Lessons from Gaza & Israel

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BOB SAFIAN: Hey everyone, it’s Bob here. We are fresh off the invite-only Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco — two days of extraordinary conversations and insights, from AI to brand loyalty to team-building. One of the most important stage sessions I led had to do with Gaza and Israel. We’re going to share that session with you here today. It features Erin Gore, the CEO of World Central Kitchen, which is providing much-needed food relief in Gaza and has lost several team members to the violence there. And Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks and the OneVoice Movement, an organization dedicated to building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians.

As you’ll hear, our conversation clarifies the challenges in the region, as well as offering lessons on how to lead during a crisis and how to keep our minds open to varied beliefs and perspectives.

It’s important stuff, so let’s get to the stage. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

SAFIAN: We’re going to do a live Rapid Response session here today, and we’re going to talk about managing in an environment of crisis, uncertainty, and division.

It’s serious. We’re going to talk today about Israel and Gaza. This is a difficult and challenging topic. We realize that there will be references in the conversation to violence, hate, and other difficult issues. We ask you to be respectful of what you hear, to try to keep your eyes, ears, minds open, and please try to be respectful of the opinions voiced by everyone here because it is a challenging topic.

And in the process, we hope that you can find ways of dealing with fast-moving, challenging situations that may apply to your world, because we all have challenges that we are addressing with our teams and in our world. So, with your cooperation, let’s take some deep breaths.

As we delve into this topic, I’m going to have two guests here. The first is the CEO of World Central Kitchen, Erin Gore. World Central Kitchen is a winner of this year’s Masters of Scale Rapid Response Award — an extraordinary organization feeding millions of people globally, from hurricane victims to those in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. Please welcome, Erin Gore.

ERIN GORE: Yeah, thanks. All right.

SAFIAN: So Erin, we’re going to jump right in.

GORE: Let’s do it.

Copy LinkLeading through unexpected loss

SAFIAN: You’re ready. Okay. World Central Kitchen works in incredibly difficult situations worldwide. Thousands of people have been tragically killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon over the past year. I want to begin by asking you about what you’ve called the worst day of your life: Last April 1st, when seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed by an IDF strike in Gaza. You and your team first heard about this on social media when people were posting images of bloody bodies and your colleagues’ passports. I mean, I can only imagine.

GORE: Trauma. And friends, yeah.

SAFIAN: How do you react in that situation as a leader? How do you think about leading your team? What do you do? And then, I guess, how does it impact World Central Kitchen’s relief efforts going forward?

GORE: Yeah, a lot to unpack. I think I’m still processing some of it to this day. Our work in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon is profound. We have learned so much about who we are, how we show up, how we have impact over almost 15 years as a nonprofit. Our purpose is to feed people after disasters, after crises. What I’ve heard from the team in Israel, especially in Gaza and now in Lebanon, is that our work has never been more dire or life-saving than what we are accomplishing in Gaza.

Our team — the seven colleagues and friends that we lost were on top of the 500 Palestinians who still carry out this work in Gaza every single day — they were there because we had served over 75 million meals. We were a driving force in breaking through barriers in really complicated, challenging scenarios where food is a lifeline.

Copy LinkNavigating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza

SAFIAN: I mean, I could see in a situation like that sort of saying, well, maybe we should pull back a little because we’re in danger in a way we didn’t expect. And yet, instead, you doubled down, added new kitchens named after some of your colleagues.

GORE: Look, we had really hard conversations. You’re showing my colleagues right now. It’s Saif, it’s Sami, Damien, Jacob, John, Jim, and James. A lot of the work we do going forward is in their honor, to honor their legacy.

I speak their names often because they’re not here physically. But we can keep them alive, keep their memories alive by saying their names. That’s a promise we’ve made, that I’ve made, to their families, to the organization. So in moments of crisis or disasters, that’s what we do, right?

Of all the people used to operating during disasters and crises, it’s World Central Kitchen. But to lead in that moment, as you said, finding out through social media, that’s common in Gaza. There aren’t many news outlets, not much international press. Many Palestinian heroes are risking their lives to share stories every day.

For us to find out through social media, everybody has a crisis plan. You call this person, call that person. All of that implodes, explodes. So for us, it was leading through making decisions with incomplete information, which is often the case during crises and disasters: it’s piecemeal, but you have to make immediate decisions.

SAFIAN: And you have to set your own emotions aside, sort of.

GORE: Try to, yeah, try to. In this case, I was able to do that because my first priority was the families of our victims, our colleagues, our friends. Everything, my purpose became to find information, give them answers. Obviously, World Central Kitchen wants and needs more answers than we have today.

