Daniel Lubetzky

Watching the interaction between Shlomo Artzi and his audience, now I
understand why he is seen as THE foremost icon of the Israeli people.

He is as big a star as they come in Israel – without any doubt the #1
choice of the Israeli people – and yet he has this warmth &
approachabiliry & comfort in his own skin, to be loved by all. More
so, Israelis seem to relate to him as their favorite member of the
family.

Sent from my iPhone – pardon typos
.

Check this invitation out:

http://blog.onevoicemovement.org/one_voice/2007/08/save-the-date-o.html

 We have been working on this for close to a year!  We have been dying to share this with the world for so long, but waited and waited till we could be strong enough to guarantee that we will pull this historic event off!  Now is YOUR time to join us and find your way to help us make this a historic TURNING POINT - the day the moderates stood up in unison, said enough, and propelled their heads of state to achieve an agreement within one year at most!

Momentum is crazy.  I can barely sleep with all the work, and yet not even feeling it b/c of all the adrenaline of all the great people wanting to sign up and join and contribute.  Lots of roller-coaster-type challenges every day, and so many frustrations and worries and apprehensions.  But net-net, this thing is going to make a very strong impact in the psyche of the region and the world – the first time ever when a moment in history will have a shared narrative for the Palestinian and Israeli people!

The Boards Made it through to their intended recipients!

Now Americans David and Dorian are heading tomorrow morning with Ayelet Daniel from OneVoice Israel to deliver a lot more boards for the Palestinian surfers to be able to teach others to surf, with coordination from Mowaffaq Alami, from OneVoice Palestine in Gaza. 

They are also hoping to surf together in Jaffo later this week!

Surfing for Peace will have an official launch on October 18th in partnership and coordination also with the OneVoice Summit – www.OneMillionVoices.org – and the campaign to reach One Million Voices to End the Conflict!   David and Dorian may be bringing world-famous surfer Kelly Slater to surf with them here, along with an entourage of world-famous musicians who will perform that night at the OneVoice Summit in Tel Aviv.  David may perform his OneVoice song that night also.

Suddenly there is a lot of media commotion and CNN, ABC, and others are trying to do a story on this.

Every time I visit the OneVoice office in Ramallah, I am happy to meet my colleagues who are so talented, hard-working, courageous, and committed to our shared mission – really an exceptional bunch.

Every time I visit the office after an absence of a week or more, I am greeted by kisses by the men, not by the women.  And depending on the village or city that each person comes from, I get two, three – or, in the case of Abu Rami, FOUR kisses – one cheek, then the other, then again the first one, then again the other.

Abu Rami comes from a small village and does not speak English.  He is the office’s janitor and jack-of-all trades, and he comes from a very humble background, so I make a particular effort to connect to him.

Abu Rami always offers me “babounish” to drink – chamomille tea – and he sincerely gets hurt if I don’t take him up, so I always have to be prepared for Babounish, a few times a day.

In our own way we’ve developed a warm relationship, and he seems to get particularly excited and proud when he sees me leading a meeting.

Last Thursday there was a lot of movement in the office because the OneVoice staff from Gaza had come to visit with their colleagues in Ramallah, something which is hard to organize, so we took advantage of the opportunity to do some in-depth strategic planning.

Abu Rami is modest and reserved in general.  He self-selected to appropriate a tiny closet into his mini-office, where he tends to do small chores when no other task is needed.  This happens to have been located right across from where I was seating, and I found it particularly charming that Abu Rami kept smiling and winking at me from within his tiny “office” throughout the staff meeting – so I couldn’t resist and I took a picture – which delighted him even further.

Can you find him? (you may want to click on the picture and zoom in)

Just in case you want to meet him more formally, here is a picture of the charismatic and sweet Abu Rami in his “office” (a lot of the boxes you see behind him are filled with OneVoice Mandates filled out by signatories and Citizen Negotiators, which we keep in their original form for auditing purposes):

Sometimes I stop to reflect on how far we’ve gone to implement one powerful but seemingly implausible idea (building a grassroots movement of moderates determined to push to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), and yet how far we have yet to go to achieve our mission, and I wonder if I really have what it takes.

OneVoice has grown from a fledgling idea with a few dozen supporters, to a movement with close to 500,000 signatories, 3,100 youth activists, and scores of dignitaries, celebrities and luminaries behind it.

 And yet, when the lights are dimmed, when the logical and methodical mind is resting, when the bravado tires, and when I am alone to wind down, I often get scared as to what I have taken on.  And I doubt myself.  Can I really help pull this off?  Can our team really execute on this bold undertaking?  What if we fail? What if the people don’t show up? What if the luminaries don’t take the bold step to inspire them? What if the people don’t care? What if I make some fatal mistake in planning? What if I disappoint all of our supporters and friends?  What if a war breaks out? What if our team succombs to the internal or external pressures? What if we don’t have what it takes?

Then I breathe again.

And I realize that if we don’t try, we will fail by simply shying away from the responsibility.

I realize that this is not about me or about OneVoice but about the future of our peoples.

I realize that while there are no guarantees we will get to the finishing line, what is guaranteed is that we will not get to the finishing line if we don’t take the first step.

 I realize that the power we are invoking is greater than anything anyone ever has relied on in this region - the power of the people – and that if we are able to channel the frustrations of millions of moderates into constructive energies towards ending the conflict – nothing and nobody will stop us.

