Daniel Lubetzky

His face is so calm
Full of love and tranquility
How blessed we are
to have warm shelter and peace for him.

How hard and how painful
for the millions upon millions
who lack peace, or water or heat,
who may not have bread or milk to give their children.

How hard and how painful
for the parents who’d lose a baby to a missile
or the babies who’d lose a parent to a bomb
and the nations who’d lose their innocence along the way.

That juxtaposition gives me anxiety:
the peaceful nap of our little baby
against the horrors and hatred brewing around our world,
whether a few blocks up, or 7,000 miles away.

For my baby’s peace cannot be guaranteed
his Spring cannot be counted upon
so long as babies anywhere else in our globe
are suffering, being targeted or killed.

It is for our baby here
that peace must be waged there.

War and horror tend to shake us out of complacency, to force us all to confront ugly realities and say what needs to be said, poignantly, once and for all, even if it is not pretty and requires nuance in an otherwise partisan puddle.

And so The New York Times writers who have been following the Hamas-Israel war seem to have been at their best this weekend, when they poignantly summarized three core themes that are required understanding for those who truly wish to end the conflict:

• Take-away from Ethan Bronner (full article below): Partisan Absolutism will only protract the conflict; for far too long each side has been speaking past each other and does not even understand the meaning of the words from the other side, let alone what historical sacrifices it will take if they want to resolve this conflict and build a future based on co-existence and respect rather than on denial of the humanity of the other side; if each side continues to believe itself the absolute victim and the other side the absolute perpetrator, we will be condemned to eternal war.
• Take-away from Tom Friedman (full column below): Time is really running out for a two-state solution; all parties must be brought to the table for negotiations that will bring about a solution, lest militants from Hamas and militant settlers permanently destroy the prospects for peace.  And we are not far off from getting there.
• Take-away from Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges (full opinion piece below): it is not just about the substance of what the solution will look like but about the dignity with which the negotiations are approached; the existentialist fears and existentialist rights of the Israelis and the honor and suffering of (and injustice towards) the Palestinians need to be acknowledged by each other if a peaceful solution is ever to be agreed upon.

For OneVoice, too, time is running out.  The Movement was born to propel a resolution of the conflict, not to manage it or endure it with niceties.  We should be bold about the final efforts to make an impact, and either succeed or fail for trying, but not fail because time ran out and we did not try hard enough for fear that we’d fail.

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Whether you are an Israeli who supports the IDF’s defense of Israeli civilians and faults Hamas not just for raining 10,000 missiles at Israel over the last 8 years but also for also for booby-trapping civilian homes and forcefully setting rocket launchers in homes of Palestinians who beg them to leave…

…or whether you are a Palestinian who feels the Israeli army indiscriminately attacked and ended up killing 1,000 innocent Palestinians and who feels the source of the conflict is the continuing occupation of Palestine and subjugation of Palestinian people,

…or whether you are an Israeli, Palestinian or international citizen who recognizes the only way out of this conflict is to once and for all achieve a peaceful agreement between two proud peoples and two proud States – Israel and Palestine – to live in peace and respecting the rights of freedom, security, dignity and respect of both sides…

…the words and attitudes of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish at this moment of devastating loss -where 3 of his daughters were killed by an Israeli mortar attack on their home – should resonate with you.  Let his tragic loss be the end of it, the signal to all Palestinians and Israelis to stand up and say, enough, let’s ensure that this tragedy does not repeat itself again, let’s ensure that we lead our political representatives to achieve a historic compromise, to ensure that nobody sells either side with delusional visions of vanquishing the other side and achieving an absolutist victory over the other, to ensure that outside forces do not use Israelis and Palestinians as pawns in their geopolitical games, to ensure that we build a better future for all the children of the region.

Dr. Izzeldin is a respected medical doctor from Gaza who for years has practiced at the Soroka Hospital in Israel.  He worked with OneVoice out of Gaza for a period, and he always exemplified devotion to peace and humanitarianism.  

[Addendum: Even Prime Minister Olmert shared publicly that he saw this report and he cried at learning of Izzeldin's loss.]

Here is a message I got from Mowaffaq Alami from OneVoice Palestine, who co-directs the Gaza office, and who learned of our baby’s birth amidst the beginning of the war in Gaza:

Habebi Daniel Mabrook.

