Daniel Lubetzky

As we gear up towards October 18th, our increased efforts on the ground have yielded an early surprise.  Our goal of recruiting half a million Israeli and Palestinian citizens by the end of 2007 was met close to 4 months early.

Now we have over quarter million Israelis and over quarter million Palestinians that have subscribed to the Movement’s principles.

Most remarkable, a quarter million were reached in the last year, compared to the first quarter million that took us close to 5 years to recruit.

We now need to reach One Million Voices To End the Conflict.

It’s only 10:32 am in Los Angeles and the day has already been a big roller-coaster of developments and emotions (can I turn the latter off?).

We started at 5:30am because our wonderful Adee Telem (who heads West Coast Outreach for OneVoice) decided we needed to be on an 8am flight from San Fran to LA.  People who know me know how much I love waking up early.

[Last night we came back from a great dinner with Sissy and Ted Geballe - the most lovely down-to-earth couple - they have been married for 65 years - and the type of friends that are there for you no matter what; I logged in my computer to catch up with email; I was trying mightily to answer all emails but had to sign off at 1am; I don't hold it against Adee that she made me sleep so little b/c she was still at it when I went to sleep: I was getting cc'd on a stream of emails from her to follow up with all those we met that day, from Yahoo to Google, TPG, The East Bay Jewish Federation and other donors/supporters].

As if little sleep was not enough to make you grumpy, I learned from Gil that one of the top Israeli singers that had committed to join us on Oct 18 had backed out, apparently because of financial demands we could not meet (all international performers who are helping us are doing so on a pro-bono basis, though we do have modest budgets to cover transportation and expenses and a small allowance for local talent).  This was a serious blow.

Then I got frantic upset calls from OneVoice Israel and OneVoice Palestine needing funds to pay deposits for some of the preparations of Oct 18 – they are right, I had to approve and send these a week ago and had not gotten to it.  Fortunately Shelley Shick is back from vacation to manage the financial flows of what is becoming a complex task (we started the movement with $100 donations from a handful of people and an all-volunteer cadre; now with 5 offices across three continents and 60 staff and consultants helping us gear for October 18 and to reach out to our new goal of one million signatories, Shelley now focuses strictly on managing all budgets, audits, inflows and outflows).  The financial stress is not insignificant.

But then the roller coaster started climbing up (or should it be rolling down, which is the fun part?).  Adee and I were walking in the LA Airport and saw Ted Danson.  I think Adee was a bit embarassed, but I introduced myself and explained what OneVoice was doing with One Million Voices To End the Conflict, and mentioned Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito are on the Board, along with Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman… and the Chief Palestinian Islamic Justice…  He recalled having heard about OneVoice, was very positive (and amused at learning I am a confused Mexican Jew in the middle of all this), and agreed to get involved.

Then David Levin called.  A major former head of State [edited out till public disclosure] has agreed to meet with our Israeli and Palestinian Youth Leaders in Jerusalem mid-October, a few days before our October 18th event.  This is a huge opportunity to highlight the human infrastructure of young moderates determined to seize back their lives.  So while it comes only days before the big event, we will make it work.

Fortunately David’s call came last.  Now I am energized again.  Would I have been able to feel this way if Gil’s news had come last? I don’t know.  All I know is that the last few months I feel like I am having far bigger emotional reactions to all developments, perhaps because so much is riding on it.  Do hormones act up at these times? Am I experiencing PMMMS – Pre-Massive-Mobilization-of-Moderates-Syndrome?  There is a new "definition" I am sure Darya will love.

Adee is driving while I wrote this blog post – we are on our way to meet Guy Oseary, an exceptionally successful young music and film production manager (to Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, etc) who is interested in exploring a way to popularize joint economic ventures to promote peace through business (akin to what I have been doing with PeaceWorks since 93).  Natalie Portman introduced us earlier in the summer in relation to the OneVoice Summit,  but Guy seems more interested in the economic development side.  Let’s hope he can also help us for next month!

One of the greatest strengths of the OneVoice Movement is that it is made up of mainstream nationalists from each side. 

The Chief Palestinian Islamic Justice, Sheikh Taysir al Tamimi, a fervent Palestinian patriot, is the equivalent in Palestine to what in Israel would be a merger between the Chief Rabbi AND the Head of the Israeli Supreme Court.  He has been on our Board for several years now, serving on the same international board as Jewish and Israeli religious heavyweights such as Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Chief Rabbi David Rosen, President of the IJRCC, and Rabbi Nissim Dahan from Shas.

When a militant extremist tries to undermine the credibility or legitimacy of the OneVoice Movement, staunch nationalists and religious authorities on our Board lend important backing to our efforts.

That is why it is particularly significant that Sheikh Tamimi has agreed to provide a blessing at the OneVoice Summit in Jericho on October 18th.

Earlier in the week he met Dr. Fathi Darwish with other Palestinian supporters of the OneVoice Movement, including Dr. Mahmoud Labadi, former Director General of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who also serves on the international Board, and local Advisory members Mr. Hatem Abbas, and Dr. Rateb Kisrawi,

Back in August I met with a group of Israeli bloggers at a Cafe in Tel Aviv to talk re the OneVoice Summit.  One blogger, Dorothy from SavtaDotty, started with some tough questions but eventually not only posted a very positive blog but became a die-hard partner and even ended up spending an afternoon with us recording the We Are Standing Up PSA which we will soon unveil.  Liran from East Med Sea Peace posted this.  He also dropped me a personal email that really energized me.  Yohay from Things wrote this and we also had an entry at Israelated.

Jake Hayman and Yishay Mor hosted a blogger meet up in London on September 10th at the London Knowledge Lab.

We have another blogger meet-up coming up on September 24th in New York City. 

Craig Newmark will be hosting the NYC meet-up at 7pm in downtown Manhattan.

Arianna Huffington will be joining us.

If you want to join us, please send an email to Leah Jones (who posted this entry) – Leah.Jones AT Edelman.com.

The OneVoice Gaza office was burglarized last night.

At 1:30am, armed guards forced the landlord of our office at gunpoint to open the doors to the OneVoice office in Gaza.

They stole two old laptops.

Nobody was harmed.

At first I tried to assuage my team members and joked that the thieves would be "cursed when they find out how old those two laptops are, and end up with frozen screens all the time."

But frankly the feeling of being violated does creep up, and I am sure it is ten-fold greater on the people on the ground. 

It is particularly disturbing that they zoned in on our laptops and could be trying to data-mine to get information about the 18,000+ Gazans that joined our movement in June, prior to our freezing the signature drive (which we hence have re-launched in spite of the conditions in Gaza now).

Other civil society organizations have complained about similar incursions and violations.  Hamas has a tight control over society and there is no "crime" committed and no action taken, certainly no armed groups roaming around, without the blessing of or active guidance by the militant wing of Hamas.

Civil society organizations need to band together and stand up against such abuses.  Otherwise they will continue to be intimidated and subjugated till there is no civil society left.

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.

Here are some pictures I just got from Mowaffaq Alami, OV Gaza’s Executive Director, of training going on for young people in Gaza to build a civic movement against extremism…

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.

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!