Hi-tech pioneer Eyal Waldman: October 7 changed my vision of peace

After October 7, Israeli tech leader Eyal Waldman rethinks peace with Palestinians, calls for resilient Israel and worthy leadership for a better future.

By EVE YOUNG NOVEMBER 15, 2024 12:56

People gather and light candles to remember the Israeli victims of the October 7 massacre at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, October 12, 2023. (photo credit: Dor Pazuelo/Flash90)

Israeli hi-tech pioneer and Israel prize winner Eyal Waldman’s short-term vision for peace shifted on October 7; the day his daughter Danielle was murdered by Hamas terrorists in the south of the country.

His long-term conviction that Israeli-Palestinian peace is not just possible but necessary, however, has remained unchanged.

“Either we need to continue to kill each other, or we need to continue to learn to live next to each other – I think the second option is much better,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

Danielle, 24 years old on October 7, was killed by Hamas terrorists alongside her partner Noam while trying to escape the Supernova music festival massacre.

Before trying to get away with her friends, Danielle stopped to help a woman who needed her, only then proceeding to her car, her father explained.

Eyal Waldman (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Waldman received news of the October 7 attack from Bali and immediately rushed back to Israel.

“I went South to look [for Danielle], and then I found her car. [Her] body was taken on Sunday, I got there on Monday morning,” he explained.

“There was still fighting there,” when he got to the South, said Waldman, adding that IDF soldiers were killed nearby and that there were bodies around his daughter’s car.

Waldman hoped that his daughter had been taken captive to Gaza, but four days later was told that her body had been identified.

BEFORE OCTOBER 7, Waldman had thought that it was possible to work with Hamas and that they could be willing to speak with goodwill in some situations. 

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This was based, in part, on his brushes with Hamas while employing Palestinians at one of his company Mellanox Technologies’ centers - located in Gaza.

Waldman had been employing Palestinians for years as part of a vision that this could help foster peace and has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a hospital in Gaza, according to media reports.

“I have been in favor of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian [conflict] for many years. I am frustrated that we keep killing each other instead of figuring out how to live next to each other,” he said.

Waldman decided to “combine the geopolitical advantage of finding cheap labor in the Palestinian Authority” with the opportunity to “lay another brick in the Israeli-Palestinian solution.”

“I think it was very important,” he said of this work. “It brought Israelis and Palestinians closer together. It created positive friction between Palestinians and Israelis.”

Waldman gave an example of this positive friction, recalling a time he was having breakfast with a Palestinian woman and her partner.

During the breakfast, his daughter “Danielle came in with Noam, and Noam came in with a Tavor [rifle], and the woman suddenly froze. She understood he was a soldier.”

Waldman could tell that the woman was uncomfortable. “I told her, look, when he is at your checkpoint, he is afraid of you.”

“That means that next time she came to the checkpoint, she saw the soldiers, and she saw Noam [in them], said Waldman, adding that this could give her a different perspective on why the soldiers at the checkpoint act the way they do.

“It creates positive friction – when people talk about soccer, about jokes, and their family and kids and stuff; and not only about problems between two nations.”After October 7, however, Waldman realized that Hamas could not be a partner in his vision for peace. 

“In the short term, we certainly need to destroy Hamas, and whoever is involved and whoever was involved.”

His idea that Hamas could be reasoned with, stemming from his experience working with people in Gaza, was “proved wrong,” he said.

But looking at the situation from a broader historical perspective, Waldman emphasized that the possibility of peace has looked bleak in the past as well.

“In 73, our biggest crisis was with the Egyptians, and Egypt was our number one enemy,” he said, adding that there was a vast hatred between Israelis and Egyptians at that time.

“Then four years later, one man who the Egyptians did not support, and who the Israelis did not believe, made peace between two nations.”

A hope for peace in the coming years 

WALDMAN EXPRESSED hope that following the crisis of October 7 as well, peace would follow in a few years.

“I hope that [...] we will replace the leadership on both sides, and there will be one or two leaders who will be able to make the change,” he said.

Israel’s current leadership lacks vision, goals, an ability to lead, a sense of fairness, and charisma, said Waldman, adding that there is also corruption and no effort to fight it among the country’s authorities.

“I don’t think we have worthy leadership – not in the opposition or the coalition,” he said.

Waldman laid out how he thinks peace could exist, with two states; swapped territories; and clear borders.

This includes a Palestinian “state with autonomy, a currency, and an airport” that lives side by side with Israel, he described.

This Palestinian state would not have indirect fire capability or significant weapons that enable it to threaten Israel, he said.

In his vision, “There are very clear borders,” and part of Jerusalem could possibly be international “so that we can all claim that it is ours,” said Waldman.

There are many more details to iron out, but these are the basic ideas behind his vision of joint life between Israelis and Palestinians, Waldman explained.

The business leader also commented on the impact the Israel-Hamas war has had on the country’s economy.

Despite its durability, “if we keep hurting the economy like we are now [for the long term], it will be very problematic,” he said.

“It’s necessary to address the economy and see how we attract people from abroad to come to invest and do things here and do projects, which I don’t see happening today.”

Waldman also emphasized that from his position in the business world, he sees a brain drain threatening the country.

Only 30-50,000 people need to leave the country to harm the economy and create a noticeable difference, he explained. Some of this economic damage and brain drain is due to the government’s allocation of resources. “People today are very sectoral,” he said, adding that political leaders take budgets for their own sectors or intimates.

No dictatorship here

It is vital to make sure “that the state of Israel stays a Jewish, liberal-democratic country,” he said.

“I don’t think we would want to live in a dictatorship,” he said, touching on the potential impacts of sectoral government and bad leadership on quality of life and the economy.

Waldman was active in protests against the judicial reform from an early stage. The government and its “aspiration to lower the level of democracy of the country” are harmful to the state, he said.

This has left business leaders, himself included, with little choice but to be involved in shaping the country, academia, and other institutions, he explained.

Asked about his vision and hope for what the future of the state holds, Waldman emphasized the need for solid institutions and for security.

In the future of Israel, Waldman envisages “worthy leaders who will build an economy, academia, education, and health; and of course [ensure] security first.”