Daniel Lubetzky

Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz’s interview with Barack Obama is one of the most to-the-point expositions of Senator Barack Obama’s stances on Mideast issues.  Horovitz asked strong and straightforward questions, and Obama replied with earnest answers.  Anyone who truly cares about understanding the "real" Obama on these issues should read this interview.

One example:

Horovitz: You’ve said on this trip that you want to work for an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation from the minute you’re sworn in, so let me ask you about the thesis that there is no prospect of Palestinian moderation prevailing and enabling a peace process to really move forward until Iran’s nuclear drive has been thwarted – that so long as the Teheran-backed extremists of Hamas and so on feel that they are in the ascendant, the moderates can’t prevail and that the whole region is now in this kind of holding mode.

Obama: I think there is no doubt that there is a connection between Iran’s strengthening over the last couple of years, partly because some strategic errors have been made on the part of the West. And [the same goes for] the increasing boldness of Hizbullah and Hamas. But I don’t think that’s the only factor and criterion in the lack of progress.

Hamas’s victory in the [Palestinian Authority] election can partly be traced to a sense of frustration among the Palestinian people over how Fatah, over a relatively lengthy period of time, had failed to deliver basic services. I get a strong impression that [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas and [Prime Minister Salaam] Fayad are doing everything they can to address some of those systemic failures by the Palestinian Authority. The failures of Hamas in Gaza to deliver an improved quality of life for their people give pause to the Palestinians to think that pursuing that approach automatically assures greater benefits.

You know, look, I arrive at this with no illusions as to the difficulty in terms of what is required. But I think it’s important for us to keep working at it, frankly, because Israel’s security and peace in the region depend on it.

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James Montague from The Guardian newspaper just posted an article about Eytan Heller’s vision for Israel and Palestine to co-host the World Soccer Cup in 2018, an idea which so far has already spawned OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 Campaign.

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Two articles recently posted on PeaceWorks and OneVoice and our efforts…

JEWCY.COM: Peace Through Pesto: Daniel Lubetzky Schools Us on Building Bridges and Empowering Moderates,  by Helen Jupiter, July 11, 2008

and

JERUSALEM POST, Don Quixote comes to Israel, Jul 24, 2008, by Heather Robinson

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The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

- SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, speaking in Berlin.

In OneVoice form, he also said:

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it.  This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it.

If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks [of terror]

If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.

To the chorus of people who complain that religious leaders are not doing enough to raise their voices against extremism and to improve interfaith relations and foster respect, here is an under-reported but remarkable story about a high profile conference to bring foremost Muslims, Christians and Jews together.  See also this story.

Among the participants was Chief Rabbi David Rosen, who besides being the President of the IJCRC (the highest Jewish body charged with interfaith relations) and the AJC’s representative, is an Honorary Board member of the PeaceWorks Foundation’s OneVoice Movement – and, perhaps granting him the most moral authority – was the Rabbi who got my wife to say yes at our wedding.  

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Tony Blair Meets With OneVoice Palestinian and Israeli Youth Leaders in Jerusalem

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Full Transcript here.  Some excerpts:

Q151 Hugh Bayley: I agree, from my visits to the region, that a majority on both sides want peace, and the only prospect for that is to have a two-state solution, but the majority who want peace are marginalised time and again by acts of violence, whether it is a missile being fired over the border into Israel or the use of violence by the Israeli security forces. You can take the parallels with Northern Ireland too far, but it was undoubtedly the case in Northern Ireland that community groups on both sides – the Falls Road and the Shankhill – started saying, "We want peace", and they reduced the political space within which the terrorists operated. You have talked about a series of high-level talks you are involved with, but I think there is a need to nurture and strengthen community organisations of moderate Palestinians and moderate Israelis to try and nurture that space for discussing a future of co-existence. To what extent would you like to see DFID and other donors working in this area and what should they be doing?

Mr Blair: I think it is a very worthwhile exercise for them to work on. If you take an organisation, for example, like One Voice, which is for the young people, who are lovely young people, if that is the future on both sides it would be bright. I think it is very important to encourage a sort of civil society exchange at the same time, and I think that those are things that are easy to do and very worthwhile.

I thought I’d share the letter I shared with our Honorary Board and Trustee Advisory Council members on the occasion of OneVoice‘s 6^th Annual Board Meeting in Jerusalem this last month..

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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.

A Palestinian truck packed with 4 tons of explosives rammed into the Israel-Gaza border crossing and caused an explosion that was heard 12 miles deep into Gaza and out to Israel.  By miracle or defensive design, the bomber was the only immediate casualty as the crossing includes a long tunnel that acts as a buffer (see last picture of this post).

(this picture is of a getaway car that was destroyed by an IDF missile; no pictures were allowed to be taken at the checkpoint/crossing)

Given the war with Hamas in Gaza, I should not be surprised. 

But I was sobered up.  Darya Shaikh, our US Executive Director, and I were planning to be exactly where the explosion occurred the following day to meet Ezz and Mowaffaq, Palestinian Executive Directors of OneVoice Gaza.  They had not been able to get a permit to join our Board meeting, so we were going to meet at the Erez crossing to bring them up to date.  I have not gone back inside Gaza since the Hamas coup 11 months ago, but we had received permits to go through the Israeli checkpoint and meet at the end of the tunnel with Ezz and Mowaffaq.

This is the tunnel between Erez/Israel and the Gaza entrance, which was targeted by the Palestinian terrorist, apparently from Islamic Jihad, a 22 year old recruited into a suicide mission.