TEDxJaffa 2012
Ronny Edry: Israel and Iran: A love story?
Filmed:
Readability: 3.1
2,101,296 views
When war between Israel and Iran seemed imminent, Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry shared a poster on Facebook of himself and his daughter with a bold message: "Iranians ... we [heart] you." Other Israelis quickly created their own posters with the same message -- and Iranians responded in kind. The simple act of communication inspired surprising Facebook communities like "Israel loves Iran," "Iran loves Israel" and even "Palestine loves Israel."
Ronny Edry - Graphic Designer
Ronny Edry of Israel created The Peace Factory, an online movement for peace in the Middle East, when he posted a Facebook image that declared "Iranians, we will never bomb your country." Full bio
Ronny Edry of Israel created The Peace Factory, an online movement for peace in the Middle East, when he posted a Facebook image that declared "Iranians, we will never bomb your country." Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
On March 14, this year,
0
619
2799
00:19
I posted this poster on Facebook.
1
3418
2880
00:22
This is an image of me and my daughter
2
6298
2425
00:24
holding the Israeli flag.
3
8723
2734
00:27
I will try to explain to you about the context of why
4
11503
3039
00:30
and when I posted.
5
14542
2606
00:33
A few days ago, I was sitting waiting
6
17148
3121
00:36
on the line at the grocery store,
7
20269
2304
00:38
and the owner and one of the clients
8
22573
3286
00:41
were talking to each other,
9
25859
1690
00:43
and the owner was explaining to the client
10
27549
2058
00:45
that we're going to get 10,000 missiles on Israel.
11
29607
3476
00:48
And the client was saying, no, it's 10,000 a day.
12
33083
4713
00:53
(Laughter)
13
37796
2661
00:56
("10,000 missiles") This is the context. This is where we are now in Israel.
14
40457
5001
01:01
We have this war with Iran coming for 10 years now,
15
45458
3588
01:04
and we have people, you know, afraid.
16
49046
3375
01:08
It's like every year it's the last minute
17
52421
3563
01:11
that we can do something about the war with Iran.
18
55984
2475
01:14
It's like, if we don't act now, it's too late forever,
19
58459
3672
01:18
for 10 years now.
20
62131
2252
01:20
So at some point it became, you know, to me,
21
64383
2397
01:22
I'm a graphic designer, so I made posters about it
22
66780
3050
01:25
and I posted the one I just showed you before.
23
69830
3975
01:29
Most of the time, I make posters, I post them on Facebook,
24
73805
3062
01:32
my friends like it, don't like it,
25
76867
1657
01:34
most of the time don't like it, don't share it,
26
78524
1731
01:36
don't nothing,
27
80255
2223
01:38
and it's another day.
28
82478
1993
01:40
So I went to sleep, and that was it for me.
29
84471
3952
01:44
And later on in the night, I woke up
30
88423
2916
01:47
because I'm always waking up in the night,
31
91339
1833
01:49
and I went by the computer and I see all these red dots,
32
93172
2575
01:51
you know, on Facebook, which I've never seen before.
33
95747
3152
01:54
(Laughter)
34
98899
1083
01:55
And I was like, "What's going on?"
35
99982
2337
01:58
So I come to the computer and I start looking on,
36
102319
3504
02:01
and suddenly I see many people talking to me,
37
105823
3025
02:04
most of them I don't know,
38
108848
2363
02:07
and a few of them from Iran,
39
111211
2585
02:09
which is -- What?
40
113796
3481
02:13
Because you have to understand,
41
117277
2617
02:15
in Israel we don't talk with people from Iran.
42
119894
3654
02:19
We don't know people from Iran.
43
123548
1970
02:21
It's like, on Facebook, you have friends only from --
44
125518
4365
02:25
it's like your neighbors are your friends on Facebook.
45
129883
3454
02:29
And now people from Iran are talking to me.
