PeaceWorks: Promoting Profitable Trade and Middle East Peace

Another NFPO worth examining is PeaceWorks, founded in 1994 by Daniel Lubetzky. Like Equal Exchange (see below), PeaceWorks is also featured in the November 2004 edition of Fast Company magazine (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/88/socialcapital.html). Take a look at their "Mission & Impact Statement" at http://www.peaceworks.com/aboutUs/missionImpact.html. There are some bloggers out there who dismiss the notion that trade among Arabs and Israel's will have any impact on lasting peace in the region. I suppose that it is fair to question whether the practices employed by PeaceWorks will change thousands of years of animosity. Then again, why not? Moreover, the private sector often can make things happen where government policies cannot. Certainly the vision and the principles on which PeaceWorks has been built deserve our attention. A related initiative started by Mr. Lubetzky is OneVoice: Silent No Longer (http://www.silentnolonger.com), which is based on the premise that there is a "silent majority" of moderates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose desire for peace has been hijacked by extremists on both sides.