Film, musicians, physicians

lead toward Middle East future

Saturday, 08 May 2010

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power ,

the world will know peace."

-- Jimi Hendrix

"He who controls others may be powerful,

but he who has  mastered himself is mightier still." 

--Lao Tzu

Change without violence is in the air.  
     The new 2010 film BUDRUS -- http://www.justvision.org/budrus -- models how one Palestinian town awakens to reject  violence.
     The result is a more desirable social outcome.
Rejection of violence must be pre-decided, these courageous citizens demonstrate.
     In the heat of threat and conflict, it's usually too late.

     We also learn from contrasting means -- the ends in the making.

1.  Western nations -- citizens and diplomats -- finally built growing relationship with the "enemy" Communist Soviet Union's women and men, resulting in cooperation and partnerships today.

2.  The same West was quick to mistreat Iraq with isolation, humiliation, and violence -- predictable failures that separate people and destroy relationships between and within countries.

     Nations, cities, and campus administrations predictably, failingly continue treating their conflicts in old ways:

1.  separating

1.  condemning

2.  legislating

3.  punishing

Failure is more about distance -- lack of connection -- than differences.  
Change is first about starting and improving relationships -- communicating well, releasing unprecedented creativity.

                        - L&L



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18-year-old film
for our times

JERUSALEM: The Bridge to Peace was first broadcast PBS TV in April 1992.
     It helped inspire the birth of Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue that July 1992.
Today, for the first time ever the archival 56-minute video premiers online for the world to see.
Created 18 years ago, the personal narratives and  requirement of citizen participation remain contemporary to this day.
     You will see some of the people with whom we first worked and who gave us early insights about the required citizen-to-citizen public peace process.

JERUSALEM: The Bridge to Peace  (56 min  --  1992)

Foundation for Global Community (Beyond War) and PBS station KTEH-TV, San Jose.

http://www.archive.org/details/JerusalemTheBridgeToPeace56Min-1992

2010 scholarship further documents this imperative for face-to-face engagement, if governments are to move forward.
     Laurence Snider asserts that although the rumoued peace initiative US President Obama is considering launching would be a positive step forward, "a solution is only possible if the personal meets the political".
     Government-driven initiatives modelled on the work of pre-existing NGOs could provide a way of preparing vast sectors of the Israeli and Palestinian populations for a resolution of the conflict.
     Peacemaking must include not only brave steps by the leaders of each people.
     It must also include a grassroots initiative that bridges boundaries and builds new relationships.
     It is only through this public peacemaking process that the political peacemaking process can be realized.

Peacemakings added angle

by Laurence Snider

Common Ground News -- 29 April 2010

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=27701&lan=en&sid=0&sp=0&isNew=1

12-year-old
Palestinian-Israeli band
for our times

WHITEFLAG -- Israeli and Palestinian musicians side by side -- met in 1998 with the help of WINDOWS -- http://www.win-peace.org/
     WINDOWS promotes acquaintance and understanding between people from Israel and Palestine to empower participants to work together towards positive change.
     Difficult as it is for them to get together, they do.
     WHITEFLAG shows that "the reality" is not only the dark symptoms of ignorance.
Reality is partnered Palestinians and Jews painting a picture of the future in song and cooperation.
WATCH them:

WHITEFLAG Palestinian-Israeli band

8-minute video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Mb0EiIPvY

U.S. Muslim & Jewish plastic surgeons,
Jewish operating room tech
travel to heal Jerusalem

     A Muslim pediatric surgeon and Jewish plastic surgeon, and a Jewish operating room technician form the USA travelled to Jerusalem in March 2010.
     The technician travelled at her own expense.
     Together they operated without salaries on children at Makassed Hospital.
     Palestinian American Saad Saad, MD, Jersey Shore University Hospital ( SSaad1998@comcast.net ) was the team leader.
     Dr. Saad is part of the Monmouth Dialogue Project -- http://www.monmouth.edu/dialogue_project/ -- Arab Americans (Christian and Muslim), American Jews, and friends of both communities who work to promote Arab-Jewish understanding in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and worldwide.
WATCH their story:

Volunteer Surgery in Jerusalem

Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem - Program 41 - March 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4he2XX45eI

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These and hundreds of other success stories are preserved at http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm