In October 2023, just days after the October 7th attack on Israel, I postponed my show’s regular schedule to record an emergency commentary — something I felt called to say that I hadn’t heard anyone else saying. I called it The Grand Experiment: Stopping World War 3 In Its Tracks.
It found nowhere near the audience I’d hoped for. I’m bringing it back now, in 2026, because the moment it was made for has, in part, already arrived. The United States and Israel went to war with Iran starting February 28th of this year. A “ceasefire” took hold in April, but it’s been tested again and again since — Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon remains active and unresolved, and a new US-Iran agreement was only just signed on June 17th, with 60 days set aside to negotiate what comes next. The ceasefire that was to be in place regarding Gaza, since October, has drawn near-daily reports of violations — independently documented by NPR, CNN, and the United Nations’ own monitoring body for the agreement. None of this is settled. We’re not standing at the edge of the war anymore, but we’re not standing on the other side of it either. We’re somewhere in the unstable middle — and that’s exactly the moment this talk was built for.
Many of us feel powerless in the face of not only current events in Gaza, but also in Ukraine. We feel pressured to have strong opinions, beliefs and to talk about who is right and who is wrong and what’s justified and what isn’t. This is the human condition. The difference between past battles and wars is not just more weapons, but totally different kinds of weapons that for most of us are unimaginable.
In modern times, we are now minutes from totally destroying civilization as we know it.
People who advocate for peace are viewed as “pacifists,” “weak” and “fringe.” Many are considered dangerous to an established order. Others of us call upon our religious tradition for help and often believe that these events are “prophetic” and therefore can’t and should not be stopped. Some believe that certain groups deserve what they get, and others feel if certain groups are just destroyed that life will be better for more people. Sometimes this is true, but in other cases, it’s not true.
People take sides, and the public posts stories, pictures, audio and videos on the internet. Horror, shock, upset and rage fuel more violence. Newspapers, magazines, news stations and radio stations run the horror around the clock. Ratings go up. Profits increase. Fear increases. The concentration and focus on daily life is interrupted and disturbed. The violence, talk and threat of more violence steals the attention of a concerned and upset world.
The vast public finds itself torn between official stories & networks, and authority figures on one side, and what people on the ground, at the actual locations, are experiencing & reporting on the other. Those two versions often don’t align, which makes it even more critical that we, the public, focus our energy on the power we actually have to impact the state of affairs in the world.
The question is: what can the rest of us do now to impact events for the better?
In this talk, I share how I believe we can each contribute to the holistic resolution, healing and peaceful co-existence of the region — right where we are.
Watch the talk. Decide for yourself whether it’s something worth sharing with the people in your life who are trying to make sense of where things stand.
If you want another voice on this same terrain — not theory, but someone who actually did the work — in 2004 I had the honor to interview Sister Chân Không, Thich Nhat Hanh’s closest collaborator and the woman who helped him not only build Plum Village but his worldwide following. She told us about bringing Israelis and Palestinians together there, years before any of this, and what it took to get them to sit and listen to each other. It was profound.
“I have experience with recent work to reconcile Palestinian and Jewish Israelis in Plum Village. At the beginning, they hate the Israeli soldiers and say no way, killer is killer, violence will be answered by violence, no way to forgive them. But after many days of practice… they feel calmer. At the fifth day, I listened to the Palestinians with all their tragedy, and I listened to the Jewish Israeli on their tragedy. I arranged so both of you will sit together and tell your story — without judging, without condemning.”
You can hear the full conversation here.