I realize that there is no alternative but to succeed, because the future is too stark for humanity if this conflict does not get resolved.

I realize how much inspiration I draw by seeing how people always rise up to their responsibility – how even the most skeptical and cynicial ultimately will do their part.

I realize we WILL ABSOLUTELY get there – even if it will take a lot of work.

I realize there is nothing magical about doing this – other than the magic of determination and sheer depth of belief and conviction.

…I realize I better go to sleep (3:22am!) b/c I need to wake up in 5 hours or risk being late for Gil and Ayelet!

OneVoice Gaza’s Executive Director Mowaffaq Alami moved fast and has reached the Gaza Surfers.  It turns out there is even a fledgling Surfing Federation in Gaza.  We are endeavoring to connect them to “Doc” and David this coming week…

I set out to help Doc and David find Mohammed and Ahmed, who Doc and David want to help get free surfing equipment and “just surf” as a way to establish a “Surfing for Peace” initiative. 

I called Dr. Fathi Darwish, our older statesman General Director of OneVoice Palestine, based out of Ramallah. 

“Doctor,” I said, “do you know what is surfing?”

“Uh?”

“Surfing.  The sport where people get on big boards and glide on the sea, propelled by the waves.”

“Uh?”

“Do you know Baywatch?”

“Uh?”

“You know Hawaii?  With the guys with the nice tans and long hair, who ride the waves?”

“Well, Daniel, to be honest, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Who am I to wonder? I didn’t know who “Kelly Slater” is – or Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz for that matter.

But there is certainly something very powerful in the philosophy that surfers bring to our world. “Just have fun, surf, focus on your connection with the moment, and leave everything else behind.”

During our meeting, I also remembered that we have been explaining that the OneVoice Summit is designed to be a massive mobilization of moderates that creates an unprecedented shared reality – the first time that Israelis and Palestinians will participate in a historic moment with the same perspective and understanding.  Unlike the 1948 “Independence” for Israelis or “Naqba”  (catastrophe) for Palestinians, or unlike the Lebanon war where Israelis thought Nasrallah a vicious criminal and Palestinians by and large considered him a valiant hero, here we have an opportunity to create a special moment in the region’s consciousness, where Israelis and Palestinians in parallel stand up and say, Enough, we are going to end this conflict once and for all.

 And as in surfing, the goal is that the WAVE OF MODERATION will be so massive, that it will potentially drown out violent extremism and help attract the mainstream majority to ride the positive wave.

It is a narly undertaking, yes.  But a ride we cannot afford not to take – or prevail on. 

Earlier today I had one of the most fun, bizarre and fascinating meetings in a while – and I’ve been having a lot of these lately!

SAKAL, one of the largest retailers in Israel, heard about our OneVoice Summit: One Million Voices to End the Conflict to happen on October 18th, and the CEO got in touch because they had had a similar vision and we are exploring cooperation.  Impressive guy and operation. 

 But the funnest part is that with him were two colorful characters.  The first turned out to be the famous Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, an 86-year old surfer, one of the fathers of surfing – who has been surfing for 74 years.  The man embodies goodness and healthy living – hasn’t eaten sugar in 50 years.  He founded the famous “Paskowitz Surfing Camp” that has trained some of the best surfers.

His son, David Paskowitz, is a producer and performer – and showed us a very cool song he had created and sang – ominously titled, yes, OneVoice!

Besides partnering with Sakal and OV on the OneVoice Summit to mobilize moderates against extremism, David and Doc, who introduced surfing to Israel, are now determined to do the same in Palestine.

You may think this is  crazy – but then check out this story by Louise Roug of the Los Angeles Times: Gaza Surfers Find Freedom In The Sea:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-gazasurf29jul29,0,5906618.story?track=mostviewed-sectionfront

 Here is a glimpse of the article, describing Mohammed Jayab, “the top dog on the beach” who “developed his tricks and technique by imitating surfers on TV. …Like the other Gaza surfers, he watches reruns of ‘Baywatch’ episodes. But he doesn’t ogle the bikini-clad lifeguards on the show, he said.  ‘I close my eyes and watch through my fingers.’”

Hamas is at it again, spending small but strategically significant funds on social services designed to engender appreciation from the poor populations where it seeks to establish trust and loyalty.  Most recently it sponsored a mass wedding for 60 Palestinian couples in a refugee camp in Syria.  The total cost was relatively modest, including $1,500 for each couple, but it paid off handsomely in the hearts of the people.

See: http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MjA5NDgxNjIy 

 Moderate movements need to provide social networks and visible and tangible support to provide an alternative in the destitute communities where apocalyptic visions otherwise reign unchallenged.

This is a far more apt name than ‘Islamic’ or ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamist’ or ’Islamic Fundamentalist’ Terrorists.  All these other terms give a mantle of legitimacy to those that do not deserve it and that have been rejected by mainstream Muslim authorities (even if many of us don’t know about it b/c these condemnations are not frequently enough broadcast by the media and less-forceful than they should be).

 Militants that kill innocent civilians in the name of religion should not be allowed to cower thereunder.  Instead, they should be exposed as the false messiahs that they actually are.

 By calling them “Pseudo-Islamic” Terrorists, we acknowledge the link they proclaim, but we explicitly deny the validity of that link, rob them from any legitimacy, and actually highlight their falsity and harm.