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The Missing Ingredient in Every Peace Deal | Hiba Qasas | TED
The Missing Ingredient in Every Peace Deal | Hiba Qasas | TED
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Sous-titres (247)
0:04
I have spent the last four decades in the reality of conflict.
0:09
As a child,
0:10
as a mother and as a professional.
0:14
And I'm not the exception.
0:17
1 in 4 people today are living the reality of conflict.
0:22
We are living in an era
0:24
where war and violence are becoming the reflex --
0:27
the choice -- not the last resort.
0:31
What we've been witnessing with Iran is just the most visible example,
0:37
because it’s been sending shockwaves well beyond its borders:
0:42
in energy prices, in trade routes disruption
0:46
and in political polarization.
0:49
And sadly, even when wars end and when agreements are signed,
0:52
violence often returns within five years.
0:56
Over the course of my international career with the United Nations,
1:01
I noticed something that should not be controversial, but still is.
1:06
We have overly bureaucratized peace.
1:09
We've built an entire industry around it,
1:12
with the familiar Western liberal model and a familiar toolbox:
1:16
bring in the peacebuilders and mediators,
1:18
launch dialogues, push for elections,
1:20
train the police,
1:21
launch stabilization programs,
1:25
add grassroots, women,
1:27
maybe sprinkle some youth so you can tick an inclusion box,
1:30
write reports and repeat.
1:34
And don’t get me wrong, this work is important.
1:37
But too often we mistake process for progress.
1:41
And too often, we do not build enough political legitimacy,
1:44
enough aligned self-interest,
1:47
enough public backing to make peace hold.
1:51
(Applause)
1:55
We have seen the limitations of this.
1:57
In the Middle East,
1:58
tens of millions of people are living the unfinished business of wars,
2:02
of failed political settlements,
2:04
of occupation.
2:06
Or take Afghanistan:
2:08
20 years of vast intervention and investment,
2:12
and the story ended exactly where it began --
2:15
Taliban to Taliban.
2:19
So why does peace break down
2:21
when we do everything we think we're supposed to do?
2:25
The answer I kept coming back to was not ideology --
2:29
it was power, politics and incentives.
2:32
And for the broader public, it was legitimacy and trust.
2:37
And legitimacy is a felt experience --
2:40
in good governance, whether you trust your police force,
2:44
whether your children can walk to school safely,
2:47
whether your dignity is preserved.
2:50
Without these, a peace agreement becomes a lid on a boiling pot.
2:54
It looks calm until the pressure finds the weakest point --
2:57
then it erupts.
2:59
I kept seeing this again and again and again.
3:01
So I got fed up.
3:04
With the bureaucracy,
3:05
with the system,
3:07
with its toolbox.
3:09
And I founded Principles for Peace Foundation
3:13
to help those in the hot seat,
3:14
to help peacemakers build more legitimate and durable peace.
3:18
We drew on lessons from dozens of countries
3:20
to understand what lies beneath the success and failure
3:23
of peace processes,
3:25
and developed principles and tools and methodologies
3:29
and data and simulations
3:31
and AI support and political dialogue infrastructures
3:35
to help those who are trying to make peace hold.
3:38
Because this is the challenge of our time.
3:41
How do you build peace?
3:42
How do you cultivate legitimacy in a world where might is right again,
3:47
where power politics is back and transactionalism is in fashion?
3:53
My answer is not by countering power with idealism,
3:58
but with principled pragmatism.
4:00
Because principled pragmatism is self-interest with a spine.
4:07
I recently became a proud Swiss,
4:10
but I was born and raised a proud Palestinian.
4:14
So people often expect me to start with victimhood,
4:18
to start with moral argument, to start with pain.
4:21
My pain, their pain, everybody's pain.
4:26
But I learned something early that I wish was not true.
4:30
When identities are shaped by loss,
4:33
by violence, by victimhood,
4:36
othering becomes normal.
4:39
Dehumanizing the other side becomes reflex.
4:43
Groupthink becomes shelter,
4:46
and violence becomes currency.
4:49
Empathy for the other side is rarely the entry point.
4:53
When I was 19,
4:56
I was invited to the kind of dialogue program
4:58
the world loves to celebrate.
5:00
It's the perfect grassroots project.
5:04
You bring in a few young Israelis and Palestinians.
5:07
You put them somewhere nice -- maybe in a retreat location in Europe.
5:11
You encourage them to pour their hearts out.
5:13
You encourage sharing.
5:15
You encourage empathy. You encourage hugs.
5:18
And you bring out that hummus.
5:20
(Laughter)
5:24
And I hated it.
5:26
Not because I do not believe in empathy --
5:28
and by the way, I love hummus.
5:30
(Laughter)
5:32
But because when I went home,
5:34
the reality stayed hard, complicated, unsafe,
5:36
and I couldn't do anything about it.
5:38
And a few months later,
5:40
the Second Intifada started
5:42
and those we were sharing with were back in uniforms,
5:45
fighting in our own towns.
5:48
I lost friends.
5:51
My house was destroyed,
5:53
and I lost hope.
5:56
And for nearly two decades,
5:57
I dedicated my career to working with people affected by conflict,
6:02
but I avoided working on my own.
6:04
It was just too painful.
6:08
Then October 7 happened, and the war in Gaza expanded.
6:11
And I realized, if I truly believe in my work,
6:15
I have to bring in Israelis and Palestinians
6:20
to the hardest room in my life.
