Awakening to Women: The Nobel Effect

Do women make peace in a different voice? Peter Coleman and I explore some essential peacebuilding lessons culled from the work of recent Noble Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowee. As always, if the spirit moves you, please share with your virtual community and leave a comment (criticism welcomed) in the talkback section of the article.

Also, if there was a song that captures the essence of our article it’s this:

Isaac to Sacrifice Abraham?

My good friend Aziz Abu Sarah, regular columnist for 972, published a piece based on a drasha he gave in a synagogue for Rosh Hashana. Its an important sermon that is worth your time. I make a small cameo in the article in which I introduce my dramatic sounding idea that peace calls on all of us – Israelis and Palestinian – to reverse the curse of Abraham: that violent primordial impulse that legitimizes sacrificing children on an ideological altar. I will develop this idea in detail when I have some time to come up for air. Speaking of, readers of this blog will notice that there have been very few post or comments as of late. The reason is that I’m currently holding three jobs and working on two degrees simultaneously. I simply have no time to write, publish or blog. But I will be back. Promise. In the meantime, enjoy and take heart in Aziz’s words.

Turning a Vehicle of War Into an Instrument of Peace

From The Observers.

In the Hebrew Bible it is said that a time of universal peace will see swords turned into plowshares. One Israeli reserve solider, Dror Gomel (36), has decided to reverse the biblical sequence by turning his army vehicle, known as a Nagmash (body of a Centurion tank), into a melodic percussion instrument and a message of peace.

Gomel, a professional percussionist and special education teacher, can be seen in the video, which was shot in southern Israel, playing the front end of his armored car to the delight of his infantry. The words he recites: “No more war, no more bloodshed”, were famously uttered by the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the 1978 signing of the peace accords with Egypt.

Gomel posted the video on his facebook page with the comment: “Last week I was on reserve duty. There I met the cream of Israeli society: all kinds, types and colours. People who are willing to give their time to their society. We have a strong and excellent army. And our hand is extended towards peace all the time. I dedicate this video to all my reservist friends wherever they may be.”

Revolution Calling!

Protests are in the air and on the ground, and since protests are a social act, here are two pieces that I co-wrote/prepared dealing with recent social movements in Israel.

The first is a collection of personal reactions from Israelis living abroad to the revolution that is happening in their home country. The piece features Natasha Mozgovaya, Dan Arieli, Joel Schalit, Alon Ben Meir, Kobi Skolnick, myself and others. The piece was published in 972 and co-prepared with my good friend Ami Kaufman.

The second article is co-written with another good friend, Aziz Abu Sarah, and recalls our experience marching together for a Palestinian state in Jerusalem. With everything that’s been happening in Israel, the piece feels a little like yesterdays news (the protest took place July 15 and we wrote this a few weeks back) but it was an important demonstration that should not be forgotten.

Also published in Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, French, Urdo, and Hebrew.

More on Johanna Fakhri’s Performance With Orphaned Land

From France 24′s The Observers (with my full interview below).

“That a heavy metal band and a belly dancer perform together is unusual enough. When the band is Israeli and the dancer Lebanese, the performance raises quite a few eyebrows. But when the performers choose to brandish their respective countries’ flags side by side on stage, you have all the ingredients for a potentially volatile mix.

Attracted To Peace: Review of Peter Coleman’s ‘The Five Percent’.

Over at The Forward my review of Peter Coleman’s The Five Percent: Finding Solutions To Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. Key quote:

A central idea in Coleman’s research is that intractable conflicts are akin to complex systems, in which various parts are interconnected and are able to adapt, as in a biological ecosystem. Using a metaphor from applied mathematics, Coleman speaks of attractors, or “organized patterns in the behavior of systems that emerge, endure, and of course attract.” One of the more interesting and useful findings in the book is that conflict and peace can coexist. Even in times of great violence, where a destructive attractor governs the system, an alternative and latent attractor can also form.

To read more, click here.

Johanna Fakhry: A Dance of Moral Courage.

Johanna Fakhry, the talented and courageous Lebanese dancer who joined Orphaned Land on stage, has penned a response to her inspiring and controversial artistic collaboration with the Israeli band.

* I have slightly edited the letter for grammar and flow (where meaning was unclear, I left untouched).

Facing the amount of mails concerning the deed we’ve done on stage at the Hellfest Festival with Orphaned Land – that is to say raising and uniting on stage both Lebanese and Israeli flag – your worldwide reactions as bad or positive, as hateful or supportive as they can be, led us (Kobi and I) to write a statement explaining and not justifying our behaviour.

Music Break: Yemen Blues

A Thoughtful Response to Conflict Resolution Commandos.

Over at Unrest Magazine, Michael English provides a thoughtful response to our Conflict Resolution Commandos (CRCs) piece. Money quote:

I am grateful to Ben-Yehuda and Bartoli for the opportunity to generate further discussion about what is a sorely under-discussed issue amongst practitioners and scholars of peace and conflict. Over the past few years I have tried as both a contributor to and editor of Unrest to articulate what appears as fundamental contradictions between the interests of the state and the practice of conflict resolution. I remain deeply skeptical that placing the tools of conflict resolution further inside the defense apparatus of any militarized state, be it Israel or the United States, can help resolve the factors that generate structural and direct violence. I cannot help but interpret CRCs as Dispute Pacification Units. I default to agreement with John Burton’s slightly arrogant tirade that it is worth distinguishing between such terms as conflicts and disputes, because at the very least, such a distinction allows us to understand conflict as something far more complex than just a single explosion of violence or a confrontation between groups. CRCs could certainly be used to police disputes or as a preventive force (actions which should not be seen purely in the negative), but their work would be based in the execution of techniques that prevent violence, not in changing the conditions that lead to it. By their very location and origin within the state these agencies are unable to challenge its aims and are at best reformist efforts to make the state play a bit nicer with others. However, at present neither the United States nor Israel remotely posses the social capital necessary to make anyone believe that if dialogue failed they would hesitate to impose their military might. Conflict resolution at its very core is about changing structures that produce and reproduce violent conflict within the individual, within society and throughout the world. It is a mistake to assume conflict resolution as an equivalent, non-politicized synonym for the use of non-violent action by the state.

To read more, click here:

NYT Picks Up Our Conflict Resolution Commando Piece.

Over at the NYT, Peter Catapano looks into the controversy surrounding the upcoming flotilla and asks: “Is it a “freedom” flotilla, a “peace” flotilla or, as some have called it, a “provocation” flotilla? Who has been telling the truth? And, what is all this really about?”

The article surveys a sampling of some of the more notable flotilla-centered pieces published this week; showcasing the many positions (some of which are bizarre) on this divisive issue. The piece ends by quoting and awarding my article with Andrea Bartoli “the counterintuitive solution of the week.”