46
133337
2737
02:31
So I start answering this girl, and she's telling me
47
136074
3509
02:35
she saw the poster and she asked her family to come,
48
139583
4860
02:40
because they don't have a computer, she asked her family
49
144443
1616
02:41
to come to see the poster, and they're all sitting in the living room crying.
50
146059
4548
02:46
So I'm like, whoa.
51
150607
1682
02:48
I ask my wife to come, and I tell her, you have to see that.
52
152289
3418
02:51
People are crying, and she came, she read the text,
53
155707
3049
02:54
and she started to cry.
54
158756
2700
02:57
And everybody's crying now. (Laughter)
55
161456
2638
02:59
So I don't know what to do, so my first reflex,
56
164094
2800
03:02
as a graphic designer, is, you know, to show everybody
57
166894
3314
03:06
what I'd just seen, and people started to see them
58
170208
3698
03:09
and to share them, and that's how it started.
59
173906
2600
03:12
The day after, when really it became a lot of talking,
60
176506
3739
03:16
I said to myself, and my wife said to me,
61
180245
2223
03:18
I also want a poster,
62
182468
1266
03:19
so this is her. (Laughter)
63
183734
3462
03:23
Because it's working, put me in a poster now.
64
187196
4982
03:28
But more seriously, I was like, okay, these ones work,
65
192178
3110
03:31
but it's not just about me, it's about people from Israel
66
195288
3298
03:34
who want to say something.
67
198586
903
03:35
So I'm going to shoot all the people I know, if they want,
68
199489
2837
03:38
and I'm going to put them in a poster and I'm going to share them.
69
202326
2088
03:40
So I went to my neighbors and friends and students
70
204414
3682
03:43
and I just asked them, give me a picture, I will make you a poster.
71
208096
4091
03:48
And that's how it started. And that's how, really,
72
212187
2897
03:50
it's unleashed, because suddenly people
73
215084
3413
03:54
from Facebook, friends and others,
74
218497
2450
03:56
just understand that they can be part of it.
75
220947
2957
03:59
It's not just one dude making one poster,
76
223904
1734
04:01
it's -- we can be part of it, so they start sending me pictures
77
225638
3513
04:05
and ask me, "Make me a poster. Post it.
78
229151
2376
04:07
Tell the Iranians we from Israel love you too."
79
231527
4634
04:12
It became, you know, at some point it was really, really intense.
80
236161
3368
04:15
I mean, so many pictures, so I asked friends
81
239529
4315
04:19
to come, graphic designers most of them,
82
243844
3123
04:22
to make posters with me, because I didn't have the time.
83
246967
2603
04:25
It was a huge amount of pictures.
84
249570
2656
04:28
So for a few days, that's how my living room was.
85
252226
3395
04:31
And we received Israeli posters, Israeli images,
86
255621
4523
04:36
but also lots of comments, lots of messages from Iran.
87
260144
4686
04:40
And we took these messages and we made posters out of it,
88
264830
3682
04:44
because I know people: They don't read, they see images.
89
268512
3465
04:47
If it's an image, they may read it.
90
271977
2976
04:50
So here are a few of them.
91
274953
2717
04:53
("You are my first Israelian friend. I wish we both get rid of our idiot politicians, anyway nice to see you!")
92
277670
2273
04:55
("I love that blue. I love that star. I love that flag.") This one is really moving for me because it's the story
93
279943
3536
04:59
of a girl who has been raised in Iran
94
283479
3814
05:03
to walk on an Israeli flag to enter her school every morning,
95
287293
5278
05:08
and now that she sees the posters that we're sending,
96
292571
3331
05:11
she starts -- she said that she changed her mind,
97
295902
2675
05:14
and now she loves that blue, she loves that star,
98
298577
3341
05:17
and she loves that flag, talking about the Israeli flag,
99
301918
2335
05:20
and she wished that we'd meet and come to visit one another,
100
304253
3820
05:23
and just a few days after I posted the first poster.
