103 Days to Go
And What is the Positive Vision?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 103 days to go to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly’s 2011 session in New York and the proposed vote to grant the Palestinians recognition for statehood permit me to think positive for the moment.

Two days ago I wrote about the great gift given to humans, above all other mammals, the ability to think about and plan for the future or, in other words, look into the future with positive vision. No other animal in the species can do that. The comments I received were instructive. Some people felt it was an important insight but others said there is simply no future to be positive about and a few even said, “OK Sherwin, what is your positive vision?”

So let me take advantage of the particular day on which I am writing, Friday, erev Shabbat (the eve of the Sabbath) and Rosh Chodesh Sivan (the 1st day of the Hebrew month of Sivan) to ruminate on that.

I was at an event yesterday where one of the speakers mentioned Simon Sinek`s book “Start with Why” and his theory of leadership. In summary he takes the position that leaders generally know WHAT they want to do and HOW they want to do it, but too often WHY they know this is the third element in their thought process while it should be the first. Sinek sees this as three concentric circles, which he calls the Golden Circle, where the WHY is at the center, the HOW is outside the WHY circle and the WHAT is the most distant circle. His criticism of the majority of leaders is that their reasoning process begins with the WHAT rather than the WHY, where the WHY is what we believe, on what our cause is based and what our purpose is in doing what we are doing. (It might help if you actually drew the three concentric circles on a piece of paper to better visualize this.)

And what does this have to do with our current situation? I think EVERYTHING! Those of us living here, Israelis and Palestinian Arabs know full well WHAT we have to do and even HOW to get it done. But it appears to me that the leadership of both groups, Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel and Chairman Abbas of the Palestinian Authority are fixated on the WHAT and sometimes the HOW but not the WHY. Sinek makes the claim that people only follow those who know the WHY and he cites giants of leadership like Martin Luther King Jr and Ghandi as classical examples of such people.

If we look at our leaders we see something different. Prime Minister Netanyahu seems always to be talking about the WHAT. Jerusalem will not be divided, Israeli troops must be stationed in the Jordan Valley, we cannot accept the Right of Return of those who left in 1948 and 1967, we cannot live with the 1967 armistice lines as our borders. Chairman Abbas is guilty of the same thing when he says just the opposite, Jerusalem must be the capital of the new Palestinian state, Israeli troops cannot be stationed inside the new state (nor can international forces in that position contain any Jews), the Right of Return is sacrosanct and the 1967 armistice lines must be the new borders. WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT, rarely HOW and never ever WHY!

How much more powerful would it be if the leadership spoke only about the WHY. This is what we know, this is our purpose, this is our cause, this is what we believe. History has shown that leaders who speak about the WHY generate loyal followers who then support their decisions.

This is critically important here because supporting the decisions of the leadership is, in fact, the HOW as critics on both sides of the spectrum say that neither leader can “deliver” his people to support an agreement.

So what is my vision of the WHY?

For Prime Minister Netanyahu it is that I believe that Israel is the legitimate Jewish homeland of the Jewish people; I believe that this land that has been inhabited as well by the Arab population for so many years can only see peace if we learn to live with each other in peace not war; I believe that reasonable people who no longer want to see their children and grandchildren subjected to war can find a way to make peace; I believe that Israel has the strength to prevail but would rather not use that strength in war, but instead in building a sound economy for both parties to this long conflict.

For Chairman Abbas it is that I believe that our claim to this land is as legitimate at that of the Jews who are living here; I believe that my people have a right to live here in peace and dignity that is no less legitimate than that of the Jews; I believe that this land that has been successfully improved by Israelis for the last 63 years can only see peace if we learn to live with each other in peace not war; I believe that reasonable people who no longer want to see their children and grandchildren subjected to war can find a way to make peace.

I could go on but you get the point. When leaders have the courage to speak about the WHY people will follow their lead and great things can happen. When the leadership is talking only about the WHAT, they just trade barbs and we all suffer from that.

Henry Kissinger once said that “The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” We need to get where we have not been and that`s the WHY.