3 Steps to Build Peace and Create Meaningful Change | Georgette Bennet | TED

Summary

In a remarkable initiative, the speaker facilitated secret meetings between Syrian refugees and Israeli aid workers to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Despite historical enmity, they devised a plan to channel aid through Israel. The speaker shares a three-step process for effecting change in the face of conflict, drawing on personal experiences and successful interventions in Syria, establishing the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, and delivering millions in aid. The talk is a call to action, urging individuals to find their entry point and contribute positively to global issues.

Takeaways

• 🌐 The speaker facilitated secret meetings between Syrian and Israeli civilians to provide aid to Syria during a severe humanitarian crisis.
• 🕊 Despite being sworn enemies, Syrians and Israelis collaborated to find a way to deliver aid through Israel into Syria.
• 🔍 The speaker introduced a three-step process for addressing conflicts and crises: find an entry point, identify a gap, and find something doable to fill that gap.
• 📚 The speaker's personal background as a child refugee and the suffering of their family during the Holocaust influenced their motivation to help Syrians.
• 🛑 The southwest part of Syria was identified as a gap due to its inaccessibility surrounded by regime forces, which could be addressed through the Israeli border.
• 🏥 The Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, initiated by the speaker, has grown to over 100 partner organizations focused on aiding Syria.
• 🚢 Operation Good Neighbor was launched by the Israeli government, officially opening the border for international humanitarian aid to be sent into Syria.
• 💰 Over $120 million in aid was delivered to 1.3 million people in the region, supporting medical facilities, a bakery, and providing essential supplies.
• 📈 The speaker expanded the aid delivery to other parts of Syria, resulting in nearly $245 million in aid delivered to over two and a half million war victims.
• 🛠 The speaker applied their formula for change in various settings, including establishing the first sex crimes unit in the NYPD and promoting religious diversity in the workplace.
• 📖 The speaker was inspired by the biblical verse Leviticus 19:16, which emphasizes the responsibility to act and not stand idly by in the face of injustice.

Q & A

What was the purpose of the secret meetings held in various European capitals?

The purpose of the secret meetings was to figure out how to get aid to the Syrian people who were enduring a severe humanitarian crisis.

How did the speaker describe the relationship between Syrians and Israelis before these meetings?

The speaker described Syrians and Israelis as sworn enemies who have technically been in a state of war since 1948.

What was the speaker's three-step process for addressing conflicts and humanitarian crises?

The three-step process includes finding an entry point, identifying a gap, and finding something doable to fill that gap.

How did the speaker's personal background influence their motivation to help Syrian refugees?

The speaker's parents were Holocaust survivors, and they themselves were stateless refugees, which made the Syrian crisis feel very personal and motivated them to help.

What was the 'entry point' the speaker used to mobilize help for Syria?

The speaker's entry point was mobilizing a Jewish response, which later scaled up to the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

What was the 'gap' identified in the southwest part of Syria?

The gap was the difficulty in accessing the southwest part of Syria due to it being surrounded by regime forces.

How did the Israeli border with Syria provide a solution to the identified gap?

The Israeli border with Syria allowed for the possibility of getting aid into southwest Syria from the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

What was 'Operation Good Neighbor' launched by the Israeli government?

Operation Good Neighbor was an official government policy to open the border for the facilitation and delivery of international humanitarian aid into Syria.

How much aid was delivered through Operation Good Neighbor and its subsequent expansion?

Through Operation Good Neighbor and its expansion, nearly 245 million dollars in aid was delivered.

What other settings has the speaker applied their three-step process to, besides the Syrian crisis?

The speaker has applied their three-step process to settings such as crime prevention in the New York City Police Department and promoting religious diversity in the workplace through the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.

What biblical verse did the speaker mention as a driving force behind their actions?

The speaker mentioned Leviticus 19:16, 'Thou shalt not stand idly by, while the blood of your neighbor cries out from the earth,' as a driving force.