And we continue to ask those questions. We continue our investigation, which we’re not open or public about, but it does continue.

But yeah, it’s really challenging. We’re all here because we do challenging things; there’s lots of pride and accomplishment that drives us forward, but sometimes there’s a lot of pain as well. But, you know, through these moments, it’s very iterative. You learn more information or you make a decision, and if it wasn’t the right decision, you quickly pivot. You have to be comfortable in that space, even when much is weighing on you, when the world is looking at you, when other NGOs are calling and saying, okay, this is the moment World Central Kitchen is in the limelight, you guys can change the trajectory here.

You guys can change Israel’s decisions, and as much as I would love to have that power, it’s simply not true. There is a lot weighing in these crisis scenarios. But we did pause the activation, right? You mentioned we stopped, and then we carried forward. We did pause the activation because, for a while, I wasn’t sure if this paella pan, our beloved logo, was effectively a bullseye.

The vehicles that our teammates, colleagues, and friends were traveling in were marked vehicles. They were mostly armored vehicles. And the drones hit right through our logos. So, safety, security first in a context where there are no guarantees, but in a place where international humanitarian law should carry some weight, right?

And so it did take us a while. I paused our activation for about a month. Had really hard conversations with colleagues. When I say colleagues, I mean the 500 Palestinians working with us still to this day. Essentially and effectively what it came down to was them, their heart, their passion.

And we, as World Central Kitchen, needing and always leading with community, listening to the community. The situation, again, it’s a lifeline. There are so many dangers. I have many messages in my WhatsApp saying we’re going to, we might die today. There’s so much acceptance of their own mortality, right?

That any day, any moment could be their time. And that time might come from a gun, a missile, or starvation, and them saying I don’t want to die from starvation. And we can do something about that. So how can we not show up?

Copy LinkDaniel Lubetzky on bridging divides through business

SAFIAN: I’m going to, thank you for sharing all that. I’m going to bring out our second guest to join us. Another Masters of Scale Awards honoree, our Global Impact Award winner. He spent decades trying to bring Israeli and Palestinian businesses together to build bridges through the OneVoice Movement. He’s also the founder of Kind Snacks. Please welcome Daniel Lubetzky.

Well, Daniel, thanks for joining us. You were a guest on my Rapid Response podcast a year ago, just after Hamas, the October 7th attacks and hostage-taking. And you talked about needing to support builders over destroyers. Since then we’ve seen more destruction than building. Gaza’s leveled, thousands of Palestinians perishing, violence spreading to Lebanon. How has the last year impacted your perspective? Are you still focused on building?

DANIEL LUBETZKY: Yeah, the last year’s one of the hardest years of my life. I mean, it pales in comparison to what my father went through. He was a Holocaust survivor, so I want to be respectful of others’ suffering, which is much greater.

Just to give people some background, because you might not know this about me, and then I can answer your question. I was born in Mexico, but came to the United States when I was 16. My first company after law school is PeaceWorks, which for 25 years brought Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Turks to use business as a force for breaking stereotypes, cementing relationships, and building ventures that lasted for a quarter-century. Together with Palestinian Israeli co-founder Mohammad Darawshe, we launched the OneVoice Movement, which became the largest grassroots movement in both Israel and Palestine to try to empower citizens to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution and seize it back away from forces of violent absolutism on all sides.

During the Hamas massacre of October 7th, a lot of our Palestinian and Israeli staff and family members died, including Mohammad Darawshe, my co-founder’s cousin, a Muslim nurse trying to tend to victims of the massacre and who was killed by the Hamas terrorists. Following Israel’s response to Hamas, a number of our Palestinian staff members also died.

It’s heartbreaking to have Israeli, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, and Palestinian members killed by this conflict. What breaks my heart even more is what I’ve noticed when I started PeaceWorks and OneVoice. I always thought my role was going to build bridges in the Middle East and prevent what happened to my father from happening again to others in the Middle East by bringing peace to that region.

I worry globally that instead of us exporting that, we’re importing across the world, more tribalization, more hate. All of us here in the United States are experiencing more division than since I immigrated to the United States, and it’s a global problem of builders versus destroyers. There are many forces contributing to toxic polarization that are winning right now.

If you look at the last year, every one of us around the audience, including myself, are being impacted by that. Every one of us recognizes there’s a problem. On the other side, but we don’t recognize it happening to us and our groups. It’s very serious because whether it’s in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where pro-Israel people have one set of information and pro-Palestine people have another, or in the context of the blue-red divide here, our social media feeds are telling us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear. Each side only sees the worst of the other side.

