As a permanent member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, he has spent many hours using music to promote greater understanding between young Arabs and Israelis.
During our 2011 symposium in Spain, the members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (the orchestra founded by Said and me in 1999) had animated discussions with academics, publicists and activists from Israel, Lebanon and Egypt.
Turkish and Middle Eastern food is all the rage in Bucharest right now and one of the liveliest spaces to sample enormous kebabs and plates of hummus and baba ganoush is Divan, where waiters in traditional Ottoman garb dazzle the crowds.