101
308073
5083
05:29
The day after,
102
313156
2612
05:31
Iranians started to respond with their own posters.
103
315768
2717
05:34
They have graphic designers. What? (Laughter)
104
318485
3426
05:37
Crazy, crazy.
105
321911
2342
05:40
So you can see they are still shy, they don't want to show their faces,
106
324253
3525
05:43
but they want to spread the message.
107
327778
1572
05:45
They want to respond. They want to say the same thing.
108
329350
2136
05:47
So. And now it's communication.
109
331486
3105
05:50
It's a two-way story. It's Israelis and Iranians
110
334591
3426
05:53
sending the same message, one to each other.
111
338017
2656
05:56
("My Israeli Friends. I don't hate you. I don't want War.")
112
340673
1678
05:58
This never happened before, and this is two people
113
342351
4160
06:02
supposed to be enemies, we're on the verge of a war,
114
346511
2917
06:05
and suddenly people on Facebook are starting to say,
115
349428
2619
06:07
"I like this guy. I love those guys."
116
352047
4151
06:12
And it became really big at some point.
117
356198
4438
06:16
And then it became news.
118
360636
3312
06:19
Because when you're seeing the Middle East, you see only the bad news.
119
363948
4200
06:24
And suddenly, there is something that was happening
120
368148
2299
06:26
that was good news. So the guys on the news,
121
370447
2826
06:29
they say, "Okay, let's talk about this."
122
373273
1688
06:30
And they just came, and it was so much,
123
374961
3199
06:34
I remember one day, Michal,
124
378160
2439
06:36
she was talking with the journalist, and she was asking him,
125
380599
2800
06:39
"Who's gonna see the show?"And he said, "Everybody."
126
383399
4058
06:43
So she said, "Everybody in Palestine, in where? Israel?
127
387457
5497
06:48
Who is everybody?""Everybody."
128
392954
2916
06:51
They said, "Syria?" "Syria."
129
395870
1614
06:53
"Lebanon?""Lebanon."
130
397484
1740
06:55
At some point, he just said, "40 million people are going to see you today.
131
399224
3971
06:59
It's everybody." The Chinese.
132
403195
2712
07:01
And we were just at the beginning of the story.
133
405907
5626
07:07
Something crazy also happened.
134
411533
2082
07:09
Every time a country started talking about it,
135
413615
3188
07:12
like Germany, America, wherever,
136
416803
3269
07:15
a page on Facebook popped up with the same logo
137
420072
5428
07:21
with the same stories, so at the beginning
138
425500
1757
07:23
we had "Iran-Loves-Israel," which is an Iranian
139
427257
3815
07:26
sitting in Tehran, saying, "Okay, Israel loves Iran?
140
431072
5078
07:32
I give you Iran-Loves-Israel."
141
436150
1910
07:33
You have Palestine-Loves-Israel.
142
438060
1602
07:35
You have Lebanon that just -- a few days ago.
143
439662
2628
07:38
And this whole list of pages on Facebook
144
442290
3468
07:41
dedicated to the same message,
145
445758
2100
07:43
to people sending their love, one to each other.
146
447858
5837
07:49
The moment I really understood that something was happening,
147
453695
3696
07:53
a friend of mine told me,
148
457391
2450
07:55
"Google the word 'Israel.'"
149
459841
2002
07:57
And those were the first images on those days
150
461843
3707
08:01
that popped up from Google
151
465550
2279
08:03
when you were typing, "Israel" or "Iran."
152
467829
3606
08:07
We really changed how people see the Middle East.
153
471435
4314
08:11
Because you're not in the Middle East.
154
475749
1769
08:13
You're somewhere over there, and then you want to see the Middle East,
155
477518
2291
08:15
so you go on Google and you say, "Israel,"
156
479809
1656
08:17
and they give you the bad stuff.
