Pop star Shakira joined Israeli President Shimon Peres to open the third Israeli Presidential Conference, titled “Facing Tomorrow.”
“The best decisions we can make for a better tomorrow are those about educating and caring for our children,” said Shakira, a Columbian singer, whose father is Lebanese, and who serves as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. “Israel is the perfect place to discuss education and our future because it is the melting pot, the location where all nations and religions were born. We are all inheritors of Abrahamic culture, therefore we are all Israel.”
Tuesday’s opening session also included Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and comedian Sarah Silverman.
In presenting her recipe for a better tomorrow, Sarah Silverman, the American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician, noted that the differences between Israelis and Palestinians is not as great as thought to be. “My recipe for a better tomorrow would be to raise an entire generation without hate,” she said. “The solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a simple ‘buddy movie formula.’ If you have these two hostile entities, find a common goal, and work together to fulfill it, in the end they will realize that they have much in common.”
Wales called for harnessing technology in order give the young generation a voice.
More than 4,000 Jewish and world leaders are in Israel for the three-day conference.
This is the first visit to Israel for Shakira, who was urged in a Facebook page liked by about 2,000 people to cancel her trip.
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