Plenary Session 1:
My Recipe for a Better Tomorrow
Dan Ariely—Professor at Duke University of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, best known to many from this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
Nothing too exciting in this speech (he shows up later in a more interesting role).
Sir Martin Sorrell—the CEO of WPP which is the world's largest advertising group by revenue.
In one word (and an indefinite article): a bore.
Jimmy Wales—the Founder and President of Wikipedia. And that face that used to appear on the top of your Wikipedia page asking for money.
Throughout the past 5+ years I have used Wikipedia religiously. Half the information I'm getting about these speakers comes from Wikipedia. I was very excited to hear Wales speak throughout the conference. In his first speech, he spoke about the dream of Wikipedia, a non-for-profit that can put the whole of human knowledge at the finger tips of anyone! How revolutionary! Imagine, you don't even need to imagine, just realize that if you hand a laptop device with internet access to the poorest child in Africa (assuming literacy, doesn't even need to be literacy in English) how much knowledge that child is now empowered with. What would be the cost of shipping, buying, and sending all the books that hold that information? Astronomical in comparison to the relative zero-cost of Wikipedia. That is why I gave $5 to Wikipedia.
Shakira—famous singer, and apparently a pretty active advocate for education.
While I think that the planning committee for this event probably just put out a bid to see who they could attract, it was still interesting to see and hear Shakira speak. The most interesting statistic that she threw out was: for every dollar invested in early childhood development programs, it will give back to the state another 17 dollars. Making a great deal of economic sense to invest in early childhood education.
Sarah Silverman—a famous American comedian and actor.
I've never thought of Sarah Silverman as that funny, and always tacked her up as just a stand-up comedian. Surprisingly, as an off the cuff comedian, she was rather hysterical. While the interviewer seemed to be in an entire different world (probably because it seemed like he couldn't actually hear what Sarah Silverman was saying due to stage acoustics), Silverman seemed comfortable and is apparently quite the believer in solar energy. Here's a short montage of the interview:
http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?ID=225981&R=R1
Plenary Session 2:
Nation, Interest and Ethics in the Journey Toward Tomorrow (I guess Israelis are not subscribers to the Oxford comma)
Tony Blair—former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Quartet Representative to the Middle East.
Tony Blair was by far one of my favorite speakers at this entire conference. He spoke so unbelievably eloquently, and he kept me enthralled the entire time. No wonder he was Prime Minister for ten years. He spoke a great deal not only about peace in the Middle East, but also about the world of tomorrow. Most fascinating was Blair's opinions on international relations; he spoke about pragmatism and idealism, explaining how they are not mutually exclusive concepts: "In an interconnected, independent world" national interests can and often do "represent values." This all seemed to go in line with how Blair labeled himself as a "liberal interventionist." Surprisingly (to me), Blair came out with a firm statement that the world must prevent Iran from developing nuclear technology. Blair finished on a note about freedom, calling it "the condition that defines the human spirit."
Bernard-Henri Lévy—a French public intellectual, philosopher, and author.
Spoke strongly about intervention in Libya. That was about as much as I could understand.
Amos Oz—Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist.
Amos Oz is arguably the most well known Israeli writer of all time. He's also a very liberal voice within Israeli politics. Coming into this conference I was very excited to hear Oz speak. I had previously read many of his opinions on Israeli politics, and thought it would be interesting to see not only what he would say at the conference, but also how the audience would react. While his speech was incredibly articulate, engaging, and beautifully written, he was the only speaker, that I saw, to get booed by some audience members. Oz articulated a very realist approach to the conflict, advocating for a "divorce." He said that the solution won't be easy, and no one will be "dancing in the streets" when peace is achieved. He pretty much reiterated the same positions which Obama held in his condemned speech (you can imagine how that went over). Most interestingly was the audiences mixed reaction of silence, boos, and applause when Oz described his vision of the future of Jerusalem, "One day there will be a Palestinian embassy in Israel and vice versa, and they will be walking distance from one another: One in east Jerusalem and one in its west."
Shimon Peres—the President of Israel.