We’re losing empathy, losing appreciation for nuance and context. It will be harder for builders to overcome these divisions if we allow that. It starts with everyone listening today and everyone in their daily lives understanding this is happening to us, whether it’s rigid ideologies or foreign adversaries funding groups to divide us, political forces using scandal and division to raise funds and stay in power rather than solve problems, or social media algorithms feeding us this hate. We need to overcome that by building alliances with those different from us, however difficult. It’s doubly important. Searching within ourselves for the four C’s of curiosity, compassion, creativity, and courage that make a builder’s mindset. And affirmatively doing something about it. It’s going to take a ton of work to

Copy LinkDaniel Lubetzky on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership

SAFIAN: I want to ask, you mentioned that you’re Jewish. I am Jewish also. You have not been a supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s said he considers you an enemy, a traitor to the Jewish people. I’m curious how you parse your feelings about Israel versus your feelings about the Israeli government.

LUBETZKY: The easy part for people to like me is to say, yes, I recognize Prime Minister Netanyahu was not in the best interests of the Israeli people, of the Jewish people, over 10, 12 years ago. He called me that because I supported who’s now President Herzog when he sought to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu over 10 years ago. I don’t think he’s a good person.

Just like in the context of Trump, just because it’s Netanyahu or Trump with a policy doesn’t necessarily make everything they’re doing monstrous. I’ll challenge you and myself by saying extremists are winning by manipulating us.

Extremists on both sides. On both sides. Prior to October 7th, the Netanyahu, Ben-Gurion, Smotrich government is the most far-right-wing government in Israel’s history. A lot of factors led Netanyahu to ally himself with them, which are not good reasons related to his investigation. So I think that government is definitely a problem. But today, for people like me to come and be builders and build jobs and opportunities, I recognize that will never be possible as long as Hamas stays in power in Gaza. I’m a peacemaker, not a pacifist. For me to do my job, my Palestinian partners, and Israeli partners, too. I’m a confused Mexican Jew, by the way.

So, I’m in this, but I’ve been to Gaza and the West Bank countless times. I believe in the right of Israel and the homeland to live in peace with its Palestinian partners as a homeland for the Palestinian people. I will answer your question in one second, but I want to say, anybody who plays into violent absolutists on either side condemns their own people. We’ve seen people supporting Hamas and extremists on either side, you’re not helping your own people. If you have an absolutist vision that wants Palestine to erase Israel, the Israelis are never going to hand the keys. It’s just going to create a perpetual conflict. The people living with the consequences in Palestine and Israel understand that and want a historic compromise. But it’s getting harder. Going back to Netanyahu, I don’t think he’s a good person, but I wouldn’t, just because he supports a policy, necessarily oppose that policy. As painful as it is, because I see everyday images of 7,000 Palestinians leaving the Jabalia refugee camp, it’s heart-wrenching to see kids leaving. My Palestinian partners make sure I see that, my Israeli partners make sure I see their content.

But until we remove Hamas from power, my Palestinian partners say it’s not possible to bring investments, jobs, and start rebuilding a better future. We also need to remove the Netanyahu government from power through elections, hopefully in the next 18 months.

And once you have those conditions, we need to double down. But until then, we need to start preparing with a builder’s blueprint for turning this crisis into the need to advance this.

SAFIAN: Just a quick breather here to absorb what we’ve been hearing. The complications in the Middle East are challenging, reflecting rising challenges elsewhere. But there is hope and incredible heroism underway. After the break, we’ll hear more from Daniel and Erin, as well as a reflection from a Palestinian business leader. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

SAFIAN: Before the break, we heard World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore and Kind Snacks and One Voice Movement founder Daniel Lubetzky on stage at the Masters of Scale Summit discussing the conflict in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. We now get into the emotional challenge of trying to be neutral amid much strife, the role of optimism versus determination, and insights from a Palestinian business leader. Let’s get back to it.

Copy LinkHow World Central Kitchen maintains neutrality in conflict zones

I want to ask you, Erin. I was recently at an event with you, the World Central Kitchen that you had with founder José Andrés. I met many of your colleagues serving people in the Middle East and elsewhere. It can be hard for them to maintain neutrality; they have strong feelings about their environment.

And, as an aid organization, you kind of have to be neutral to get access to these areas. How do you balance this neutrality with addressing strong emotions from your teams?

Many here have teams with strong emotions on all sides of this issue. I know you’ve had two people quit because they wanted World Central Kitchen to take stronger positions. How do you balance those?

