Name: MPW Summit 2023: Live from Israel
Uploaded: 2023-10-10
Duration: 11 min 41 s
Description: Efrat Duvdevani, Director General, Peres Center for Peace and Innovation (appearing virtually) Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, FORTUNE

Efrat Duvdevani, Director General, Peres Center for Peace and Innovation (appearing virtually) Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Live from Israel

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Injuries, kidnappings and trauma that's going to have long lasting effects and this new war will have impacts that go beyond the borders of Israel and even the Middle East and will likely have ramifications globally potentially for years to come. We want to get a check on what's happening on the ground right now and to talk about what the attacks mean for Israel, for the region and for the world. Ela Devani is the Director General of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation flat began her public service with the late Prime Minister Yak Rabin, then continued her career working alongside President Shimon Peres in various governmental positions over the past 22 years. She joins us now from inside Israel for a conversation with Fortune Ceo Alan Murray Efrat. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So, so tell us first, how are you, how are your employees, your family are, are I I see their missiles still flying into Israel? Are you in a safe place? Do you feel safe? So right now I'm sitting here in the, in my house and nothing is actually safe. We've had two sirens today and we had to run to the shelter with all of the Children and the dogs trembling and everybody in. Um, and I'm considered actually lucky because we're living in the center of Israel, but in the southern part of Israel, which is only an hour from my house live, my parents in Ashkelon and they have thousands of missiles and rockets on their house. Their house is almost torn apart. They're 85 year old people and they will not leave their house. So imagine how torn we feel. And maybe I'll give you a bit of what we're going through here in Israel on Saturday morning. I, I woke up at 6 36 45 and started hearing beep, beeps from my phone and, you know, it was like waking up from a nightmare, a nightmare that we couldn't even imagine how bad it's going to be. We have almost 3000 people injured. Over 1000 people murdered some of them beheaded Children and elderly people, women, Children. We have more than 150 kidnapped over to Gaza and we see horrific pictures of women walking, being dragged around in the streets of Gaza with bloody pants, terrible things that you can't even imagine. And we're trying to work it out and this is what we're doing now in Israel. Yeah. I'm sorry, what are you doing? What can you do at the, uh, uh, Paris Center to help. So let me tell you before the Pair Center, I'll tell you a bit about the, what we're doing here in the Israeli society. So, you know, Israeli society is sometimes torn apart by politics and everything. But this is a time where we solidarity is 100%. You can see a Children grown ups working shoulder to shoulder, packing up packages and helping victims and helping the soldiers sending over parcels from all over as well. Supermarkets are empty because we bought everything and sent them over to, to the victims and to the soldiers and we're trying to do everything that we can. And at the Pair Center, we're actually looking not at the, um, at the here and now we're looking at the day after a day, a day after the war. And, you know, Shimon Peres was our founder and he always told us to dream big and we're trying to dream big. So we're thinking of plans to rehabilitate the society which has been torn apart, shredded, vanished. Some villages are actually non-existent anymore and we're working on how to, to make things, you know, make, make things into a better world for us here. Uh The, the, the Prime Minister said that the country should prepare for a long war. You're working for what has to happen after the war. When do you think that's going to be so things can be so dynamic here uh, in this region. Um We're now we now have a Southern, uh you know, a Southern war, but we also have signs of having a northern war with Lebanon and Syria. And we know that Iran is standing behind all of these atrocities. Uh It's been said very clearly, I can tell you that one of the most encouraging things for us is to have a US support. Uh It's one of the, I can tell you that people in Israel walk around feeling so much more um stronger and better because we know that the US is on our side. And I really actually encourage the women here in the audience uh to try and reach out and help us, you know, with every representative that they have because we know that it's going, it may be a very long war. We hope not, but it may be a very long war and we're hoping not. What, what can the women in this room do to help? So I, I would, I would really suggest and to have all of the women who can influence their representatives in the US government and approach and let them have, let them show the support for Israel, the need for Israel to show that it's, you know, if us is its best friend and this is the only way that I think we can prevail because we are here in the darkness trying to hold this for against the terrible things around us. I can tell you that um I don't want to seem so, you know, not talk all the time about darkness because my boss for 22 years was Shimon Peres, a man of a great vision and one of the sentence that he said many times and I am, you know, saying it to myself many times these last three days, he would always say that optimists and pessimists die the same way. They only live a different life And we definitely want to live the life of an optimist. So even in times of the greatest nightmare and crisis, we have, we try to stay optimist and look at the way that we can pay for ourselves. And what would Shimon peres' advice be right now if he were here? I think the first thing he would do was to, um, you know, he considered the US Israel, Israel's best ally. I think that's what he would do is have this pact with the US working together trying to solve this terrible, terrible problem. And he would also form a pact with the European Union, of course, and with all other neighbors that Israel has, but this is not only an Israeli problem, this is definitely a world problem because we understand clearly that Hamas is like Isis, now we're dealing with this. And if we don't deal with this and if we don't finish this problem, it's going to spread all over the world. Is it your, your center is dedicated to peace. Is it possible to keep Iran out of this, out of this fight? Iran is in this fight because Iran was behind everything and it's spoken very loud and clear. Uh But the last thing we need here in this region is to have uh you know, all hell broke loose. Uh And we would do everything that we can to prevent it. And in any means we can, you know, a means of and you know, means that you can talk about sequence means that you cannot talk about. We'll do everything we can shoulder to shoulder and together with the US because this is not what I told you before. It is not an integrate problem. It's a worldwide problem that we have to deal with or else it will knock on everybody's no door. Yeah, you talked about 100% solidarity among the people that you're working with. But of course, before the attacks, there was anything but 100% solidarity in Israel. We were seeing significant divisions over government policy. Has that disappeared? Is there a clear vision on how to move forward here or are there going to be widespread disagreements? So, uh in terms of, uh in terms of Israel public, you can see people shoulder to shoulder, working together and it doesn't matter if you have, you know, different political visions or everything you could have been torn apart before. But now we're packing things together, hugging people, wiping away their tears. We're doing it together. The government is now trying to form a uni a unified government. Uh Bibi Netanyahu is trying to bring into the government. Uh Mr Guns who was before and other members of other members say that he's now trying to bring inside his coalition and make it into a big coalition. And I totally agree with it. It is such a trauma, such a we have never ever had anything like this and it is something that needs coalition that gives the force of everybody. I want to tell you another thing, our center is uh works for peace, but also for innovation. And we believe that innovation can make the world a better place. We can bring, we believe that through innovation, you can bring clean air and clean water, you can tackle world hunger, you can bring medical aid to people in dire straits. And you know, sometimes I find that there's a similar DNA between people are trying to make this world innovative and people who are trying to make this world a better place and bring peace. In both cases, you have the same DNA. In both cases, you have to think what we call out of the box. Be creative, be optimistic. Understand that you fall on your eye, but you always always have to dream big. So this is something that we're doing here and this is the word that you know, I want to have you stay with. Yeah, that's a great message for all of us to think big and recognize that innovation can be a road to peace. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and please be safe. Thank you so much.