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Facing tomorrow.

Article Excerpt
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan



A stately pleasure-dome decree.

Like Coleridge's Kubla Khan, Shimon Peres, the world's only Nobel Laureate who currently doubles as a head of state, did in Jerusalem in May a stately, statehood conference decree. For three days its realization served as the centerpiece of Israel's 60th anniversary celebration as a reborn Jewish state among the nations. The concept, however, had been planned eight years earlier to mark Israel's 55th birthday and Peres's own "certain" rise to the presidency. It was then that he first envisaged tapping his international network of the highly accomplished, the vastly influential, and the extremely well-heeled to help him to bring it to pass.

Alas, like Hillary Clinton earlier last year, Peres, in 2000, weathered an excruciating lesson about the unstable rinkage between democratic processes and "inevitability": the Knesset elevated a rim-of-the-mill, predatory, since-disgraced politician as the eighth president of Israel. Displaying extraordinary grace in masking disappointment, Peres coolly bided his time until July 2007 when at last he was chosen as number nine. At once he set the planning process into motion for an extravaganza to mark Israel's 60th birthday: a star-studded assemblage of political, economic, intellectual, cultural icons and personalities--many members of the international order of "Friends of Shimon"--answered the call to gather in Jerusalem for a three-day symposium. Its theme? How Israel might best meet the manifold challenges it will face in the coming sixty years.

Labeled "Facing Tomorrow," the "glory part" was that it nicked Israel's burdened treasury for not even one symbolic shekel. Instead, Peres waved his thaumaturgic wand towards donors, the most forthcoming of whom being Sheldon Adelman, billionaire Nevada casino mogul and avid supporter of Israel. He and his wife served as honorary co-chairpersons of the event.

Peres assigned the preparatory phase of "Facing Tomorrow" to the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a Zionist think tank headquartered in Jerusalem whose mission statement is "to promote the thriving of the Jewish people via professional strategic thinking and planning on issues of primary concern to world Jewry." The head of its board of directors is Dennis Ross. Among the challenges that JPPPI planners cited were the cultivation of "responsible, moral and inspired leaders," the transfer of non-conventional weapons from sovereign states into the hands of terrorist organizations, the transformation of the Arab-Israeli conflict from a national into a religious dash, the Annapolis process, Israel-Diaspora relations, Jewish education standards in Israel and the Diaspora, and Jewish demographic dilemmas.

And so on May 13% the great and the wise and the wealthy; academics and entrepreneurs, scientists and statesmen convened for three days at Biny'nai Ha-Uma, Jerusalem's pleasure-dome qua international convention center. Participants and some 3,500 guests arrived from 42 countries. Over 400 members of the foreign media covered the proceedings. Inevitably, the plenary sessions in the center ring attracted most of the spotlight, but it was the panel discussions, more than 30 of them, that consistently provided more nutritious intellectual fodder. Naturally, the press focused on the hoopla under the big tent instead of the side shows which, in fact, were more stimulating.

"Presidents Discussing Tomorrow"--the opening plenary session--set the tone. Behind hackneyed allusions to the rapid pace of globalization, increased interdependency among the world's peoples, global village, the internet, and nanoseconds, serious concern over whether the world was edging into increasing conflict or toward enhanced cooperation was the theme struck by most in the parade of presidents whom Peres had covalled. Aside from Bush (who would occupy center stage the following day), Blair, and Gorbachev, the heads of state who journeyed to Jerusalem to wish Israel well at 60 (and Peres at 84)...

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