GORE: From a corporate mission standpoint, it’s simple. We show up, feed people, no questions asked. Have you been affected by a disaster crisis? Here’s a warm meal. From the people standpoint, it has been challenging. It speaks to the divisiveness you mentioned earlier. I mean, there’s a simplicity to what we do, non-political. We started feeding in Israel first, shortly after October 7th, I think on October 8th, actually. As soon as we could get into Gaza, because it’s complex, we started feeding in Gaza and now we’re in Lebanon. We walk the walk, talk the talk. As a leader, I always have to be purposeful, driven, grounded, and rooted. The minute we start taking sides, we lose the freedom and liberty to feed worldwide. I would never jeopardize that.

Copy LinkHow the business community has responded

SAFIAN: Has the business community been helpful or not in helping you deal with the situation in protecting those in harm’s way? Do you feel the partnerships are in the right places?

GORE: I love that question. In their hearts, yes. Not always in their actions. I think there’s trepidation among business leaders to outright support. We haven’t raised as much as during the Ukraine war escalation. I think there’s fear of taking sides or that helping humanity is picking a side. But the world isn’t so simple.

LUBETZKY: I want to share. I want to ensure all understand how serious these issues are, not just in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in everything we’re experiencing now. Track how open-minded society was 10 years ago versus now, and everyone is less so now due to these forces. We need to exercise the muscle of a builder’s mindset. By curiosity, I mean to read sources that challenge. Click on links of commentary from the opposite side to understand better. Algorithms tell you what you want to hear, affirming rather than informing beliefs. It gets worse. I see it in my algorithms. It’s hard to click on painful stuff about Palestinian suffering. My feeds are mostly Israeli narrative. It takes work to understand other sides.

Almost always, when I get information, I know what they’ll tell me. They’re not challenging themselves. Don’t share only to reaffirm beliefs. Try to understand the other side because whether it’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the election here.

SAFIAN: Erin showed me photos backstage of her recent Florida trip during the hurricane and showed me a gumball machine, not something normal. Yes, it’s a gumball machine with ammunition.

Copy LinkA Palestinian business leader on fleeing his home in Gaza

There’s someone here in the audience I want to bring into this conversation if I can. He’s a Palestinian business leader who fled his home in Gaza in 2014. He works in the U.S. now with Daniel at the OneVoice Movement. His name is Ez Masri. Thank you for joining us here. Back at your family’s home in Gaza, you experienced hardship. Hamas hid guns in your backyard. Your home was ransacked and destroyed. You still have family and friends there.

What should the business community understand about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza? What do we misunderstand? What do we need to hear?

EZ MASRI: First I would like to extend my deep condolences to the World Central Kitchen, and thank you for feeding my family and the Palestinian people in Gaza. Thank you very much. What I wanted to say is that the population in Gaza is 2.3 million, and the conflict with Israel is between the extremists in Gaza and extremists in Israel. And the majority of the Palestinian in Gaza want to live and raise their kids and to have economic prosperity. We are a people who want to live in peace next to Israel, hopefully in a two-state solution.

SAFIAN: Yeah, are you more or less optimistic that that’s going to happen?

MASRI: There is no solution to the Palestine conflict but the two-state solution. We have two proud people that each need a state — Palestinian, a state, and Israel.

SAFIAN: You have an opportunity here to ask a question of Daniel, who you work with, or Erin. Do you have a question you want to ask?

MASRI: Yea, I ask Daniel. I said something to Daniel that since I met you 10 years ago in Gaza, we have been building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, wars burn bridges, and my question to you: Are we back at square one, and what are we going to do in the future?

SAFIAN: So Daniel, what do you do? Are you back to the beginning? You’re starting over?

LUBETZKY: I agree with Ezzeldeen that there’s no alternative. And often, when doing this work, you ask yourself why the hell you’re doing it. It’s difficult. The answer is there’s no alternative. We need to find a way out or this, or we’re condemning future generations. During times of war, people become more radical. In 30 plus years, I haven’t found a solution. I’m not a warrior. I’m a bridge builder. I’m not in those situations. I don’t know how to build bridges when stopping war and stop the extremists.

Copy LinkBuilding resilience and determination in ongoing conflict

What I know is the pent-up hate will provide a small opportunity when it ends, hopefully, in six to 24 months. We’ll have the opportunity of a lifetime because people understand alternatives are needed. To fulfill their potential, both sides need to fulfill each other’s. There’s no settlement of the conflict without fulfilling both people’s national aspirations for a better future and respecting each other.