Thank you Darya for lighting my dark night.

You know what Daniel; yesterday I was counting when you informed us that your wife is pregnant and I told my wife I think it’s the time for Daniel to have a baby.

Congratulation Dad. welcome to the real life.

Roman, you have a great Dad and wonderful Mama, they will take best care of you, listen to them but don’t allow your Dad to engage you in politics, live your life in peace, your Dad and me and all mothers and fathers of our team and our friend working hard for peaceful future for you and our kids.

We love you all.

Mowaffaq and the Family

Indeed, let us all work hard now so the children of those who are working in OV, and the children of the region, and the children of the world, should ideally not have to burden themselves having to fight for peace.  Let respect and moderation take reign today so that tomorrow a durable peace can be enjoyed by all.

I got a note from a friend in Gaza a couple weeks before the latest breakdown of the cease-fire, which means what you read below has only gotten worse.

"you can hear the people complaining about the situation and cursing the day that Hamas was voted in. The people say that Hamas had tricked them into voting for it and after that Hamas had destroyed their lives."

Full letter…

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Read the entire article pasted below or in this link about Hezbollah’s Boy Scouts – to appreciate the challenge before society: the institutionalized hatred and seriousness of the threat posed by Hezbollah, its backers, and other movements with such nihilistic visions.  It is chilling.  We have no alternative but to counteract this in a smart and tenacious way.

To defeat absolutism and terrorism, force is only a partial answer.  Far more important than force is a better ideology that can trump and expose dark movements as unworthy of the young people they prey upon.   It is not easy, but it can be done.

Like we are doing through OneVoice for millions of Israelis and Palestinians to reframe the conflict and understand the enemy is not each other but violent extremism and militant absolutism that denies the rights of both peoples to a State and Freedom and Security, we need to also build a countervailing movement and philosophy that moves the Mideast (and other regions) away from the us-vs-them hatreds and into the post-Obama world of globally shared human values.

If we are to tackle the challenges that the 21^st century will present to humanity – from climate change to nuclear proliferation, from resource scarcity to nihilism and militant absolutism – we need to ensure that new generations worldwide share this recognition that they have to work together – realizing their shared humanity. 

More on this soon – but in the meantime read this article…

Generation Faithful

Hezbollah Seeks to Marshal the Piety of the Young

New York Times, November 21, 2008, By ROBERT F. WORTH

RIYAQ, Lebanon — On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.

They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.

“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”

This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.

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Several friends called or emailed to let me know Danny DeVito was hilarious at the Israel Film Festival, where he also encouraged the audience to get involved with OneVoice.  This article will give you an idea…

“Look around. A lot of you are bald,” said the actor, who was introduced by Michael Douglas — DeVito’s oldest show business friend and former roommate in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment — with a crack about absent hair. DeVito went on to make an earnest plea for support of the grass-roots organization in which he and his wife, actress Rhea Perlman, are involved: the OneVoice Movement, which pushes for peace in the Middle East.

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Ehud Olmert is on his way out.  He was attacked by former supporters who turned on him when his political positions evolved.  Now he has nothing to lose.  And it shows – finally he is standing up to extremists Jewish settlers, freezing funds and deploying legal tools like administrative detentions, arrests, and trials against Illegal settlers.

Israel Will Halt Funds to Illegal Settlements, NY Times, Nov 3, Isabel Kershner

JERUSALEM — Ehud Olmert, the departing prime minister of Israel, announced a series of measures on Sunday in response to a rise in violence by extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including a halt to all direct or indirect government financing of illegal outposts.

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My friend Eytan Heller conceived this fantastic inspirational video and campaign (sponsored by PeaceWorks Foundation) allegorically calling for the 2018 World Cup to be co-hosted by Israel and Palestine – to help Palestinians and Israelis visualize what a peace agreement could bring about.  It is part of the Imagine 2018 campaign of the OneVoice Movement.

Now life is moving in the direction of civic activism and art.

Tomorrow for the first time in history, an international match (between Jordan and Palestine) will be held in the West Bank town of Ram, at a Palestinian stadium built to FIFA’s standards, and attended by FIFA’s President Sepp Blatter.

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