Outlines

00:00

🕊️ Bridging Divides for Humanitarian Aid

The speaker recounts the unlikely collaboration between Syrian refugees, Israeli aid workers, and an American Jew to address the dire humanitarian crisis in Syria since 2015. Despite historical enmity and an ongoing state of war, they convened secret meetings across Europe to strategize aid delivery. The speaker introduces a three-step process used to navigate complex conflicts: finding an entry point, identifying a gap, and executing a doable action to fill it. This approach was applied to the Syrian crisis, leveraging Israel's geographical advantage to deliver aid to hard-to-reach areas, ultimately supporting millions of war victims.

05:04

🌐 Lobbying for Aid: The Path to Operation Good Neighbor

This paragraph details the advocacy efforts to use Israel as a conduit for international humanitarian aid to Syria. The speaker and their team lobbied various international parliaments and governmental bodies, initially facing rejection. However, a turning point came with Israel's launch of 'Operation Good Neighbor' in September 2016, which officially opened the border for aid. This enabled the delivery of substantial aid, including medical supplies and essentials, to over a million people in Syria. Despite challenges and setbacks, the initiative expanded, delivering nearly 245 million dollars in aid and significantly impacting the lives of over two and a half million war victims.

10:08

📜 Inspiration and Action: A Call to Duty

The speaker concludes with a personal reflection inspired by a biblical verse, Leviticus 19:16, which resonated with their sense of duty amidst the Syrian crisis. The verse, interpreted as a call to not remain idle in the face of suffering, motivated the speaker to take action. They extend this call to the audience, encouraging them to find ways to make a difference, emphasizing that one does not need to be in a war zone to effect positive change.

Keywords

💡Syrian refugee

A Syrian refugee refers to an individual who has been forced to leave their country of Syria due to war, persecution, or natural disaster. In the video, the term is used to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Syria and the efforts to provide aid to these individuals. The speaker's personal connection to the plight of refugees is established through their family's history as Holocaust survivors and stateless refugees.

💡Israeli aid worker

An Israeli aid worker is someone from Israel who is involved in providing humanitarian assistance. In the context of the video, this term is part of the diverse group that came together to address the Syrian crisis. It signifies the unexpected collaboration between typically opposing parties to achieve a common humanitarian goal.

💡Humanitarian crisis

A humanitarian crisis is a situation that exists when people's basic rights to life, health, and well-being are threatened. The video discusses the severe humanitarian crisis in Syria since World War II, emphasizing the scale of suffering and the need for international aid.

💡Entry point

In the video, 'entry point' is a strategy term used to describe the starting point or initial action taken to address a complex issue. The speaker uses their personal connection to the Syrian refugee crisis as their entry point, leading to the establishment of the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

💡Gap

A gap in this context refers to an area where there is a lack of resources, attention, or solutions. The video mentions identifying a gap as the second step in the speaker's three-step process for addressing conflicts and crises. An example from the script is the difficulty of accessing southwest Syria, which was surrounded by regime forces.

💡Doable

'Doable' is used to describe an action or solution that is feasible or capable of being done. In the video, the speaker emphasizes finding something doable to fill the identified gaps, such as using the Israeli border as a means to deliver aid to Syria.

💡Operation Good Neighbor

Operation Good Neighbor is a policy launched by the Israeli government in September 2016, as mentioned in the video. It was an official initiative to open the border to facilitate the delivery of international humanitarian aid into Syria, demonstrating a practical and tangible outcome of the collaborative efforts discussed.

💡Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees

The Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees is an organization mentioned in the video that was founded by the speaker. It represents the interreligious response in the US focused on providing aid to Syrian refugees, illustrating the power of unity across different faiths for a humanitarian cause.

💡Stateless refugees

Stateless refugees are individuals who are not recognized as citizens by any country. The term is used in the video to describe the speaker's family's situation after fleeing from the Holocaust, drawing a parallel to the current stateless condition of many Syrian refugees.