First, be informed that the President of Israel is mostly a figure-head. Peres is an eighty-seven year old man who has been a part of Israeli politics since before its founding. Peres spoke slowly, but intelligently. Most inspiring was his insight into the Israeli past, and his vision of the future. He has a more substance filled speech later.
Plenary Session 3:
Looking Towards Tomorrow: Trends, Challenges and Decisions
Abby Joseph-Cohen—President of Global Markets Institute, Partner and Senior US Investment Strategist at Goldman Sachs.
She comes up later, I'll discuss her then.
Niall Ferguson—Professor at Harvard University, Harvard Business School, and the London School of Economics.
Ferguson gave a pretty sobering opinion on the "Arab Spring." He derided those who belief that the "Arab Spring" can be compared to the "Prague Spring," stating that it occurred for fundamentally different reasons. He warned that we may see a doubling down on the efforts to delegitimize Israel by countries affected by the "Arab Spring," and the world should be much more cautious in their embracement.
Amos Yadlin—a former General in the Israeli Air Force, and the former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate.
Yadlin seemed to have a drastically different opinion on the "Arab Spring." Believing that Israel shares the same values the protestors are fighting for and exclaiming that "the long-term changes in the Arab world are a great opportunity for Israel… The values that they fought over in Tahrir Square are our values. The fact that Arabs are attacking their own regimes and not Israel is historic."
Jonathan Sacks—Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
At first I didn't expect this to be particularly thrilling. However, Sacks offered up quite an exploration of what he has declared the "new anti-Semitism." Sacks describes this new anti-Semitisim as a "virus," saying it is different from anti-Semitism of the past, it's a virus that has adapted to the new world. It's no longer aimed at Jews as individuals, but rather at the nation of the Jews: Israel. He claimed that it unites two radically different forces, Islamic extremists and NGO human rights groups, with the same mission of delegitimizing Israel.
Tzipi Livni—leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset, and the current Israeli Opposition Leader.
For a long time I have read statements, and heard about Tzipi Livni, so I was ecstatic to finally hear her speak. It was a let down. She chose to speak in Hebrew (so that the Israeli public could hear her words). Her speech was mainly focused on attacking Netanyahu (the current Prime Minister of Israel), and didn't offer up anything new, or even truly interesting.
Plenary Session 4:
Global Perspectives for Tomorrow
Shimon Peres—President of Israel.
Leonel Fernández—President of The Dominican Republic.
Wu Cai—Chinese Minister of Culture.
Dennis Ross—Special Adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
I'm sorry but this entire session was just flat out uninteresting. Save for when Peres said that Israel cannot exist by itself, it must be a part of the global world.
Plenary Session 5:
Where is the Global Economy Heading
Stanley Fischer—Governor of the Bank of Israel.
Jacob Frenkel—former Governor of the Bank of Israel, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International.
Larry Summers—former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, Former President of Harvard University, Former Director of the National Economic Council.
Alejandro Toledo—former President of Peru, Founder and President of the Global Center for Development and Democracy.
James Wolfensohn—former President of the World Bank for ten years.
Although this was a highly interesting session, they all seemed to merge together. They all had positive outlooks on the economic future of the world. They didn't see America as a crumbling economic giant, and for the most part they shared the same common, vague vision, of the future with the US and Israel as economic giants. Christine Lagarde was supposed to speak here, however, she cancelled and I missed an opportunity so see the next head of the IMF.
Plenary Session 6:
The New Media for a New Tomorrow
Leo Apotheker—CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
William McCracken—CEO of CA Technologies.
Rene Obermann—CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG.
Ivan Seidenberg—Chairman of the Board and CEO of Verizon.
David Fischer—Vice President of Advertising and Global Operations of Facebook.
Richard Gelfond—CEO and Director of Imax Corporation.
Tom Rogers—CEO of TiVo Inc.
Jimmy Wales—founder and President of Wikipedia.