157
481465
1209
08:18
And for a few days you got those images.
158
482674
4769
08:23
Today the Israel-Loves-Iran page
159
487443
2399
08:25
is this number, 80,831, and two million people last week
160
489842
5388
08:31
went on the page and shared, liked, I don't know,
161
495230
2863
08:33
commented on one of the photos.
162
498093
2592
08:36
So for five months now, that's what we are doing,
163
500685
4508
08:41
me, Michal, a few of my friends, are just making images.
164
505193
4750
08:45
We're showing a new reality
165
509943
2287
08:48
by just making images
166
512230
2203
08:50
because that's how the world perceives us.
167
514433
2897
08:53
They see images of us, and they see bad images.
168
517330
2801
08:56
So we're working on making good images. End of story.
169
520131
5051
09:01
Look at this one. This is the Iran-Loves-Israel page.
170
525182
4915
09:05
This is not the Israel-Loves-Iran. This is not my page.
171
530097
2518
09:08
This is a guy in Tehran on the day of remembrance
172
532615
3779
09:12
of the Israeli fallen soldier
173
536394
2542
09:14
putting an image of an Israeli soldier on his page.
174
538936
3963
09:18
This is the enemy.
175
542899
3391
09:22
What?
176
546290
1472
09:23
("Our heartfelt condolences to the families who lost their dearests in terror attack in Bulgaria")
177
547762
2042
09:25
And it's going both ways.
178
549804
1705
09:27
It's like, we are showing respect, one to each other.
179
551509
4538
09:31
And we're understanding. And you show compassion.
180
556047
4986
09:36
And you become friends.
181
561033
4761
09:41
And at some point, you become friends on Facebook,
182
565794
3227
09:44
and you become friends in life.
183
569021
1777
09:46
You can go and travel and meet people.
184
570798
2816
09:49
And I was in Munich a few weeks ago.
185
573614
3378
09:52
I went there to open an exposition about Iran
186
576992
3827
09:56
and I met there with people from the page
187
580819
2457
09:59
that told me, "Okay, you're going to be in Europe,
188
583276
2306
10:01
I'm coming. I'm coming from France, from Holland,
189
585582
2604
10:04
from Germany," of course, and from Israel people came,
190
588186
2721
10:06
and we just met there for the first time in real life.
191
590907
4575
10:11
I met with people that are supposed to be my enemies
192
595482
4517
10:15
for the first time. And we just shake hands,
193
599999
2614
10:18
and have a coffee and a nice discussion,
194
602613
2003
10:20
and we talk about food and basketball.
195
604616
2720
10:23
And that was the end of it.
196
607336
1738
10:24
Remember that image from the beginning?
197
609074
2754
10:27
At some point we met in real life, and we became friends.
198
611828
8381
10:36
And it goes the other way around.
199
620209
2664
10:38
Some girl that we met on Facebook
200
622873
2793
10:41
never been in Israel, born and raised in Iran,
201
625666
2910
10:44
lives in Germany, afraid of Israelis
202
628576
3558
10:48
because of what she knows about us,
203
632134
2230
10:50
decides after a few months of talking on the Internet
204
634364
3614
10:53
with some Israelis to come to Israel,
205
637978
3044
10:56
and she gets on the plane and arrives at Ben Gurion
206
641022
4497
11:01
and says, "Okay, not that big a deal."
207
645519
6127
11:07
So a few weeks ago, the stress is getting higher,
208
651646
3587
11:11
so we start this new campaign
209
655233
2473
11:13
called "Not ready to die in your war."
210
657706
3372
11:16
I mean, it's plus/minus the same message,
211
661078
2813
11:19
but we wanted really to add some aggressivity to it.
212
663891
3674
11:23
And again, something amazing happened,
213
667565
2951
11:26
something that we didn't have on the first wave of the campaign.
