On Monday night I had the honor of being at a dinner at the Plaza Hotel in NYC hosted by The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace billed as a “conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jewish American Leadership.”? About fifty people attended: Palestinian leadership, American political leadership including Martin Indyk, Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Jewish organizational leaders, and American Jewish notables including Professors Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Kahneman, Noble Prize recipient, and Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs.
The meeting was essentially an opportunity for Palestinian and American Jewish leadership to bolster each other’s confidence in the newly revived Peace Process. There was an undertow of desperation and surrealistic d?j? vu because in 2010 and 2012 the exact same meeting, in the same place, and on precisely the same issue was held. Noticeably absent this time, however, was anyone from Orthodox organizations or from the more right of center powerful defense agencies AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish Committee. The official reason for their collective absence: scheduling conflicts.? I wonder if their absence reflects the deep split – much like in America in general – between those unwilling to “trust” in a process with “enemies,” be they the Palestinians, Syrians, Russians, or Iranians and those willing to “trust”.
The dynamic for the hour and a half conversation was American Jewish leadership repeatedly asking President Abbas for assurance that he and the Palestinians really do want peace and Abbas reiterating in different ways that “the Palestinians are fully committed to the peace process so that we can reach a final settlement that ultimately will lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state that would live side-by-side in peace and security with Israel.”
As I listened it struck me that all we were hearing was the traditional political speak, appropriate policy statements and principles of diplomacy all of which everyone in the room had heard for decades, and could recite by rote. Not one word was surprising. Not one statement touched yet alone moved hearts. I decided to ask Abbas a non-political question:
“Mr. President, my daughters Gabriella and Talia are 25 and 21 years old. They are part of a generation that sees this conflict as an endless cycle of violence perpetrated by people who don’t want peace and peace talks that go nowhere between politicians, diplomats, and public policy experts all of whom in some way have careers dependent on the conflict. Respectfully, I do not believe my daughters would be moved or feel more hopeful after hearing this conversation. Their generation – a YouTube generation – isn’t moved by political speak but by story and image. Can you tell me a story from your own life, can you paint me an image that I can offer them that might touch their hearts?”
Abbas listened to the translation of my question, looked right at me and said:
“I have eight grandchildren some the age of your daughters and six of my eight grandchildren have attended Seeds of Peace*.? My grandchildren tell me, ‘I will go again and again and again.’ They built good relations with Israelis – even with [the] killings. Until now they have these relations. How can we change the culture? If you ask me this question during the intifada I didn’t have an answer. Hatred, guns, killing, it destroyed everything. Now I can say we have something to talk about. When we talk about living side-by-side, many people listen. I send my grandchildren, till now, every year they go there to talk and build good relations. I still have hope. If I didn’t have hope, you wouldn’t see me here.”
There were quiet gasps. Not one American in the room had known that the President of Palestine’s grandchildren had attended one of the most important peace building organizations for young people. Imagine if President Abbas, in his speech at the United Nations later this week, told this story about his grandchildren’s lasting friendships with Israelis – friendships that are a source of his hope for peace. He just might touch some hearts and remind us that governments may indeed negotiate treaties but people make peace.
*Seeds of Peace is a U.S. summer camp program that establishes relationships between youths from Israel, the Palestinian areas, other Arab nations and the United States.
Rabbi Irwin Kula is a 7th generation rabbi and a disruptive spiritual innovator. A rogue thinker, author of the award-winning book, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, and President-Emeritus of Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, he works at the intersection of religion, innovation, and human flourishing. A popular commentator in both new and traditional media, he is co-founder with Craig Hatkoff and the late Professor Clay Christensen of The Disruptor Foundation whose mission is to advance disruptive innovation theory and its application in societal critical domains. He serves as a consultant to a wide range of foundations, organizations, think tanks, and businesses and is on the leadership team of Coburn Ventures, where he offers uncommon inputs on cultural and societal change to institutional investors across sectors and companies worldwide.
Josh thanks for commenting. I think you may have missed my point. “More right of center” was no more a pejorative than left of center. It is merely descriptive of where one stands politically. The fact that the Israeli government is negotiating with Abbas and surely are suspicious and appropriately cautious about the process would tend to suggest that major Jewish organizations like AIPAC, the ADL, and the AJC yet alone the Conference of Presidents not attending a meeting (that included the Martin Indyk the Special Envoy) is about a very serious split in American Jewry. It was the split I was calling attention to. Moreover one of the differences between right and left is indeed where people place themselves on the continuum of hope-suspicion…this is a psychological NOT a moral statement – see social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt. And just like hope can be very dangerously naive so suspicion can be very dangerously mistrusting. Of course each side will want to paint the other side as on the dangerous side and themselves on the healthy side of this continuum and each will use history to prove there point.
With regard to Abbas’s story about his grandchildren – the point of which was first how surprising it was to everyone on the room and second how he described his grandchildren and their Israeli friends as maintaining their friendships despite the ongoing violence – I specifically wrote how that he should tell the story at the UN so the world including the Arab world would hear it. My sense is political and diplomacy speak will make very little difference in the present climate. In this I agree with you…hope has died for most people…and for me that is the least religious/spiritual way and most dangerous position of all….thanks for reading!
I have a dear friend in Israel who is politically very far left. He told me that there are two types of people in the world, those who base their politics on hope and those who base it on fear, and then he added that those who base it on fear always have history on their side.
May I suggest that your assessment of the “more right of center” organization is neither accurate nor respectful of a differing point of view. You suggest it is because they are “unwilling to ‘trust’ in a process with ‘enemies.’? May I suggest a more accurate and respectful view is that they refuse to trust a process with those who have lied in the past and continue to do so, and who you yourself note said nothing new other than platitudes (before your question.)
And so it begs the question, at least for those who look to history rather than hope, if Abbas’s own grandchildren are building respectful relationships at Seeds of Peace, why does his government continue to teach hate, incite murder, and honor terrorists? Why do he and his government give separate messages in English than in Arabic. When he tells his people in Arabic about his grandchildren, then there might be hope. Otherwise in the current context, many find it difficult to continue to have hope. How do you do so?