As you can see, there were a lot of speakers and they all spoke about a very interesting and fascinating topic: what role media will play in the future (not news media). In terms of information (non-entertainment related) many of them spoke about the power of the internet, facebook, Google, Wikipedia, and the privacy and security concerns which arise out of this new media. What I thought was very interesting was when Gelfond spoke about the future of movies and knocked 3D movies, explaining that not only are they an additional cost, but they also take away from a great deal of the intrinsic art of film. It greatly reminded me of this Ebert article explaining why everyone should hate 3D movies: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html. Though, the best part of the session was when Dr. Ruth stormed the stage and called out facebook, saying that it has ruined the term and meaning of the word "friend." She also blamed facebook and the "new media" for not doing enough to combat and educate about the dangers of the internet. She was very passionate about Tyler Clementi http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/dharun-revi-molly-wei-charged_n_743539.html. Dr. Ruth is a funny little woman, I'll talk about my interaction with her later.
Plenary Session 7:
Decisions at the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Natan Sharansky—famous refusenik, prisoner, politician, human rights activist, author, and current Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
He made a point to speak in English, even though it was clear that it wasn't his most comfortable language. Yet, I still thought his speech was quite interesting. Sharansky saw the only real future of Jews as Israel. That assimilation is a high threat around the world, and the only solution is moving to Israel. He encourages families to send their children to Israel, so they not only feel connected, but also so they'll eventually move here. It seemed to me, that Sharansky did not envision any Jewish future, without the State of Israel. He made the point that even with all the outside money that flows in from the majority of Jews which live in the Diaspora, it does not even sum up to 1% of Israeli GDP. Once again, to Sharansky, to put it simply, the future of Jews is Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu—Prime Minister of Israel.
Netanyahu opened with a pretty big announcement: he is changing his position on Gilad Shalit. I initially got excited thinking that he was going to agree to the prisoner swap; that would have been major news. Rather, he announced that while still conforming to international standards for prisoners, he will be stripping prisoners of many of the extra rights which Israel grants to them, namely, stopping the practice of prisoners getting graduate degrees. Among other things, prisoners will stop getting meat on the menu, have less visitor hours, and more will be moved to solitary confinement. Netanyahu also spoke about moving towards a peaceful two-state solution. He claims that nothing is really non-negotiable in terms of borders, settlements, and the capital. The one issue that is non-negotiable is the recognition of Israel as the Jewish State by Fatah and Abbas. He made a cute little pun when he said Nike says: Just Do It, All I say to Abbas is: "Just Say It."
Shimon Peres—President of Israel.
He was the last speaker, it was his conference after all. He began by crossing partisan lines and saying that he is with Netanyahu in moving towards the future. He spoke about how this land has gone from being built with the hands of Israelis, to now being built with their minds. It was a nice wrap-up, and full of tangents involving Ben-Gurion and the early days of Israel. The closing remarks can be seen here (there is some Hebrew in the beginning, it will last a minute or so and then he starts speaking in English):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YooT4lx9OhE.
Conference Panel 1:
Israel and America—Has the Love Cooled?
Moderator: Ethan Bronner—Jerusalem Bureau Chief, The New York Times.
Elliot Abrams—former White House Advisor to George W. Bush.
Martin Indyk—Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Itamar Rabinovich–former Israeli Ambassador to the United States.
Robert Wexler—President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, former Congressional Representative.
Ruth Yaron—former IDF spokesperson.
I went into the panel with relatively no expectations, and I was quite surprised on how interesting of a debate it was. After Abrams, who is clearly not a supporter of Democrats, strongly attacked Obama, Indyk and especially Wexler, voiced their beliefs that Obama is a very strong supporter of Israel. What soon developed from the panel was Wexler giving a very, very long list of reasons and proof on how Obama is one of the biggest supporters of Israel out of all American Presidents. Indyk agreed, and I have to say, unless Wexler was making it up (he wasn't) he made an unbelievably convincing argument. The only response Abrams and Yaron had were that if he's such a supporter why won't he come out and say it. Yaron said that, fine if Obama loves Israel, but we want to be hugged, we want to be embraced. Seriously, that was the opposing argument, that they want Obama to come out and hug Israel.
Conference Panel 2:
The Universities of Tomorrow
Moderator: Menachem Ben-Sasson—President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Monique Canto-Sperber—Professor and Director of Ecole Normale Supérieure.
