Israeli VC Medved in Abu Dhabi: Gaza conflict will be ‘subsumed in a movement of reconciliation and cooperation’
Speaking in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, the Israeli venture capitalist addressed the Israel-Hamas war and shared his prediction for the future of the region
courtesy
Jonathan Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd, speaks on a panel about investment in the MENA region alongside Mubadala Capital’s Ibrahim Ajami, P1 Ventures’ Hisham Halbouny, 500 Global’s Courtney Powell and Global Ventures’ Noor Sweid at the 2023 Fortune Global Forum in Abu Dhabi.
The situation in Gaza will be “subsumed in an overall movement of reconciliation and of cooperation,” Jonathan Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based venture investing platform, told a gathering of top business leaders in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday during the final leg of the 2023 Fortune Global Forum. The only way to get through disaster, he said, is to make sure communities have a culture of resilience in place to move forward.
“You can’t escape geopolitics today,” Medved explained during a panel discussion. “We are all going to experience crises and tragedies and disruption in the world. It might be in regions in Gaza, it might be in the Ukraine, it might be in China and Taiwan, it might be a pandemic, it might be the global climate crisis. The one thing you can be sure of, is we’re going to be in trouble in one way or another at some point in this journey, repeatedly. The question is, ‘What are you doing about it? How do you navigate it? How are you building in your ecosystem a culture of resilience where you can handle this and you can get through it?”
Venture capitalism, he continued, has a time horizon, or an investment window, of not just a couple of months, but years to continue growing and providing for those it serves. “We look over the horizon.”
The OurCrowd founder was speaking on a panel about investment in the MENA region alongside Mubadala Capital’s Ibrahim Ajami, P1 Ventures’ Hisham Halbouny, 500 Global’s Courtney Powell and Global Ventures’ Noor Sweid.
In his remarks, Medved, who lives in Jerusalem, alluded to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and what the future of the region will look like.
“This is going to be subsumed in an overall movement of reconciliation and of cooperation,” he said. “I bet on it, the leadership here [in Abu Dhabi] bets on it, I believe that the kingdom in Saudi Arabia bets on it, and I think that most people in the world realize that this is just so stupid and tragic, and we have to get beyond it.”
“There will be horrible disruptions and difficulties, but, long-run, I’m an optimist. If you’re not an optimist you’ve got to find another job.”