You are painting a dark picture, but one that honestly portrays the situation at hand.

There are a number of players in the dispute between Israel and Palestinians, and each player has his own agenda, and often the welfare of the Palestinian people is nowhere to be found on the agenda.

You enumerate the players pretty well: Iran, Hizbullah, ultra-right Israeli parites, Fatah, Hamas, Western protesters, and family clans.

The recent history of the Palestinian people, since the founding of the state of Israel, has included many instances in which their plight was used for political purposes, even at the expense of not helping them to achieve a state, an economy, and a decent life with dignity and justice. There are players out there who opt to continue the suffering for the sake of political adavantage. There are people who cannot even fathom the possibility of peace, and these people exist on both sides of the conflict, and in many countries outside the conflict altogether.

You are right to say that the people have “lost faith.” You are right to suggest that economics has a lot to do with it. When you’re not making a living, it’s hard to hold on to anything, much less faith. You are right to call for a “political Renaissance” and for community organizers.

I realize that the obstacles confronting the peace makers seem to be insurmountable. But I still beleive that there is hope. Sooner or later, no matter how bizarre things may get, people will seek to make sense of their lives. All things flow, eventually, in the direction of what makes sense. We have to encourage that in every way possible. We have to empower people ideologically, economically, spiritually, diplomatically, and yes, at times militarily. If we do this, not just with words, but with deeds, and with jobs, then the man on the street may come to imagine the possibility of hope. The extremists will not be able to capture the public’s imagination, once people begin to imagine a better life for themselves.

Ask yourself this: Where will peace come from? To my mind, peace will come from the heart and the mind of the man on the street. We can win his mind by speaking to him with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity. We can win his heart by investing in him; by giving him a place at the table, a stake in his future. And we can win the peace by selling him on a Vision of Hope. Give the man on the street a sense of hope, and you will have turned the corner on world peace. Nothing more is needed, and nothing else will suffice.

We’ve already touched upon this over dinner. How do you get business and world leaders to care enough to invest in people who come from totally different cultures? A lot of people just don’t care as much about the region as you and I might do. The only people who are “investing” in the Palestinians, are those of the same extremist mold of the Taliban such as Ahmedinejad and Nasrallah; and they aren’t doing it for job growth.

Another group that you could say that care about the Palestinians, such as those that protested against the Gaza war, call for boycott, sanctions, and divestment against Israel. Some in this group, the Isolationists, want to pull out all American interests in Israel. Fortunately this movement is very weak. The last thing the region needs is economic divestment.

Then you have the people who “care” about the Palestinians who advocate for “tough love”. I’m talking about the ultra-right parties in Israel who want to expel the Arabs. Fortunately as well, their movement is weak too.

Then you have those among the Palestinians such as Fatah and Hamas. Fatah corruption is well known and Hamas, with its own evil desires, took advantage of that in 2006. I don’t think anyone here thinks that Hamas has the Palestinians interest at heart. This won’t be solved till the Palestinian political atmosphere improves dramatically.

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka’s, leader of the Israeli Da’am party as reported in Haaretz said, “Our greatest enemy in Arab society is despair. More than 50 percent of the Arab public will not vote at all. They have lost all faith in the parties and in politics, and this is a faith that is hard to restore. And in any case, in recent years, Arab society has not been voting ideologically but rather by clans, and therefore, it is impossible to learn anything from the vote in the Arab street about political trends in this population. To my great regret, the establishment reinforces the clan structure of Arab society by not strengthening the economy of Arab society. When the extended family becomes the economic bulwark, anyone dependent on the family has to pay the price politically, and his vote is determined by the head of the clan. Therefore, the same people can vote for the Islamists in one election and for the communists in the next.”

A businessman might be able to invest in Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation projects but that might not necessarily translate into political progress. The Palestinians need a political Renaissance where political determination isn’t established by armed political parties. They need community organizers that can help their ideas to take hold – empowerment. What made American democracy so strong is that people, such as the Founding Fathers, could garner support for their ideas such as “unalienable rights”, religious freedom, and church-state separation. The Palestinian political atmosphere just isn’t anywhere close to the political atmosphere of colonial America.

Palestinians need to be “conditioned” and trained in community organizing and social advocacy. They need to learn that their cause can only materialize when the people with the guns (Hamas) don’t dictate how the cause operates.