Jonathan R. Cole—former Provost and Former Dead of Faculties of Columbia University.
Frederick Lawrence—President of Brandeis University (yep that's where I go).
Mark Yudof—President of the University of California System, named by Time as one of the 10 Best College Presidents (2010).
Wu Zhipan—Executive Vice President of Peking University.
There are four things I wish to bring up about this panel. First, Cole made a very interesting statement, that the Universities of tomorrow can only exist and lead if they have the "values" of tomorrow. Second, there was a very lively debate over the usefulness of the Humanities, where almost everyone, including Zhipan, agreed on the importance of the Humanities to balance the world. In the world of tomorrow, we have to understand morals and ethics in order to maximize the usefulness of the tools which technology will provide us with. Third, the moderator talked way too much and really failed at facilitating what could have been an amazing discussion. Fourth, I had an unbelievable question which I was going to ask Zhipan: "Over 20 years ago 3000 students from Peking University (his University) marched to Tiananmen Square where they exercised a right of speech and protest, which eventually led to the Tiananmen Square massacre. If you go to Baidu.com, the number one Chinese search engine, and type in Tiananmen Square massacre, you will find no mention of the event. How can you be a University of tomorrow if students do not have a freedom of speech, a freedom of protest, and a freedom to access any information?" Unfortunately, the moderator chose not to choose me, so we will never know how Zhipan would've answered.
Conference Panel 3:
Jewish Identity: The Young Generation vs. Ancient Tradition
Moderator: Liad Mudrik—Lecturer at Tel Aviv University.
Safi Bahcall—Co-founder, President, CEO, and Director of Synta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Steven M. Cohen—Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Matisyahu—famous hasidic reggae musician.
Micah Goodman—Director of the Israeli Academy of Leadership at Ein Prat.
Anton Nossik—Chief Editor of BFM.Ru.
Sarah Silverman—famous American actress and comedian.
I originally thought this was going to be a very promising event. Unfortunately, while I seemed to be one of the few who did mostly enjoy it, I thought it could've been a lot better. Bahcall said he connected to Judaism when he was in the room with a dying patient, to which Sarah Silverman pointed out, that could've happened with any religion. Cohen gave a very interesting overview of the discussion, and brought up some key points and issues in the greater debate. On the issue of intermarriage, he stated that if one parent is not Jewish it's "better they should identify as Jews than not, in particular because they're raising children. Children with one Jewish parent rarely identify as Jews when they grow up. Children with two Jewish parents almost always identify with their Jewishness."
Matisyahu seemed like he was on another plane of reality, and really added nothing to the overall discussion.
Goodman brought up a lot of points that could've been discussed further, but Sarah Silverman seemed to constantly, and accidentally, interrupt him and cause the conversation to move towards something of less substance.
Nossik spoke about something I have never really heard about: Jews who moved from Russia to Israel, and then back to Russia. He spoke about their relationship in the Jewish Diaspora and their threats of assimilation.
Silverman was once again, in my opinion, pretty funny. More so than her last appearance, I thought she was a pretty important contributor. She represented a large percentage of American Jews who don't have any true connection to their Judaism. At one point Silverman made a statement that she would probably date Jews in America if they looked like what they look like in Israel, and not like "giant sneezes." To which Bahcall rebutted, "on behalf of the giant sneezes."
Conference Panel 4:
How Well Does the Science of Economics Understand Economics?
Moderator: Dan Ariely—Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke.
Bhagwan Chowdhry—Professor of Finance at the Anderson School, UCLA.
Sergiu Hart—Professor of Economics and Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Abby Joseph-Cohen—President of Global Markets Institute, Partner and Senior US Investment Strategist at Goldman Sachs.
Eric S. Maskin—Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences (2007).