We must prepare for that. We need to avoid allowing absolutists from hijacking our minds and avoid supporting absolutist agendas. Remember to recognize both sides’ humanity, which is hard, then start preparing a blueprint where businesses organize, governments think, how will we do a Marshall Plan empowering builders in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Israel, and strengthening them so dividers don’t hijack lives?

GORE: Can I share? I’m antsy. One beauty of World Central Kitchen is people, community members. We have a North Star statement. We go far in saying community is our superpower. We hire locally, purchase as much food locally as possible. We meet people from all walks of life just like us trying to live daily. Not political, like World Central Kitchen. We’re not starting from square one with the community, people, their heart, their passion. I know Israelis would go into Gaza to join World Central Kitchen and feed Palestinians. Palestinians would go into Israel if they had that magic paper, passport, allowing them. So, I don’t think all hope is lost.

People realize when politicians, the world, go too far, and both sides feel it now in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon because they see what’s coming. This isn’t going to be solved with war, bombs, death.

SAFIAN: When Daniel struggled with how long the conflict will last, and you say six to 24 months, I could see you be a little bit like—

LUBETZKY: I was wondering if it was because you think that’s not realistic or because it’s so painful every more data.

GORE: It’s painful.

LUBETZKY: Just practically, it’s very important to understand what we don’t want to happen is this happening again in one or two years, or five years. The reason I’m not — because I don’t want this to happen again.

Can you imagine the pain if it happens again in two, five, 10 years? We need to use this horrible moment to have a cathartic resolution of the conflict. We need to remove extremists from power, not just in Israeli-Palestinian areas, but in the Islamic Republic regime in Iran, which funded Hamas to prevent this from happening. The Israeli-Saudi realignment. We need to ensure anyone acting as a spoiler or divider, anyone with an absolutist conviction against humanity, is removed — in the United States, everywhere. Sorry, Bob.

Copy LinkHow to stay optimistic when the work doesn’t end

SAFIAN: Erin’s perspective on the time period, four years, we have to keep our patience and optimism for a long time to reach this, like the work World Central Kitchen does, it’s never-ending. Because if not this disaster, the next one. How do you keep doing this work that’s never-ending? How do you stay optimistic? How do you keep teams optimistic?

GORE: Look, we all have hard days. I think it goes back to the community, the beauty in which these communities operate. In the darkest days, you see the brightest of humanity. You see the best of humanity come out.

SAFIAN: That feeds you?

GORE: Yes, it is an adrenaline rush. Yes, who wouldn’t want to be around the best of humanity? World Central Kitchen fills a gap, a niche nobody else operates in. There’s FEMA, others responding after disasters, but nobody with our tenacity, speed. José always says, people aren’t hungry in a week. If you’re hungry, you’re hungry now, right? There’s a space for us and others to show up when something, a disaster, happens, whether it’s a neighbor’s house fire or large-scale as Ukraine or what our teams respond to now in Acapulco after Hurricane John, more devastating than Hurricane Otis. Teams are still in Asheville, North Carolina, Florida, responding to hurricanes. It requires a certain person, not for everybody, we know that. But there’s a real need for what we do, hope, and connection with people to give that perspective on the point.

LUBETZKY: And I think what fuels him or me, it’s not necessarily optimism as much as determination. I always say it’s not about the glass being half full or empty, but about filling up the glass. José Andrés thinks, let’s solve it, do it, be a builder. He’s a builder, and we need builders.

For me, definitely, it’s a purpose and the recognition, like Ezzeldeen said, we have to do this because there’s no alternative. It’s not optimism but a conviction it’s upon us, everyone has the power, and with that power comes responsibility to be solutions and builders rather than destroyers.

SAFIAN: I want to thank both of you for engaging in this difficult conversation. I know we will recognize the award winners later today.

But while I have you here, I feel like we should give you your awards now. Let’s do it.

SAFIAN: I was proud to hand Erin and Daniel their Masters of Scale Business Awards, new awards being inaugurated this year: World Central Kitchen, a recipient of the Rapid Response award, and Daniel, a recipient of the Global Impact Award.

The conflict in the Middle East is difficult to talk about. Emotions are high, and many business leaders prefer to avoid the topic. But I think that’s a mistake, and I commend Erin and Daniel for jumping in. The human toll and ripple effects require us to engage. Team members are impacted, and we shouldn’t ignore that. It’s an opportunity to show true leadership. As Daniel says, you don’t need optimism, just determination. Even in the darkest moments, as Erin says, you see the best of humanity. Let’s work to have hard conversations about difficult, third-rail topics, to bring out our best, and to stay open, loving, and empathetic. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.