214
670516
3338
11:29
Now people from Iran, the same ones who were shy
215
673854
4270
11:34
at the first campaign and just sent, you know,
216
678124
2105
11:36
their foot and half their faces,
217
680229
2188
11:38
now they're sending their faces, and they're saying,
218
682417
2400
11:40
"Okay, no problem, we're into it. We are with you."
219
684817
9065
11:49
Just read where those guys are from.
220
693882
3520
11:53
And for every guy from Israel,
221
697402
2315
11:55
you've got someone from Iran.
222
699717
3291
12:06
Just people sending their pictures.
223
711084
2724
12:27
Crazy, yes?
224
731131
2183
12:29
So --
225
733314
1636
12:30
(Applause)
226
734950
8342
12:40
So you may ask yourself, who is this dude?
227
744207
7397
12:47
My name is Ronny Edry, and I'm 41, I'm an Israeli,
228
751604
3654
12:51
I'm a father of two, I'm a husband,
229
755258
4280
12:55
and I'm a graphic designer. I'm teaching graphic design.
230
759538
4980
13:00
And I'm not that naive, because a lot of the time
231
764518
3768
13:04
I've been asked, many times I've been asked, "Yeah, but,
232
768286
3383
13:07
this is really naive, sending flowers over, I mean — "
233
771669
3226
13:10
I was in the army. I was in the paratroopers for three years,
234
774895
4051
13:14
and I know how it looks from the ground.
235
778946
3550
13:18
I know how it can look really bad.
236
782496
4326
13:22
So to me, this is the courageous thing to do,
237
786822
4137
13:26
to try to reach the other side before it's too late,
238
790959
3439
13:30
because when it's going to be too late, it's going to be too late.
239
794398
1915
13:32
And sometimes war is inevitable, sometimes,
240
796313
4421
13:36
but maybe [with] effort, we can avoid it.
241
800734
4070
13:40
Maybe as people, because especially in Israel,
242
804804
3355
13:44
we're in a democracy. We have the freedom of speech,
243
808159
3413
13:47
and maybe that little thing can change something.
244
811572
3443
13:50
And really, we can be our own ambassadors.
245
815015
4345
13:55
We can just send a message and hope for the best.
246
819360
6736
14:01
So I want to ask Michal, my wife, to come with me
247
826096
2342
14:04
on the stage just to make with you one image,
248
828438
4780
14:09
because it's all about images.
249
833218
2125
14:11
And maybe that image will help us change something.
250
835343
4571
14:15
Just raise that. Exactly.
251
839914
3507
14:19
And I'm just going to take a picture of it,
252
843421
2501
14:21
and I'm just going to post it on Facebook
253
845922
2802
14:24
with kind of "Israelis for peace" or something.
254
848724
5131
14:32
Oh my God.
255
856640
2510
14:35
Don't cry.
256
859150
2362
14:37
Thank you guys.
257
861512
1691
14:39
(Applause)
258
863203
12038
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ronny Edry - Graphic DesignerRonny Edry of Israel created The Peace Factory, an online movement for peace in the Middle East, when he posted a Facebook image that declared "Iranians, we will never bomb your country."
Why you should listen
Ronny Edry is a graphic designer, teacher and father. While he often posted images on Facebook without much fanfare, in March of 2012 one of his images garnered international attention. The image showed him with his daughter, along with the words “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We heart you.” The image became a catalyst for dialogue between the people of two nations on the brink of war -- and started an online movement. Today, The Peace Factory is connecting people throughout the Middle East, giving them a voice and a face.
Edry grew up in Paris, France, and has lived in Israel since 1989. Along with his work on the Peace Factory, he is the owner and founder of Pushpin, a school for art and design in Tel Aviv. He himself graduated with honors from the BezIalel Academy of Art and Design, and he is a staff member teaching visual communication in design academies in Israel. He has received awards for his works as a graphic designer and is also an illustrator and author of graphic novels.
Ronny Edry | Speaker | TED.com