Of all the panels, this was by far my favorite. Being a student of economics, I was extremely interested and excited to hear what some of the greatest living economists think about the powers of prediction in economics. Ariely seemed to play the devil's advocate (though I think he may have agreed with many of the positions which he took) by basically saying economics is useless in predicting future economic trends. Though everyone else on the panel disagreed, they each had varying degrees of disagreement. My favorite statement was when one of the economists said economics is entirely a science based on incentives. Which seems to be the fundamental rule of economics. Everything is a matter of incentives. While all the economists (besides Ariely) pretty much agreed that economics, while not certain, can reasonably predict the future. The biggest proponent of this was Joseph-Cohen, which is ironic, because with a little bit of research I found that she has been labeled as a "perma-bull," and failed to predict the stock market crash in 2000, and continued to be a bull even as the indexes fell. In addition, in 2007 she said that the S&P would read 1675 in a year, one year later it traded as low as 742, that's a 55% lower than her estimate. Yet, for some reason she strongly believed that the fault of wrong predictions is not that of the economic paradigms, or of the economist, but rather the fact that the data they are given are either incomplete or erred.
There were a few economists in the audience who saw it necessary to input their own opinions or argue with the panelists, which was pretty funny.
Hart talked a lot about the issues with the predicting power of economics in a world with imperfect and wanting information. One of his examples is known as "The Market for Lemons" which is what happens when a seller knows more about a product than a buyer. Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons.
In the end it seemed pretty convincing (especially after Hart and Maskin spoke) that economics can do a relatively successful job at predicting future economic trends, and even a better job at explaining past economic trends.
Master Class 1:
Mechanism Design: How to Implement Social Goals
Eric S. Maskin—Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences (2007).
This was a truly fascinating lesson in economics. Something I have yet to learn about: mechanisms. To sum it up, here was the greatest example of mechanisms, known as the cake cutting problem (I'm stealing this right out of the lecture): Imagine you're a mother who has a cake and two children, Bobby and Sally. They both want the cake. You perceive the cake, and then cut it into what you think are two equally sized pieces, and then give them each a piece. However, what you may see as equal, is not how either Bobby or Sally might see it. Both might see their respective pieces as smaller than the other, and this would lead to a fight, therefore leading to an end you do not want. Here is how you fix this, by using a mechanism. You take the cake and give Bobby the knife, but you say to both Bobby and Sally that Bobby will cut the cake into two equal parts, Sally will be the one to choose which half she gets, and Bobby has to take the other half. In this mechanism, Bobby will cut the cake into what he sees as two equal parts, no matter what slice Sally takes (she'll take whichever she may think is either equal or bigger, leaving her happy) Bobby will take the other half which he already thinks to be equal (leaving him happy), and there are no fights, leaving you, the mother, happy. Imagine if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be solved this simply?
Master Class 2:
Sexual Literacy: Recent Trends from Social Networking to "Friends with Benefits"
Ruth Westheimer—Sexologist.
Let me first preface this paragraph by telling Dr. Ruth's background story. She was the only child born to Jews living in Germany, and was sent to an orphanage in Switzerland in 1939. After learning of her parents deaths in the Holocaust she emigrated to Israel where she joined the Haganah. At four feet seven inches she was a sniper and a scout, and fought in the War of Independence where she was wounded and spent months recovering. It was after all of this that she became a sexologist, and eventually became the world's most famous sexologist (even though I had never heard of her before this conference).
Dr. Ruth spoke mainly about the dangers of online social networks, and referred to them at anti-social networks. She thinks that the word "friend" has lost its meaning, and that social networks are taking away from true interactions with people. For the rest of the time, she took three questions from the audience and had them come up, stand on the stage, and they had to ask their questions in the format of "I have a friend who..." To the dismay of the crowd I asked a boring question about relationships being displayed on facebook. But when I went up, I was too tall for Dr. Ruth and she had the staff bring up a chair so that I could sit in it while she held my hand. The room thought this was hysterical, and snapped quite a lot of pictures. The one posted below was actually e-mailed to me by someone in the audience.
The Israeli Presidential Conference was truly a great experience. I learned a great deal. I would love to discuss more about anything that I saw, heard, or learned at the conference, so please don't hesitate to contact me about any of it. Our official research project has officially begun, and we've already started interviews. Besides exploring the streets of Jerusalem, I have done a good amount of shopping in the markets, I even haggled for a keffiyeh; I'm thinking about going by the name Mitchell of the Semites. Lastly, here is a shout out to my loyal followers in Ghana, namely: Rosby.
