this is the truth that the women in israel and palestine know. we don't need to destroy others. we need to live with them. we need to understand that they have a stake in the future. that we must speak to one another face to face and that ultimately we must trust one another. with women, i know this can happen. it already has. we have been working together for peace since the first day i left college. today we have projects and initiatives that affect both of our societies. we both want borders

that allow and give access for both of us to reach the school and doctors for our children. in our part of the world, women have been active since the beginning of the last century. a driving change, because they were not ashamed to care for others, and they were not afraid of giving without taking in return. in arabic we have a saying. women are very strong. when they say they will do something, they will do it, in spite of all the obstacles. if you think this is important in daily life, consider how important it is in negotiations.

in issues of life and death, war and peace. we are remarkable communicators. we listen to people, consult, empathize, understand different points of view. that's why we can build relationships. when i see a boy walking to school, i pick him up in my car and give him a lift. it doesn't matter to me whose child this is. he is part of a community and i care about him. only with this mentality can negotiations be accepted by the people whose future they will affect. that's the key that's often missing.

women make a difference. not just at the negotiating table but also after work. when they bring agreements back home, with women's leadership, people in the communities can understand and accept the peace accords and that's how you create peace that will last. but we can't do it alone. our work to create these must go to the highest levels. negotiators and those creating policy must open their eyes and ears. they must value peace enough to include those who can be more effective in creating it. if i want to improve life for my

children, then i must and shall move toward that future with the other side. a path of nonviolence. otherwise, the price is too high. we have seen blood. so we imagine how a bleeding man feels as difficult as it is to make peace. the blood is much more costly. i'm not speaking as a woman of the elite who has watched events from far away and has no understanding of realism on the ground. i know what has happened in this conflict. i have been through it myself. and that's why i have a clear

vision now. my israeli partners and i see that on this path, the world has been walking. the future is dim. across the bridge there is no light. but working with one another, with the people and with the support from the international community, women can turn on the lights. thanks a lot. [ applause ] >> now, i know each of you has bios, and i'm not going to read these bios to you, but obviously that was fadwah shaer.

she is a spectacular spokeswoman for the palestinian groups who want so much and so commitedly to work with israelis. and i will tell you that that group has gotten smaller and smaller as this conflict has gone on, and my -- i have enormous appreciation to you for coming and being part of this gathering. you will see that she has been very involved with the palestinian government in many different ways. you'll see that in your bios. let me introduce -- we're going to have a conversation now up here, and let me introduce first samira hamidi, who is the head of this sfek tack lar african women's network with 90,000

individuals and ms. hamidi is very well known across afghanistan, but now internationally, because she has been in the major organizations as their -- as the various conferences where the future of afghanistan is being planned, is being created. and thank you so much for coming. then next to her is mossarat qadeem. as you see from the bio, she has been working through an academic setting but has been called upon to be more and more involved at the community life, at the community base. she's published many books, many articles, but probably her most effective work that is really capturing the imagination of people in this country and around the world is when she

goes into territory that the u.n. -- that is off limits to the u.n., it's off limits to the u.s., because of the power of extremists in those areas, and she herself goes in to do the work, turning those families around, turning those young men around, and i hope mossarat, that you'll speak to us this evening about this. general orit adato is the -- are you the only three-star general that israel has had? or is there -- >> until now. >> until now. up until now. that's right. blazing the trail. spent 24 years in the israeli defense forces and then became very interestingly the commissioner of the israeli prison service. so you can imagine what a very dicey role that is.

she has been the first international vice president of the international correction and prisons associations, which has professional -- 600 professionals from 75 nations, so she has a whole international profile herself. thank you for being with us. and zaynab el sawi from sudan. what a beautiful countenance and what a beautiful story you have to tell us in terms of your work in sudan. she is a researcher and former lecturer of ahfad university. some of you know of ahfad which is an all women's university. very, very powerful in terms of preparing women all across the country. and she is the coordinator of the sudanese women's empowerment

for peace. you all, it is hard, hard, hard doing this work right now in sudan. i have been there. i know that when i was involved with groups, consulting women leaders, that we had to meet like in a back room of a pizza parlor. you know, this isn't the kind of place where you get a room and a hotel for a conference. and i have enormous respect for you for the -- what shall i say, the risk that you undertake to do your work. rebecca, were you here in '99 right here right when you first launched this? and this is rebecca joshua okwaci. she is now the deputy minister for ed kags and what she will

