Follow Me Online

Making Change Podcast

Facebook

Twitter

Gopin Associates, LLC

YouTube

Search Results for: mitchell

  • GEORGE MITCHELL FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE? A NEW HOPE

    A surprise development in the million dollar question of who President Obama will appoint to oversee  Israeli/Palestinian conflict intervention. I had lobbied hard in these pages earlier in the year for George Mitchell to be sent in. More recently there had been much speculation and controversy over the appointment of Dennis Ross. Serious media reports now indicate that former Senator Mitchell may be a strong possibility, and that this will meet with a much better reception in the world beyond the United States. I want to reiterate my arguments earlier for why Mitchell is crucial.

    Here is an excerpt from Change in U.S. Middle East Policy:

    The president must be a person who sees the need for constant engagement on the ground in Israel, so that both sides have a third party they can rely on to push for compliance to agreements. Both sides of the conflict need …

  • The Promise and Peril of Gestures of Peace

    I was about to publish the piece below one day ago. It was based on a press conference of the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday, July 21, 2013. But just two days later, the same Foreign Ministry spokesperson contradicted his own statement that America had been invited to the inauguration. This is a highly unusual development that I will analyze below, and the story may still be unfolding. But first read this piece:

     

    Return the Gesture: Invite President Rowhani of Iran to the White House 

    Hasan RowhaniThe Foreign Ministry of Iran has invited the European Union and the United States
    to attend the inauguration of President Rowhani on August 4. The evidence of history suggests that the smart thing for the United States to do is seize the moment and quickly return the friendly gesture. The White House should invite President Rowhani to the White House on September 21, the …

  • Palestine is open for business! by Ziad Asali

    This is an important piece on what  pragmatically can and should be supported right now to prepare for and achieve Palestinian independence.

    WASHINGTON, DC – Almost everything about the second Palestine Investment Conference held in Bethlehem in early June, which I had the honour of attending as a member of President Barack Obama’s official delegation, was encouraging.

    The Conference, which was designed to promote private sector development, was held at the elegant and modern Convention Center facility in Bethlehem from 2-3 June. President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed around 2,000 participants including Palestinian and Arab business people from around the world, impressive entrepreneurs from Gaza, and many international institutional representatives and investors. The message, summed up by the Quartet Envoy Tony Blair was simple: Palestine is open for business!

    While the first Investment Conference in 2008 focused on large development and public-private partnership initiatives, this Conference focused properly on small to medium-sized

    …

  • The Lonely Man of Peace: An In-depth Interview

    Folks, many of you may have seen this, but we have friends in the world who cannot directly access the Jerusalem Post piece. So here it is. Lauren is an amazing interviewer. She interviewed me for nine hours, longest interview of my life:

    The lonely man of peace

    lonelymanofpeace

    By LAUREN GELFOND FELDINGER

    21/01/2010

    This week, Orthodox American rabbi Marc Gopin saw his coexistence work in Syria bear fruit. What turns a Soloveitchik disciple into an unofficial diplomat to the Arab…Somewhere between the shtetls of Eastern Europe and sites across the Levant, Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin, 52, has found his calling.

    Heading the George Mason University Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution in Arlington, Virginia, he is not waiting for a peace treaty to cause change. Gopin gets on a plane and heads for trouble spots wherever he can find openings. He meets with sheikhs, heads of state …

  • A SPEECH WORTH REMEMBERING

    Picture 1

    I think it bears republishing now, at this time, Jeremy Ben Ami’s speech at J street. It is one of the most powerful and inspiring and pragamatic speeches I can remember on the incredibly complex and disheartening Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I am thinking that now is the time to keep our eye on the ball of pragmatism, shunning despair, and encouraging everyone to take advantage of Obama, Mitchell, a new Turkey, an eager Syria, and a possible prisoner deal, while ignoring the dangers of Iran, the persistence of religious radicals in all the faiths, the sham of the freeze and the outrage of Palestinian dispossession in Jerusalem. Pragmatism and hope, persistence in a forward march. These are the ingredients of victory in history.  CRDC  is coupling a persistent push for negotiations with very practical expressions of support for and investment in the honest people of Palestine. We must put our voices …

