{"id":11,"date":"2010-02-22T14:23:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T14:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2018-01-26T14:49:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T14:49:36","slug":"extending-our-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/extending-our-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Extending Our Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” <\/span>
\n\u2013 US President Barack Obama, Cairo 2009<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like many people around the world, I was inspired by President Obama’s landmark speech in Cairo, Egypt. That speech marked the beginning of a long-overdue dialogue between the United States and the people of the Arab and Muslim world, based on mutual respect and shared values.<\/p>\n

But while the US government was the catalyst for this new spirit of goodwill, it is in no way the sole means to make it a reality. Indeed, I have long believed that the private sector–the spheres of everyday life such as culture, education, sports, etc–has the power to inspire a new level of trust and understanding beyond that of governments. With the Open Hands Initiative, I am putting my inspiration into action.<\/p>\n

Open Hands is not an aid organization, nor is it an organization that aims to extol the virtues of US values. Those are one way streets. Rather, in all of our activities we seek to understand the communities in which we enter, and help them understand us. We emphasize mutual respect and dialogue. We believe that each and every country has much to teach and learn from one another. We take what is best about our societies and share them. In so doing, we enrich each other, deepen our interdependence and respect, and build a reservoir of goodwill that can withstand even the most fundamental policy differences.<\/p>\n

As Open Hands begins launching its activities in 2010, we look forward to sharing with you more about our experiences and on-the-ground results in our endeavors.<\/p>\n

We encourage any and all comments, contributions, and feedback from you.<\/p>\n

It is only through dialogue and understanding with you and others can we work to improve the world around us, together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” \u2013 US President Barack Obama, Cairo 2009 Like many people around the world, I was inspired by President Obama’s landmark speech in Cairo, Egypt. That speech marked the beginning of a long-overdue dialogue between the United States and the people of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,25],"tags":[29,19],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chairmans_remarks","category-jay-t-snyder","tag-cultural-diplomacy","tag-diplomacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}