remind you several times is the newest country on earth, right? from south sudan. and, boy, has she seen it all. has she seen it all. a freedom fighter, in the bush off and on for ten years, and the stories that she can tell. well, i don't want to take any more time. i feel like people are here to hear from you. if i could -- if i can simply put questions out and these really are for conversation and discussion, and then we will then open this time for q&a as we always do. so i have a first question that is always on my mind, but it's always on the minds of people with whom we speak, and that is when you think about -- when you think about the context in which you all are working, it seems to me that the laws, the

traditions, the cultures that you are -- that you are living with are really -- i want to say at times oppressive. they're very limiting. and people say, well, fine. you know, we have to be culturally sensitive, swanee. you shouldn't be trying to get women to do things that are illegal or whatever. and so can you -- can someone speak to that whole issue of culture and how that affects -- or laws, how that affects your work? >> you know, women oppression can take different forms, and law can be one of them. in a situation like sudan, for example, as you all know that sharia is the main source of law. we have a law called 152, african 152 and the criminal law

of 1991. this says that whoever wears an indecent clothes in a public place will be punished with whipping. 40 lashes. and so many women suffer from that every day, because it's actually -- it doesn't define what is indecent clothes. what is it? it's absolutely up to the police or the security person to judge based on his background on what women shall wear. so this puts so many women at risk every day. and i will tell a story here about a journalist called luna and that happened two years ago. she was arrested under this 152

and they took her to court. and she was courageous enough to invite everybody to the court. so we're all invited. we decided to go and attend. the security people did not allow us to attend the court. so we were all standing in front of the court. they tried to get us to leave the place with you we insisted that we have to stay and see what the court is going to do. when they got fed up with us, they brought this car with like a cage, a big cage in the back of the car and they arrested -- they arrested around 42 ladies. the driver was really driving the car very, very fast and he was like going right and left and we were all falling on each other. one of the ladies broke her arm and others were injured.

and at that moment some of the women, they managed to take their mobiles and take pictures and send the name of the ladies in that car to all the lawyers, to all the network, all the activist, and it was really like very, very fast. so when we arrived at the police station, the first thing, they asked us to give our mobile phone. so by that time the message was sent already. but i was like, clearly, okay. now, we are not going to communicate with people outside. anyway, we gave our mobiles and when we went inside, it was a small room with no windows. just a door. nothing. we were sitting on the floor. i just saw some of the ladies taking mobiles from their pocket and from their backs.

i said didn't you give your mobiles? we knew they would take it and we brought two with us. [ applause ] yeah. actually we were singing and i think the feeling they got, we stayed there for five hours. i felt very much that the solidarity feeling among us. actually we were very much provoking them because they asked us several questions. like your name and your address. they asked us what is your tribe that you belong to. without us agreeing, we answered the same answer. we are sudanese. i am not going to tell you which tribe we belong to. i think they got fed up with us and decided to let us go because of the trouble we are causing inside. we are singing a lot of songs

again for the regime and they didn't like that. they asked us to write an agreement saying we are not going to do that again. we said no, we will definitely going to do that again. it was really difficult. people were fasting and it was the most interesting five hours that i spent. >> that's really interesting. [ applause ] >> there were two actually. i must say they were really like they hit them badly. >> they were saying what do you have to do as women. this is a women's issue. why are you coming with them and standing with them? as if it's something that was --

>> you hear these statements like all women are this way and all men are that way. when you hear these statements. obviously there are many, many, many men who are more -- what shall i say? more peace-loving if you will to be simplicistic than many, many many women are. there were all these differences and we were talking about women as a large group and men as a large group. there differences for whatever reasons. nobody knows to what extent it's nature or nurture, but differences in how people act. thank you for raising that. i have to ask, general, this must be so interesting to you to be hearing how they have the extra phone and here they are the commissioner. >> you know, making your

correction officer fill out a few and you can be released. it's a new treatment to reduce the number of inmates. think about it. it might be a solution. i have been hearing what you have said and thinking about men and men and differences but i have two basic assumptions to share with you before i get into the point. first of all, as you can see, we are sitting all of us with our traditional dressing. i am wearing my traditional retirement general suit. the second assumption that i would like to share with you because we don't have enough time so what i'm going speak about is differences between women and men is a kind of generalization of the issue. you cannot get into details. you can't base on research. take it in proportion.

