enough bargainging and posturing!  All of this is helping only Ahmadinejad and his proxies!

That is why on October 18th, 2007 the Israeli and Palestinian people in unison will send a message to the world and to their leaders: we demand immediate, uninterrupted negotiations till the completion of an agreement among our heads of State, to be presented to their people within a year from that date.  www.OneMillionVoices.org.  The deadline from the people is October 18, 2008.  The time has come.

Today we filmed our first scenes of the “We Are Standing Up” viral video we are planning to release as a teaser for the October 18th OneVoice Summit: One Million Voices To End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

It was great seeing the energy of all involved, the real commitment, and the real awakening that happens in peoples’ actual lives, when they get involved with our message even if through film…

 The sound guy, who never had known about OV till today, started debating with a group of 4 Israelis who initially would have rathered been left alone – and told him so.  In the end, he signed them up and they got involved.

Gil Shamy, the OVI Executive Director, recruited a couple dozen people to join us for the recording.  And Ayelet Daniel quickly followed up to get them to wear OneVoice pins and get them to sign the OneVoice Mandate.

This is the power of OneVoice, that people start recognizing their power and potential for change, and we just need to keep going till we achieve critical mass and tip the point.

Today’s filming was in Tel Aviv, on Rothschild Street – which is actually a beautiful avenue.  We had a grandmother (played by Savta Dotty who blogged about us) stand up from her knitting, a pregnant Mom stand up for the future of her kid, and a few others who you will have to wait to see.

 Yesterday in Ramallah I planned the filming with the Palestinian team and hopefully we’ll complete the filming on both sides within a week to two at most – and edit right away, to release by second week of September.  If it ends up looking the way I have envisioned it in my mind, I think it will be an energizing blockboster that will really awaken people.

It starts from apocalyptic depression and inaction,

moves on to an internal awakening,

which results in each individual STANDING UP To End The Conflict

and culminates with ALL PEOPLE joining together as OneVoice to Stand Up….

Then it cuts to invite the viewer: Join Us on October 18th.  You, too, Stand Up…

12 surfing boards were delivered by Doc and David through Mowaffaq’s facilitation, amidst enormous media attention.  Here are a couple, amidst hundreds of stories that were picked up on TV and Newsprint:

New York Times Story – Prescribing Surfboards for Peace

 The Guardian Story – Reuters – Surfer Promotes Israeli-Palestinian Peace

 And a couple pics, some public and some from behind the scenes:

More pics here:

Dorian being interviewed, David watching over

Mowaffaq from OV Gaza and Ayelet from OV Tel Aviv