A True Peace Builder

Daniel Lubetzky describes himself as a serial social entrepreneur known for integrating social objectives with sustainable market-driven forces into new business models.

In English for the rest of us, it means he develops and invests in businesses that not only are profitable but also serve a greater good.  As a senior, at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, Mr. Lubetzky wrote his 268-page thesis, “The Influence of Economic Factors in Resolving the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”  He later established his company PeaceWorks.

PeaceWorks Holdings LLC has been a business that pursues both profit and peace. We pursue profit through our sales of healthful food products that are produced by neighbors on opposing sides of political or armed conflicts, whose cooperative business ventures we facilitate. We pursue peace through the support of our PeaceWorks Foundation and the One Voice Movement. We donate 5 percent of all profits to empower the moderates in the Middle East who want a peaceful end to the war through a two-state solution.

PeaceWorks imports creative healthy foods that use only the freshest ingredients. The result is delicious, all-natural products. PeaceWorks currently does business with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Turks, Indonesians, Sri Lankans and Australians.

The complete opposite of boycott activity.  PeaceWorks' flagship line Meditalia is sold at the Park Slope Food Coop.  Daniel Lubetzky weighs in with his thoughts on the BDS Movement:

PeaceWorks’ products, [are] made through cooperative ventures among neighbors striving to coexist, including Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, Turks, and until recently, Egyptians. As the founder of PeaceWorks and the OneVoice Movement, I have noticed not just the silliness of those extremist efforts by BDS, but more so, the negative impact these fights have on the very Palestinian farmers these people purport to support. Never mind that Palestinian farmers have never heard of these BDS people, who out of the comfort of their armchairs in Berkeley, can afford to advocate extremist positions. What has happened over the last few years is that anti-Israel activists have begotten anti-Palestinian activists and both of these negative groups, rather than thinking how to strengthen moderates seeking peace on both sides and join forces to achieve a solution, have instead attacked one another publicly and sought to boycott each other’s products at grocery stores across the USA.