  • From Haaretz: “IDF chief: New Israel-Hezbollah war unlikely”

    This is something to watch. Ashkenazi believes Hezbollah may be instigating tensions with Israel. But we don’t know who else is operating in Southern Lebanon, including Israel and Al Qaeda. Would it not be terribly convenient if Katyushas fly over and hostilities break out with Lebanon just as Israel is against the wall about a settlement freeze? Lebanon is and always has been the plaything of international forces. Now that it appears that a Syrian/Saudi/American rapprochement is at hand regarding Lebanon this does not mean that others want the situation stable. Even Ashkenazi could be undermined by other forces inside. Mitchell is right and must keep pressing comprehensive peace settlements, and they must nip every attempt to destabilize right in the bud, calling it for what it is, and holding the parties implicated responsible. The intelligence services know, and it is time for the political peacemakers to hold everyone publicly …

  • The War in Gaza: Reflections on An Interview in the Midst of War at the Half Year Anniversary

    In a December 31, 2008 conference call with Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, an American grassroots Jewish organization dedicated to promoting a negotiated two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Marc shared his “on-the-ground perspective of the…violence in Gaza and southern Israel and the need for U.S. Leadership.”

    Listen to the call here or read a transcript of the interview here.

    Marc reflects  now:

    I stand by much of what I concluded in that interview. I remember vividly the circumstances of that interview. I was on the floor of a very cold apartment at night, unsure if i would be heard because my only connection was skype (as usual no budget for my work), and my computer only worked with skype on the floor.

    I was impressed with the questions I received, and it was rather a relief to reflect on the issues instead of living it. In the first days …

  • Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding Reviews To Make the Earth Whole

    Marc Gopin – To Make the Earth Whole
    June 16, 2009 — Heather DuBois of Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding

    heather-duboisThe Psalmist said three thousand years ago, “Seek peace and pursue it.” The rabbis of the Talmud added two thousand years ago, “Seek it in your own place, and pursue it to other places,” which I guess I understood to mean, “pursue it to other places that are the most risky that you can imagine.”

    This passage from Rabbi Marc Gopin’s new book, To Make the Earth Whole, summarizes Gopin’s mind-frame during his January 2005 journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, a journey that would initiate a citizen diplomacy effort between partners in Syria and the United States over the course of several years. After a chance meeting with Syrian-Canadian attorney and peace-activist Hind Kabawat at the World Economic Forum in May 2004, Gopin, the celebrated educator and author, and

    …

  • We Are Going to Keep Telling the Truth ‘Til It Stops Working

    I continue to be haunted, almost fixated on President Obama’s simple words about the joke around the White House.  It is in my opinion, a stunning formula for presidentially-led social change. After four decades of watching American presidents, supposedly the most powerful agents of change in the Arab/Israeli conflict, fail to make any change. Now Obama is coming along at a good time for change, in that so much of the world knows that Israel must change, including most American Jews, finally, finally. But he could be still failing miserably at this. No, it really is his genius. The fact is the most passionate president on peace and justice for Palestinians is Jimmy Carter, but he is not believed at all by most Jews or trusted. Why? Because he has a nasty habit of saying in public things that are so overly optimistic about seasoned enemies and militant groups with …

  • From Our Friend Eliyahu

    Submitted by David Vyorst

    Here is an email newsletter from our friend, peacemaker Eliyahu McLean:

    Abrahamic Reunion brings hope to Sderot, Gaza

    Hello friends and supporters,

    We have been been doing ongoing work to re-build trust and relationships in the Holy Land in the aftermath of the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.  Here is a highlight of the group events and individual work of members of our family of peacebuilders in the Holy Land, starting with a powerful event that took place in the days soon after the war.

    ABRAHAMIC REUNION BRINGS HOPE TO SDEROT AND GAZA, Feb.4

    Rabbi Zion Cohen, Chief Rabbi of Shaar HaNegev and Sderot brought together a group of Israeli Jewish students and teachers who hosted the Abrahamic Reunion (AR) in a re-enforced classroom at the high school at Sapir College in Shaar Hanegev, on Israel’s border with Gaza, on Feb. 4th. Deacon Jiries Mansour, …

Categories