Can this be true? Is it a dream? A reality? Or does that depend on us?
And also visit www.Goal2018.org – the campaign site!
Arianna Huffington and Craig Newmark spoke powerfully at an event that Leah Jones from Edelman helped organize on behalf of the OneVoice Movement, hosted by the guys at Think Tank 3.
Craig always cracks me up with his signature wit. He is funny, self-efacing, down to earth and extremely bright. He provided an interesting analogy to how Craigslist thrives because the overwhelming amount of people are decent human beings, and there are far and few bad apples, which the system monitors to do away with.
Craig also quoted his favorite newscaster, Jon Stewart from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, that the reason we hear so much from violent extremists who are so active is "because moderates have shit to do in real life."
Arianna’s Huffington Post is an example of how new media can play a positive role by highlighting the voices of moderation. She explained how OneVoice has to stay on course no matter what challenges or setbacks or skepticism because it has to eventually achieve the critical mass to get to the tipping point that will get moderates to seize back the agenda. We just have no other option.
Bloggers from Arabisto.com to Jewtopia were present, all in all about 30+ people…
The guy below is a 6 foot tall basketball player. These are some of the OneVoice Mandates that Israeli citizens have filled out over the last couple months…
Here are the type of people I really like and admire: doers with a heart and a purpose, without inflated egos, with a can-do attitude and the resourcefulness and creativity to get things done and not allow anyone to stop them. Imagine all of this and you get Laura Ziskin.
Laura produced the 3 Spider-man movies (with Avi Arad), as well as last year’s Oscars, among other things.
But as of yesterday she is now to be best known as a new member of the OneVoice Movement’s Trustee Advisory Board.
Adee and I were impressed at her level of commitment and resourcefulness yesterday. My favorite part was when she brainstormed that Larry King should cover the OneVoice Summit, and she just picked up the phone and cold-called to pitch the story to the producer, who she did not know. She did not even mention who she was or throw her weight around. And when the producer somewhat roughly indicated he was on deadline and didn’t have time, she matter-of-factly took a pen and agreed to just drop him an email. Please understand she is a very powerful producer, but she is successful because she is Laura, the doer, and instead of wearing her accomplishments on her sleeves, she just continues to get things done.
She continued to brainstorm on several other BIG ways in which she was committing to help advance our efforts for October 18th.
And by that night she had cranked out six poignant emails following up on everything she promised – and more!
Adee Telem and I stopped by Danny DeVito’s home earlier today. The only sad thing about that visit is that Rhea Perlman, his better half, is in London performing in Boeing-Boeing (to rave reviews) so we missed her. But separate from that, Danny is always adorably amusing, funny and down-to-earth, so it is always fun to catch up with him.
I met Danny and Rhea through my dear friend and Board member Joel Fields, who himself learned about OneVoice (back in 2001 or so called the PeaceWorks Network) when Mohammad Darawshe and I spoke at the home of Susan Baradaran – who I met through Sepi Djavaheri – who I met through Gabriela Velasquez, who learned about this idea from a flash presentation that Rohan Nirody, back then a 19-year old college intern at my company PeaceWorks helped me create. This is a reminder of the Power of One – starting with 19-year old Rohan, every one of the above people was a critical catalyst to help us spread the word about the movement and eventually reach major influencers, and the same string of relationships has repeated and repeated with dignitaries, techies, luminaries, religious leaders and ordinary citizens to reach what is now OV…
Danny and Rhea have been extraordinary friends to OneVoice from the inception, through the thick and thin, and helped us found the Entertainment Council that now includes supporters like Jason Alexander, Natalie Portman, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Annie Cusack, among many others who take the time and courage to advance a mission they recognize is so important even if it seems far away from home.
Danny agreed to record a PSA for the October 18th mobilization.
And he is working on some other stuff that, if it pans out, will be quite big…stay tuned.
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,
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…