💡Leviticus 19:16

Leviticus 19:16 is a biblical verse cited in the video that commands not to stand idly by while one's neighbor suffers. It is used to underscore the speaker's motivation to act and make a difference in the face of the Syrian crisis, reflecting a moral and ethical imperative.

💡Change agent

A change agent is someone who initiates, supports, and influences change within an organization or society. In the video, the speaker refers to their role as a change agent, applying their formula for addressing conflicts and crises in various settings, including the establishment of the first sex crimes unit and promoting religious diversity in the workplace.

Highlights

The speaker organized secret meetings with Syrian and Israeli civilians to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

Syrians and Israelis, despite being enemies, collaborated to find a way to deliver aid to Syria.

A three-step process was applied to facilitate aid delivery: find an entry point, identify a gap, and find something doable to fill that gap.

The speaker's personal connection to the Syrian crisis was deeply influenced by their family's Holocaust experience.

The Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees was established with over 100 partner organizations.

Aid delivery to southwest Syria was facilitated through the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

Operation Good Neighbor was launched by the Israeli government to officially open the border for international aid to Syria.

Aid was delivered to 1.3 million people in Syria, amounting to 120 million dollars.

The aid supported medical facilities, a bakery, and provided essentials like water, fuel, electricity, and medical equipment.

The speaker's early career involved crime prevention and the establishment of the first sex crimes unit in the United States.

The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding was founded to address the gap in accommodating religious beliefs in the workplace.

The speaker's motivation was inspired by the biblical verse Leviticus 19:16, emphasizing the responsibility to act against injustice.

The speaker emphasizes that one does not need to be in a war zone to make a difference, as demonstrated by their various initiatives.

The speaker's formula for change has been applied in various settings, including addressing workplace diversity and religious accommodation.

The total aid delivered to Syria through these efforts amounted to nearly 245 million dollars.

The speaker's work has helped more than two and a half million war victims in Syria.

Transcripts

What happens when a Syrian refugee,

an Israeli aid worker

and an American Jew walk into a room?

(Laughter)

No, this is not the start of a really bad joke, I promise.

This actually happened to me.

Starting in 2015,

I found myself holding a series of secret meetings

in various European capitals

with a small group of Syrian and Israeli civilians.

And we were there to try and figure out how we can get aid to the Syrian people

who were enduring the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

But how did we end up at this table together?

After all, Syrians and Israelis are sworn enemies,

and technically they've been in a state of war since 1948.

Yet here we were, literally and figuratively,

trying to find a way in.

And here is the punchline of that bad joke I promised not to tell.

We found it.

We figured out a way to get aid into Syria through Israel.

Now how did we do that?

I applied a three-step process

that I've used in a bunch of other settings,

and I'm hoping that those three steps will be useful to any of you

who want to do some good

in the face of any of the myriad overwhelming conflicts

that we're facing today, including Ukraine.

So what are my three steps?

Find an entry point,

identify a gap,

and then find something doable with which to fill that gap.

It sounds pretty simple, right?

So let me walk you through it.

When I read a report on the Syrian war,

it hit me very hard and it felt very personal.

I was stunned by the scale of the misery,

and it echoed the suffering of my own family during the Holocaust.

My parents survived concentration camps in Poland and in Hungary,

and after the war, we had to flee

and we arrived in the US as stateless refugees.

So when I saw the destruction of Aleppo,

I was put in mind of Budapest,

the city of my birth,

the bombed out city of my birth.

And when I read about starvation by siege in Syria,

I remembered my own mother

who lost a pregnancy lugging a sack of rotten potatoes home

because there was nothing else to eat.

And when I saw the eviscerated and emaciated corpses of Syrians

who had been tortured in Damascus prisons,

I also saw the walking skeletons of Auschwitz,

Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen,

where so many of my own family members literally went up in smoke.

