So, Hillary, Netanyahu Was Right?

On December 17, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented the 12th annual Award for Corporate Excellence to Denimatrix, Cisco and Mars, Inc. The Award recognizes the important role U.S. businesses play abroad as good corporate citizens.

And who received it?

That's U.S. Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham, right, U.S. Consul General to Israel Daniel Rubinstein, left, and Cisco Senior Manager Zika Abzuk, center, who are celebrating the Award at a Jerusalem event in Israel, December 17, 2010.

Why was Cisco one of the three winners?

Here's Mrs. Clinton explaining:

Now, our final ACE Award winner has a vision of corporate responsibility that shows how business can address our most difficult challenges. Our Embassy in Tel Aviv and our Consulate in Jerusalem have jointly nominated Cisco Systems. At a time when many companies colored the West Bank red on their maps as an economic no-go zone, Cisco saw an opportunity.

It invested $10 million in Palestinian programmers, and by including both Palestinians and Israelis on the same programming teams, Cisco has taken people and economies that are too often kept apart and reconnected them in person and in cyberspace. Today, Cisco’s leadership has inspired other American and Israeli high tech companies to recognize that the West Bank is open for business, and its youth programs teach Palestinian children English and computer skills. We are very committed in the United States Government to the economic development of the Palestinian people, so it is my particular privilege to ask Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers to accept this ACE Award for your efforts to create jobs, improve lives, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace.

Chamber, in his response, said:

...I want to thank especially my team, Tae Yoo, Georgia Keekee – Zeka, I know you’re there with the entire team in Israel – for the courage that you’ve had to really bring it together...About three years ago, I got a phone call from somebody very close to the State Department. They said, “John, you need to come to Palestine.” I said, “Do you understand there’s a lot of conflict going on there?” And she said, “This is the right move for you to make.” So I went in, over the objections of a lot of colleagues, over hesitation, met with President Abbas, and he outlined a dream for what he would like to see occur. President Peres in Israel outlined the same dream...we made a commitment of $10 million when it was a red zone, where most people would have said that’s the last thing you want to do...We brought together communities that brought together the Jewish world, the Arab world, the Christian world and Nazareth – Illit Nazareth – in an open environment to be able to bring services to the population. We took our network academies to train young people to get jobs in the future, took it throughout Palestine, throughout Israel, 60,000 students now in the Middle East on these network academy programs. Together, we can change the world. USAID has been a great partner throughout. And so when you have these aspirations and dreams, it’s not just the right thing to do, as my peers said earlier; it is good for business.

So, is not Netanyahu's idea correct?

Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu told the closing plenary of the United Jewish Communities General Assembly Wednesday that the peace process needs to focus on economic issues and not political disagreements.
Instead of talking about contentious issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the first step to a lasting peace needs to be the fostering of the Palestinians' economic situation, he said.

You tell me.

Better, tell Hillary.


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