Daniel Lubetzky

I am a staunch independent and find partisan politics to be too narrow minded in general, but if just 10% of Recount, HBO’s telling of the 2000 election Florida contest between Bush and Gore is true, one has to be

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The New York Times periodically rotates bureau chiefs and reporters across cities and regions.  When tracking the Jerusalem bureau, it is interesting (and sad perhaps) to notice a trend where many of them arrive with a positive outlook and are moved elsewhere after they start adopting an increasingly dour (if not pathologically cynical) perspective with regards to peace prospects.  Steven Erlanger used to write extremely insightful and diverse stories, then slowly gave in to total bleakness, and now I notice he is writing out of France, as he has eased Isabelle Kershner into the position.  She seems to be much more balanced on the topic.  Will she also be overcome by despair before too long?  I recall years ago noticing how Clyde Haberman went through this arch of perspectives, from positive to balanced to pessimistic.  Peter Bennett seems to have avoided the curse, but it is quite hard, perhaps impossible – and arguably it is a sign of dark wisdom.

It is not news that our bodies rely on bacteria to perform many functions, such as the bacteria in our digestive system that help deconstruct and process food. 

But what is fascinating according to a story in Genome Research reported by The New York Times, is the sheer volume of such relations, to the point that:

…bacteria in the human microbiome collectively possess at least 100 times as many genes as the mere 20,000 or so in the human genome.

Since humans depend on their microbiome for various essential services, including digestion, a person should really be considered a superorganism, microbiologists assert, consisting of his or her own cells and those of all the commensal bacteria. The bacterial cells also outnumber human cells by 10 to 1, meaning that if cells could vote, people would be a minority in their own body.

The Economist wrote an interesting piece on what they think are the motivations of Olmert and Assad to negotiate.

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Some comments from a conversation I had today – over the phone – with a few colleagues in Gaza:

People curse the day they elected Hamas into power.  If elections were held today, they would be routed out.

It’s taking me an hour to connect on the internet.  I am sure they are monitoring everything we do online, every email we send, and probably this phone conversation.  On the streets they stop every car and rough people up for no reason.  It is becoming the Taliban.

Hamas promised that gas would go down – 20 shekel per canister.  But they are selling at 100 shekel per canister, and even at that price you cannot find any.

Hamas cannot change. They are driven by their ideology, and the most ideological extremists are now in control.  They have shown that they don’t care about the welfare of the Palestinian people, but about imposing their customs and their force upon the population.  They have been exposed.  People are fed up.  They won’t stand it much longer.

I am not sure how much of the above is wishful thinking vs. solid analysis, but it is clear people are suffering and disenchanted with the governance.

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.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reports that the announcement about Turkish-mediated negotiations between Syria and Israel has ruffled the Iranian regime’s feathers.

U.S. pleased, Iran unpleased with Syria-Israel talks
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The astronomical rise in plastic bottle consumption must be giving every thoughtful person some pause.  Fox News, which nobody would confuse as a bastion of progressive causes, has been earnestly tackling this issue, with reporters visibly concerned – as citizens who think about the environmental hazards that come with such wasteful production. 

Think about it: We are manufacturing a whole plastic container that will take well over 500 years to decompose (if at all), for just one fleeting serving of water that could be consumed from a faucet, a glass, or a carry-on container without creating that waste.

Bottled water is extremely convenient, so it won’t die all too soon.  But it should become more of a social stigma as the landfills fill up.  And eventually other solutions will help decrease over-consumption of these bottles.

Barry Rubin writes a scary article about the implications of the Doha Accords, and the capitulation on Lebanon’s future made on May 21st to Hezbollah, and by extension to Iran and Syria.  The capitulation came not only from the Sunni Arab world but also from France, which  Rubin notes, similarly ceded Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.  Like Lebanon now, the Czechs had hoped to rely on France’s help.  Another culprit is the UN, which blessed this agreement even though it contradicts prior UN resolutions requiring Hezbollah to disarm.  Many more parallels to appeasement of Hitler and Winston Churchill’s observations at the time are stark.  I hope Rubin is wrong about the situation, but I am afraid (as indicated earlier) that the writing is on the wall.

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Related to and independent of the prior posting, I’ve noticed that letting someone go in an NGO (when that is the right and necessary path) is much harder for Executive Directors than it is for CEOs of a company.  Why is this?

The most immediate reason may have to do with the culture and mission of public service that NGOs have.  Organizations want to do nice things.  Letting a person go can be done in a nice way, but it is not a nice or pleasant thing to do.

But I think this also is harder on Executive Directors because there is less inherent incentive to control costs – as the entity is not trying to maximize profits, but to maximize impact.  Executive Directors are not going to get paid more for saving the organization funds.  The money saved is not going to their pockets – and should not (or it could create perverse counter-incentives).  So why should they take the painful step of removing someone they may personally like and consider a peer or friend, even if that person may no longer be optimally serving the needs of the organization? "Optimally" is the key word here, because I doubt many Executive Directors are incompetent and irresponsible enough to not take steps that are patently warranted – i.e., when the person is just truly unsuitable for a job.  But gray areas may prompt far less managerial rigor.

You can then fast-forward and understand how, 10 and 20 years later, you end up with lethargic institutions with under-performing employees whose tasks or missions may no longer be societal priorities, but who scramble by with a sense of passive entitlement.

This is not only not good for society or for the bloated and unproductive organizations, but it is also not good for the employees whose professional growth has been stilted.

Unless they are running a program whose very objective is to generate job opportunities (with mediocre jobs and opportunities if that is the best they can achieve), heads of NGOs (and those who report to them) have a responsibility to remember they are not employment agencies, and they have a fiduciary duty to those who donated the funds to ensure these are used effectively for the stated mission.  With kindness and professionalism, they can achieve a more dynamic work environment that ultimately works best for all.