ur phone interview took place while he drove from one high-powered meeting to the next. The first question-answer session began early - at 7.50 AM - as Daniel Lubetzky crossed the Golden Gate Bridge through the San Francisco fog on his way to meet a potential donor for his latest project. “I awoke at 6.45 AM, which is against my religion,” he quipped, interrupting a colleague, Ali, who was giving him directions. Every so often Lubetzky’s voice broke off as his car went into a tunnel, but Lubetzky didn’t miss a beat. Calmly and smoothly, the 38-year-old Jewish Mexican-born American spoke about his latest idea to bring peace to the Middle East and his disarmingly simple philosophy about how profits can end conflicts. “Orly, you’ll have to excuse me now. Call me back in an hour and 15 minutes.” Exactly on cue Lubetzky was back in his white Dodge rental car (”$16 a day!”) and he had good news to tell me. His peace organization, the One Voice Movement, was $100,000 richer. In a little more than an hour Lubetzky had convinced a wealthy businessman to do his bit to advance peace between Palestinians and Israelis. I was taken aback. What kind of smarts did Lubetzky have? As I was to learn from our stop-start conversation, Lubetzky was no ordinary salesman. He was a super salesman, with a law degree from Stanford. And he was selling something few could say no to: peace. I soon learned more about the One Voice Movement, the grassroots peace foundation he founded in 2002, and about the details of its newest “product.” It’s called Shu Dorak?, or What Will You Do to End the Conflict?, and it aims to do just that through the combined effort of millions of people. An Internet portal, for which IBM donated $250,000, is being developed for this purpose. Make a difference. “We’re trying to empower the silent majority,” said Lubetzky. “Everyone expects other people or the government to take care of things. Here we give the people the ability to make a commitment toward peace - in Hebrew, English or Arabic.” The portal launch is planned for the end of March across Israel and Palestine, he said, in cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, with a live video on giant screens placed in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Al-Jalazoun Refugee Camp. Palestinian and Israeli members of the foundation went around, laptops in hand, teaching people that they could make a difference and showing them how to use the Internet portal to do so. Shu Dorak? is a discussion forum that favors constructive dialogue, unlike the headline grabbing Jihadist websites that boast of deadly strikes against US soldiers, or the ultra-right-wing Jewish settler websites that espouse hatred of Palestinians and Arabs. A new kind of fight is on - a battle for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, where sound clips and videos can be exchanged. If you imagine that planting the seeds of peace is boring compared to, say, watching YouTube clips of the downing of Black Hawk helicopters, you would be wrong. There are no cheap thrills on these new sites, but they are exciting. www.Face2FaceProject.com is one such multimedia site. It features video clips and stills of Palestinians and Israelis taken over the past year-and-a-half by a French photographer who calls himself JR. He and his friend Marco, a tech whiz, decided to tour Israel and Palestine, and, through the art of photography, show Israelis and Palestinians how much they have in common. They asked ordinary people to be their “heroes.” Those who agreed were told their photos would be posted side by side with a “brother or sister from the other side.” When the site was launched in March, giant prints of the photographs advertising the site were displayed on walls in towns and cities across Israel and Palestine. There could have been trouble, but instead “we had 90 percent acceptance on both sides,” said Marco. “Even someone from Hamas agreed. “We are not speaking about corruption or politics,” said Marco. “It’s not our business. We are at a different place. We are talking about ego, humor, otherness, limits.” He related some of the adventures they had getting permission to plaster their posters on walls. “In one West Jerusalem building, we asked an Ultra-orthodox Jewish woman if we could use one of the outside walls. She agreed and then went with us upstairs to help us get the gay hairdresser on the second floor to agree.” On the Palestinian side they spotted a wall they wanted to use for their seven-meter-high posters. “On one side of the wall the owner had a picture of Sheikh [Ahmed] Yassin and on the other side he had a photo of [Hassan] Nasrallah,” said Marco. “But he agreed. “Another man whose shop’s outer walls were covered with pictures of shaheeds [martyrs] asked us to put the posters on his wall,” said Marco. When they had finished hanging up the photos, Palestinians and Israelis asked them, ‘What next?’ “We told them: ‘Nothing, it’s your turn.’” Surfing surprise. Meanwhile, the Peres Center for Peace is beginning a new initiative in April, which just might surprise Arabs surfing on the Net. The program is called “Online Peace Ambassadors” and the goal is to teach and encourage Israeli high school students to make contact with Muslims and Arabs online in order to break down barriers. The group of 200 young people from 20 high schools all over Israel will spend two hours of class a week to connect with other young people from Muslim countries like Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf States by using instant messaging. “I had a really interesting conversation with someone in Iran,” said Yarden Leal-Yablonka, the 26-year-old project manager of the Online Ambassadors. “His name came up. I told him I’m from Israel and asked him if he would like to chat with me. He agreed.” Shu Dorak? takes that effort further, encouraging users to pledge their commitment to peace. Its software translates messages into Arabic, Hebrew or English. Adi Balderman, the program director of One Voice Israel, said the forum was informal. “You could coordinate a bike ride or sell your jeans,” he said. “It’s intended to foster a good atmosphere.” “The idea [of the forum] is to ask people to be more involved,” said the general director of One Voice Palestine, Fathi Darwish. “Instead of staying at home and saying I can’t do anything, we are telling them they can do something. We are trying to promote our goals, our vision and our strategy among the Palestinian people. The culture of peace, the culture of non-violence, the two-state solution, and to explain that there is no other way except a shared future between the Palestinians and the Israelis.” Cyberwars. Over the past few years a number of prominent jihad sites, such as Hackboy and Ansar Al-Jihad LilJihad Al-Electroni, have emerged on the Internet, where they recruit volunteers to take part in electronic attacks. These electronic jihadists - both Jewish and Arab - often attack the peace websites. One Voice’s website (www.onevoicemovement.org) has been hacked in the past. “We’ve traced them a couple of times and found that they are either radical Muslim jihad sites or ultra-right-wing Jewish settlers,” said Lubetzky. When I next spoke to Lubetzky, he told me that Craig Newmark, the man who built one of the most influential Internet communities in the US - the famous Craig’s List - had “agreed to do some interviews on our behalf and spread the word” about the Shu Dorak? site. “Do you think the Red Hot Chili Peppers are popular among Israelis?” he asked me. “Why?” I asked. “My next meeting is with a producer who is a close friend of the founder of the band,” he said. “Maybe I could get them to come and perform to promote the project.” The following day, Jason Alexander - better known as “George” from the TV sitcom Seinfeld - was joining him for a pow-wow with a group of techies, whom the presence of Alex was designed to attract. “We have a whole entertainment board made up of famous people like Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman who are willing to use their fame for the cause,” he said. It’s no wonder the One Voice Movement has already raised $2.5 million this year and his private company, Peaceworks, which sells products that contribute toward peace, has sales “in the millions.” Trying to foster business between Palestinians and Israelis is a hard sell. The Israeli-built separation barrier and the checkpoints have made it almost impossible. But Lubetzky hopes Shu Dorak? will help to change that. “We are trying to open a new window so both sides can meet each other - virtually, of course - because you know how hard it is for people to meet across borders.”

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