And when I saw Syrian refugees flooding across borders,

I also recalled my own displacement as a refugee child.

So as one person ...

As one person, what can you do next?

When you're confronted with something that you know needs to be changed,

you have to find an entry point.

For me, that was mobilizing a Jewish response

and then scaling that up to the interreligious response in the US,

focused exclusively on Syria.

It's called the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

And today, we have more than 100 partner organizations.

(Applause)

I saw an opportunity to build bridges

while also saving lives.

And here’s how.

The southwest part of Syria was very difficult to access

because it was surrounded by regime forces.

That was a gap.

Israel shares a border with that part of Syria.

And guess what?

It's easy to get aid into southwest Syria

from the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

That gave us something doable with which to fill that gap.

All we needed was the how.

And that's why my colleagues and I found ourselves

in clandestine meetings all over Europe.

We were making the case

that Israel should be used as a staging area

for the outbound delivery of international humanitarian aid.

We lobbied the UK Parliament, the EU Parliament,

the Canadian Parliament.

We banged on doors in Congress.

We met with every level of government in Israel.

And ...

We got nowhere.

But then it happened.

In September 2016,

the Israeli government launched Operation Good Neighbor.

It was now official government policy to open the border

so that aid from other countries could be facilitated

and sent in to Syria.

So soon after,

once we were able to get Operation Good Neighbor going,

soon after, enormous cargo containers of aid --

many of them bearing goods from Syrian organizations --

were being unloaded in Israeli ports

by Israeli soldiers,

sent over to the Golan Heights

and from there, our partners on the ground in Syria

would pick up the aid and distribute it to an area

with a population of 1.3 million people.

We delivered 120 million dollars of aid this way.

We supported three medical facilities,

a bakery that produced 15,000 pitas a day.

The Israelis provided water, fuel, electricity.

We shipped medical equipment, ambulances,

food, clothing, sanitary kits, medicine,

whatever else was needed.

And by working through local councils,

we were able to help stabilize an entire region.

For two years, this was the only part of Syria that worked.

But then, because of an incursion by the regime and its allies,

that area was completely taken over and destroyed.

But that did not stop us.

We expanded our deliveries to other hard-to-reach parts of Syria.

Today we have delivered

nearly 245 million dollars in aid.

(Applause)

It wasn't easy

and it wasn't without hiccups.

But by working with these unlikely partnerships,

we were able to help

more than two and a half million war victims and still counting.

(Applause)

Now, here's the great news.

You don't have to go to a war zone to do this.

I've applied my formula in a bunch of other settings.

So let me share a couple of quick stories with you.

Early in my career, 1971, to be exact,

I was living a life of crime.

Crime prevention, that is.

(Laughter)

I was also deeply immersed in the women's movement.

So where could I make a difference?

My entry point was the New York City Police Department.

Victims of sexual assault were being very badly treated.

That was a gap.

The doable way to fill that gap

was to set up the first sex crimes unit in the country.

Well, today we've got "Law and Order: SVU" to tell us how it's done.

In fact, they've been telling us how it's done for the past 23 seasons.

But back then, back then, this was a new idea.

I've done the same thing with large corporations.

When the new millennium was approaching,

the human resources field was laser-focused on workplace 2000,

with diversity being a key goal.

But religion was very rarely looked at as an aspect of workplace diversity.

Yet if you looked at the changing demographics,

it was obvious that this was going to be a big issue.

So that was a gap.

Another organization I founded,

the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding,

found a doable way to fill that gap

by guiding major corporations

in accommodating religious beliefs in the workplace.

Well, it's been a long road to Syria

from my early forays as a professional change agent.

But when I saw the Syrian tragedy unfold,

a biblical verse, Leviticus 19:16,

kept reverberating in my brain.

"Thou shalt not stand idly by

while the blood of your neighbor cries out from the earth."

Well, that's why I got to work.

I hope you will, too.

Thank you.

(Applause)