i would say that there are differences. from my personal experience. i have been the commissioner of the prison service by the year 2000 up to the end of 2003. if you know it was the time tha the time of the second intefadeh, and all of a sudden within less than three years the number of what we call security inmates has been risen from less than 700 to almost 4,000. so there was a need to find human resources to build with such a huge number of new inmates within a very short while. >> i leave it here and i'll get back to the point of what i have to tell you, and what i have to tell you so speaking about

abilities and qualifications and skills, there are some differences, and i can share with you the knowledge and the experience that women bring to the table some kind of different skills, mostly what we call soft skills. this comes from ancient days because the first point i want to share with you is the ability to see the whole picture, but at the same time to identify and give your attention to the details of that picture. it came from the very beginning because women gave birth, raised the children, had to plan and had to harvest or to pick up their -- and has to cook, has to do their laundry, bring water from the river and whatever.

everything simultaneously, so there is a need, an essential need to be able to do it. it gives you the ability to look at the picture and what is going on at the same time. what i call is soft skill is the ability to contain. first of all, we contain our children before we give them birth and then because of the fact that you were the person at home and it doesn't matter, you had to deal with the children. usually we had more than one child, there are diversities and differences. you have to deal with it. so that's the second subskill that women bring to the table. the third one is the ability to balance between. aren't we all day and all the day balancing between career,

family, i have to be here, no, i have to be there. i have to be with that situation, while someone is demanding my attention on the other side. that's the way we are living. so balancing, and i'll share with my colleagues here that sometimes it's like the person who is going under -- >> the high wire. >> the high wire or in the circle, but there is one different. he has a kind of security network. we don't have it. i would say that the fourth point is being able to share your leadership with others to

work in team work. it doesn't mean that your not the leader. it doesn't mean that you have to be the only one to make the decision you do it, but usually we share information. we give people the opportunity to figure out part of the decision making. there are not only those that have to implement it. i want to get back to the point. i said it at the beginning, it is not a judge -- i'm not judging anything. it doesn't mean that it is better than or less than. it just brings to the table the diversity. it just brings a wide range of abilities. so what i'm thinking about is when you bring men and women togeth together. so the ability comes from this side and the other side and they bring up together in a synergy, better, much better outcomes and i can share with you from my experience to -- last point,

with your permission. >> sure. >> one is that i've told you that there was a need to put new wardens in these positions, there were two female wardens out of, i think, 20 facilities, one for the female, of course, and one for the juveniles. after two years there were eight wardens and few others in the core fraction that after seven years since i've retired. and now we have in the israeli prison service five generals, female and one major general female that was when i was there, was there only colonel. there was no high-ranking officer above colonel.

so when you are there you have to do it because these women were talented not just because they're women. they have been there all of the time. you just need to identify and to put them, to give them the chance when they are acting the best way. the last point is, from my experience again. i have met not very few men that developed these soft skills and unfortunately, i met not so very few women that have forgotten it. so we need to give it all together. >> let me ask you a question. so when you increase the number of women wardens, did you see any difference in how they -- when you made the statements about women in general, but did you actually see it in the prison system? >> yes, of course. it is not only the wardens.

it's the commanders, it's security officers and it's guards and it calms the environment, first of all, and i think that's an achievement for itself because it brings you the opportunity to deal in a way with the inmates in a different way, less tension is much bigger for both sides. >> and so probably one of the reasons it calms or the reasons that it calms the environment is the various attributes that you were saying, the characteristics that you were describing. >> they're paying for women in such instances. >> that's very interesting. >> yes, it is. >> yea. yea. to stay with this issue of security that you both talked about, is it doesn't the danger of the situations stop you from being able to do the work? >> let me pick up from here

because this is so important. this is so much related to the work that we do in afghanistan. i just want to share a very special experience that a woman faced. it was june 2, 2010, the first day of national conservative peace in kabul. kabul was quiet because in the jerga tent they were hosting 1600 afghans from all afghanistan out of which 247 were women. a group of us got together in one car because only that car had access to the jerga tent due to so much security. we had to be very careful to wear -- to look as traditional as possible because we were going to meet some of the men who were coming from provinces who where they don't actually

sit with women at the same platform. so, finally we reached the place and we had to go to the different checkpoints of the present security, finally, at 10:00 a.m., the jerga started and the opening, it was in the middle of the speech that it hit. and these rocket, two hit a little bit far behind the tent, but one rocket was just behind the tent. >> was it all at once? >> right after the other. >> how long was it between? >> a second. a second. and i had my colleague outside saying suicide attackers are fighting outside the gate because ey