6:23
So that's what I did.
6:25
Come into that room with me.
6:28
It’s weeks after October 7:
6:31
The war is raging.
6:33
Loss and trauma are overwhelming.
6:36
The door closes and 76 people sit down,
6:40
carrying decades of grievances and recent loss.
6:46
No one trusts anyone.
6:47
Not the room, not the process,
6:49
not each other, not me.
6:51
They're Israeli and Palestinian leaders,
6:54
but they're not the usual suspects.
6:55
They're security leaders, business leaders,
6:58
investors, political figures,
7:00
journalists [and] serious operators.
7:04
And outside that room,
7:06
the public narrative is collapsing so fast --
7:08
it's so hard, it's so polarized.
7:11
In a room like that, if you start with the word peace,
7:14
you get laughed out of the building.
7:18
So I named the tension plainly
7:19
because anything softer would be dishonest.
7:23
"We are here out of urgency
7:26
and responsibility for our own people.
7:30
Because the status quo neither delivered security to the Israelis,
7:34
nor dignity nor an end to the occupation for the Palestinians.
7:38
And we are at an inflection point.
7:41
We either break this cycle
7:43
or condemn both our people to a perpetual state of loss,
7:47
of trauma, of insecurity of occupation."
7:51
We agreed not to dwell on our national and historical narrative --
7:54
there is no common ground to be found in the past.
7:58
Instead, we focused on what you cannot afford to lose:
8:02
security,
8:03
dignity,
8:05
the future you want for your children.
8:08
Because, you see, common ground does not begin with moral agreement --
8:12
it begins with self-interest.
8:14
Everything else comes later.
8:17
So let me tell you what we've done differently,
8:19
because this is where the old peacemaking toolbox often misfires.
8:25
We did not organize this around the grassroots,
8:27
but the grasstops.
8:28
Not the convinced, but the persuadable --
8:30
people with influence on power,
8:32
on politics, on the economy.
8:34
People who know that the status quo is not sustainable,
8:37
but they can do something about it.
8:39
And I introduced a sequence that almost looks too simple
8:42
until you watch it work.
8:44
Self-interest, transaction, recognition and then humanity.
8:50
I called it STIR.
8:52
And I called it STIR on purpose,
8:54
because if you do not stir the room,
8:56
you get positions sitting next to each other forever.
8:59
You can certainly put the chickpeas next to the tahini,
9:02
next to the lemon juice,
9:03
and not get that hummus.
9:04
(Laughter)
9:06
Self-Interest.
9:08
The status quo is not sustainable
9:10
because it neither delivers security to the Israelis
9:12
nor an end to the occupation of the Palestinians.
9:15
Then you seek that common ground -- that transaction --
9:17
a political solution within a regional framework.
9:21
For Palestinians,
9:22
that means an end to the occupation
9:24
and a non-militarized Palestinian state, side by side with Israel.
9:28
For Israelis, that means security
9:30
and a pathway to regional integration,
9:33
rather than isolation.
9:35
Once you find that common ground,
9:38
you can build something
9:40
that is principled and pragmatic.
9:42
You can build a platform for dialogue and for action.
9:45
That became Uniting for a Shared Future Coalition.
9:49
That's our coalition.
9:51
And it grew and it held and it expanded.
9:53
And today it brings more than 550 Israeli and Palestinian leaders --
9:59
realists and possibilists.
10:02
What's very special about this coalition
10:05
is that we work together --
10:07
even in the midst of the war -- to push for a political solution.
10:12
In the months that followed,
10:15
we started to advocate together, from heads of state
10:17
to briefing the UN Security Council with a joint message.
10:20
And I saw Israelis and Palestinians who did not see eye-to-eye
10:24
begin to speak about the future in the same grammar.
10:26
And trust began to grow in our coalition, in our process and in each other.
10:33
I watched Palestinians and Israelis recognize each other's losses.
10:38
They no longer dehumanized the other.
10:41
They no longer relativized pain.
10:43
That's what STIR made possible.
10:46
But let me be clear.
10:48
The reality continues to be brutal.
10:51
Both people are trapped in deep insecurity.
10:56
And Israelis and Palestinians feel existentially threatened.
11:01
And my people, Palestinians,
11:02
continue to live the reality of occupation,
11:05
settler violence, devastation in Gaza
11:07
and the threat of annexation in the West Bank.
11:10
And the whole Middle East is at a crossroads.
11:13
It either stays locked in a perpetual state of confrontation
11:17
and different wars --
11:19
same wars, I dare say, with different names --
11:23
or it moves into a new logic
11:25
of new political security and cooperation framework.
11:29
And stops exporting this whole instability to the rest, to all of us,
11:32
to the rest of us and all of us.
11:35
But I would argue that that can only happen
11:37
if we resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
11:39
because it's the key fault line that continues to fuel radicalization.
11:44
So my lesson is this:
11:47
in a transactional world,
11:50
the antidote to "might is right" is not idealism.
11:55
It is not moralizing.
11:57
It is principled pragmatism.
12:00
It is launching coalitions of the willing
12:03
around enlightened self-interest that can advance peace and security.
12:08
If you want humanity, you have to earn it.
12:12
But start with self-interest --
12:14
self-interest transaction recognition
12:17
and then the return of humanity.
12:20
Wherever conflict rules, STIR that room until humanity rises.
12:24
Thank you.
12:25
(Cheers and applause)
