David Feldt Proud father. Entrepreneur. Builder. Catalyst. Accelerator. Guide.

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Here's to a Happy, Healthy, Successful 2009 filled with Love and Peace!

Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict

I received this in an email this morning. It's not on-topic for this "Digital Disruption" blog but I feel passionately that this information should be shared:

Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about Israel's occupation of Arab lands.

His response was "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned - read below "It's our land..."  It's important information since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.

"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."

Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation.

These were compiled by a Christian university professor:

BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY....  ( It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!!!! )

It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't matter.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey .
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be.  What will we tell our grandchildren about we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?

START NOW- Send this to 18 other people you know and ask them to send it to eighteen others, Jew and non-Jew--it doesn't really matter.

A Personal Crossroads : Choosing Light or Darkness

The latest chapter of the global recession and financial meltdown to be revealed is the Bernie Madoff saga.  It demonstrates the ultimate corruption and deception that has taken hold within our world.  Personal gain at the indiscriminate expense of others, whether they be global corporations, wealthy individuals or charitable institutions.

We have been seduced by the "American Dream" for the past 20+ years, borrowed money we couldn't afford, bought things we didn't need and speculated wantonly in the pursuit of more and more. Avarice and stupidity at their respective best. Humanity at it's collective worst.

So, we are at a crossroads.

My brother-in-law once described the choice we face as follows:  "Can't keep propping up a dead dog .. At some point you bury it and buy a puppy and raise it differently."

Are we ready to bury this dead dog? Or will we simply continue to prop it up via additional loans to the Big Three, the banks, over-leveraged credit card holders, ... the list continues. At what cost?

Looking a little more deeply, this crossroads and choice is a fundamentally spiritual one.

Some see this as simply the symptoms of another speculative bubble. "The market will correct itself." The US taxpayer will pay for all of this greed and nothing needs to change. We'll return to times of plenty once we've ridden out this current storm.

I believe we are being given a huge opportunity to change the game. To abandon the dominance of our selfish nature and to embrace a new world where giving back and caring for others is the path to our redemption. We have the opportunity to temper the destructive nature within ourselves where personal gain triumphs over everything else. We are being given the change to balance it with empathy, concern and care for others.

In the past there have been a select few who embraced this choice: Wealthy individuals, like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, plus many who were scammed by Bernie Madoff, who embraced philanthropy.

Andrew Carnegie said it best when he wrote, "This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider the surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community - the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to adminster, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves."

The quantum opportunity we have before us is to democratize this "giving" mindset beyond a select few. We have the tools to enable this change literally at our fingertips.  Technology and the Internet has provided a platform that connects all 6 billion of us on this planet like never before.  Let's use it to serve others and thereby serve ourselves. Let's elevate this world together via the enormous power our collective connectivity affords us.

I wrote about one powerful example of this a few weeks ago where a collective group of 336 people came together via Twitter and collected $10,000 in 48 hours to build a school in Tanzania.

The path of redemption is: survival (focused on the self) => servant (focused on others) => success => significance.

Imagine a world where we successfully leverage our social connectivity to contribute significantly to the upliftment of others less fortunate. That's a powerful idea. An idea who's time has come.  Now all we need to do is make the right choice.

Simple evaluation matix

If you're like me, you are probably in the midst of evaluating your employees, doing 360 degree reviews of team members and writing year-end reviews.

Most companies have a detailed review process and the more enlightened ones use a balanced scorecard to evaluate and reward people.  Most of the successful scorecards track financial contribution (impact on P&L), ability to work well with teams, quality of work / deliverables and contributions out to the community beyond the workplace.

With a decided touch-in-cheek, I'd like to introduce a new simplified evaluation matrix that you may find useful:

• The star performers are in the upper-right quadrant - they are brilliant contributors to the success of the organization and do so without being assholes. They fit in with the culture of the organization and understand that in today's economy a fundamental skillset is the ability to communicate, collaborate and contribute in a network, matrixed environment.
• The difficult quadrant is on the upper-left - Assholes who are brilliant. They don't fit in with the culture and are not team players. You spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with their egos BUT they produce brilliant work.  What to do here? Let them get away with repeated bad behavior because they are so smart and come up with brilliant ideas / brilliant work? I say "no". You may disagree.
• I'll let you decide what to do with the two bottom quadrants- that depends on the nature of your business

I'd love to get your comments, opinions and feedback.  Please enter them below and let's get a conversation going.