Martin Luther King, Jr.'s peaceful, determined struggle for social justice, and Sargent Shriver, who launched the Peace Corps, were early heroes. A career of public service was the ultimate aspiration.

Everyone I knew, including my new friends in Jordan, expressed horror at the realities of the Holocaust. But they resented, as I was growing to, how Arabs were cast as the aggressors in the dispute between Israel and the Arab countries, when it was their land that had been seized to resolve a European political problem.

All depend upon the engagement of as many people as possible on all levels, from civil society to national leaders, to advocate for the kind of national and international commitments, legislation, and public/ private partnerships that can make the difference.

The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought. Nuclear capability must be reduced to zero, globally, permanently. There is no other option.

The killing of innocent people is a sin.

I have been a long-time advocate for a just Arab-Israeli peace and for Palestinian refugees. Today, as you are aware, Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan and Iraq are being overwhelmed by those fleeing the conflict in Syria, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Many are severely tortured - abused women and their traumatized children whose husbands, fathers, and brothers have been killed or permanently disabled.

Today, there is no excuse for any one of us to sit back and go, "Ugh! There's nothing I can do about it."Because there is always something that can be done.