By Lonnie Ali and Daniel Lubetzky

Over the past two months, people of all races, ethnicities, and religions have experienced enormous pain and suffering. Acts of terror, war, and ensuing hatred have deepened the cracks that were already threatening to divide our communities.

You, our nation’s young people, have been implicated in this. The campuses on which you live, learn, and strive to become the people you want to be, have turned into battlegrounds. Some of you are angry. Some are scared for your lives. Others feel confused and alone.

This is not your fault. It is not one group’s fault. Extremist ideologies sow division wherever they go. Most of you are not radical. We see you. Most of you are compassionate. We hear you. The overwhelming majority of you want to supplant the forces that divide, destroy, and diminish with ones that unite, build, and bring light to the world. You want to replace polarization with problem-solving to benefit all people.

As a passionate Muslim and a passionate Jew, we have come together to humbly share a path forward for how to transcend the construct of “us vs. them” and side with humanity instead.

Today, I want to talk about a light and fluffy subject: your generation’s role in steering humanity in the right direction. No pressure, Dalton. 

But in all seriousness, Dalton, I love what you shared about “leaving everywhere you go better than you found it…and finding ways to give grace and inspiration to the people around you.”  

I want to talk today about HOW to do that as you are all simultaneously challenged and blessed with graduating as our world is re-entering a stage of dramatic consequence. 

The ship of humanity is moving in the wrong direction, and it will be upon all of you to steer it back on track. 

To illustrate this point, I want to compare the circumstances when my father’s generation came of age, to those when my generation and your generation graduated from college. 

My father was fifteen-and-a-half when he was liberated from the Dachau concentration camp by American soldiers. He was barely alive.  He never got to go to school past third grade, let alone college. Several of your grandparents were around your age when they were sent to free Europe from tyranny and darkness. 

By contrast, when I was fifteen years-old, my family immigrated to America from Mexico. I was able to attend college during a period when passionate but cordial debate was the norm. I remember observing political leaders vehemently disagree on a particular topic, while maintaining a friendship rooted in respect. Our world was far from perfect – but the arc of human progress trended in an upward direction. Freedom, open markets, human rights, civility, and the quest for knowledge were all advancing.  

It seemed almost too good to be true.  In fact, it was so good that we began to lose sight that Our Great American Experiment isn’t so much a fixed state of affairs as it is a purposeful daily affirmation – something that we opt into, live out, and vote for not once every four years, but every single day – through how we engage with one another. 

Shocking news emerged this week from the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 attack: On that dark day, Fox News hosts and former-President Donald Trump’s son sent text messages begging for Trump to address the nation and stop the violent riot. Yet many Republicans continue to downplay the insurrection that dangerously undermined electoral integrity and the rule of law and threatened our democracy.

But minimizing violence isn’t only happening on the Republican side. From Philadelphia to Los Angeles, District Attorneys promoting an anti-police narrative and lax crime-fighting policies have contributed to an alarming rise in homicides and spiraling crime rates. Yet despite the skyrocketing crime in liberal bastions, many of us have family and friends living in these cities who refuse to accept that controversial policies to suspend prosecution for many crimes may have played a role in the violent wave.

There is no comparing an attempted insurrection with day to day crime; one is significantly worse, and a much bigger threat to our democracy. But both sides are suffering from a partisan blindness that has led to minimizing any violence that appears to implicate their leaders. And it presents a huge threat to our country.

The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace shared this article by Ari Shavit, originally published in Yedioth Ahronoth, in its September 15th Israel and Middle East Newsletter. I am posting the article here as a solid piece explaining the significance of the recent peace agreements in the Middle East. It may be a tinge too optimistic and overconfident, but I’ll take it!