For Israelis and Palestinians, May 28 marked 600 days of the most devastating period either side has known since Israel’s foundation.
And yet amid it all, there are people trying to build bridges from one side to the other, attempting – together – to create a different reality.
Some of them gathered recently for a well-attended two-day People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem, forged by a coalition of Jewish and Palestinian peace-building and coexistence organizations. They sought to demonstrate that a peace movement is a viable and growing notion, and that joint Jewish-Palestinian activism is withstanding the raging war and shattered trust.
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It can be difficult for Israeli and Palestinian peace activists to cooperate openly. They are called naive at best, traitors at worst. Gaza has shattered trust. Yet attendees at a People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem signaled dedication to building bridges.
“The way to peace will not be short, but it is better than endless war,” Sally Abed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, called out from the Jerusalem stage to an auditorium packed with over 3,000 people. She is a leader of Standing Together, a fast-growing group uniting Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens.
One outspoken Israeli peace activist is Maoz Inon, whose parents were burned to death in their home near Gaza in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. He and his siblings responded with a vow to seek peace, not revenge.
“Yes, we are devastated from the horrors that are happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and we acknowledge the ongoing trauma both peoples are enduring,” he says in an interview. “But we know the only way to end the bloodshed and the cycle of violence, revenge, and hate is shaping and creating a new reality. We are learning from spiritual and faith leaders, security leaders, and from other conflict areas that were resolved.”
More invitations to talk peace
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Mr. Inon paired with a fellow entrepreneur, Aziz Abu-Sarah, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem whose older brother was killed in the first intifada. Together they have been advocating reconciliation, equality, and justice.
They say they can see their growing impact in their growing list of invitations to speak, not only at peace-related events but also in public schools, at universities, and at conferences. Their joint TED Talk has gone viral, and their work caught the attention of the late Pope Francis, leading to a Vatican meeting.
On Friday they were back in Rome, where they met Pope Leo XIV, who commended their friendship and joint mission as a sign of hope. “Peace takes shape from the ground up,” he was reported as saying, “beginning with places, communities, and local institutions. And by listening to what they have to tell us.”
It can be difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to work together openly. Activists are called naive at best, traitors at worst. But, Mr. Abu-Sarah argues, “We are offering the only viable answer to the current reality.
“As Maoz told me after his parents were killed, ‘Right now, we are in the desert – no food, no water. We’re lost. And when you’re lost in the desert, you call out for water. We are calling out for peace, because our desert is war.’”
That’s why, Mr. Abu-Sarah continues, “In times like these, we must work with Israelis who oppose the bombardment of Gaza and genuinely support peace.”
But, he clarifies, “Bridge-building must be rooted in clear principles: equality, justice, recognition, healing, and safety for all. It’s not just about dialogue. It must lead to real action and tangible change.
“We do have strong, principled allies on the Israeli side,” he adds. “They need us, and we need them, because without each other, we’re weaker – and the killing won’t stop.”
Twice in the past week, Standing Together organized convoys of Israelis near the border with Gaza to protest the army’s new offensive and to demand that sufficient food aid be allowed in. The group sees the recent surge in activism as the sign of an awakening among Israeli Jews who view the war as endangering Palestinian civilians alongside Hamas-held Israeli hostages and soldiers.
According to a recent poll on Israel’s Channel 12, some 61% of Israeli respondents support an end to the war with a deal for the hostages’ return, while 25% support the current military operation in Gaza and even military occupation.
Intervening against hate
Illustrating both the challenge and the potential for peace activists, throngs of ultranationalist young Israelis swept through Jerusalem’s Old City on May 26, shouting hateful slogans in a sometimes-violent march marking the day in 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem.
Volunteers from Standing Together and the Free Jerusalem collective, a group of predominantly Jewish Jerusalem residents that works with Palestinians in the city, acted as a “humanitarian guard” to prevent violence. In a scene captured on video, a Jewish Israeli volunteer can be seen rushing into a crowd of far-right marchers surrounding a Palestinian man.
“I posted this video here because it is important for us to know and understand that even in the most difficult times of heightened racism, violence, and perversion – we always have something we can do and a way we can do it,” wrote Rula Daoud, co-director of Standing Together, herself a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
Mohammad Darawshe, director of strategy at Givat Haviva, Israel’s oldest and largest organization working for a shared Jewish-Arab society, says bridge-building is challenging for Palestinian Israelis. They face systemic discrimination and are often seen as a fifth column in Israel, he says, and while they have an ethnic and cultural affinity for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, they have limited political influence.
“As peacemakers they have a very underutilized role. But if empowered by Israel and by Palestinians on the other side, then they could play a significant role in peacemaking thanks to our bilingualism and dual identity,” he says. “There’s real capacity there; it’s not a handicap. It’s because we are not 100% Israeli or Palestinian.”
Obstacles to bridge-building
Mika Almog, creative director of the It’s Time movement that organized the peace summit, says that it is hard to counter the general Israeli mindset that there are no Palestinian partners for peace, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Citing decades of “indoctrination and incitement,” she says Israelis have been told that the conflict could be contained through periodic wars, but not resolved.
“We have been taught that this is a reasonable price,” she says. “In order for Israelis to be able to sustain and build faith [in the prospects for peace] … we need to see Palestinian partners within Israel but also partners in Gaza and the West Bank.”
At the summit, a view of life in Gaza came in the form of a brief video of a Palestinian woman walking through the rubble. She details the difficulties of her life: living in a tent, subsisting on limited food and water.
“We are living a tragedy,” she says. “Most people in Gaza are against extremism and terrorism. We want peace.”
Wasim Almasri, the Ramallah-based director of programs for the Alliance for Middle East Peace, an umbrella organization of Israeli and Palestinian peace builders, sat in the darkened theater, deeply affected both by what he saw on the screen and by the audience’s rapt attention.
The focus is so often on the loud extreme voices, he says. “So to hear someone in Gaza speaking of peace, and grounded in the reality and understanding that peace is necessary, was quite moving.”
He notes that the public appetite for peace-building has, in the past, always grown during calmer periods, not in wartime. Grassroots efforts compete with the glorification of violent resistance.
“It is really, really hard and seems almost impossible among this kind of destruction that is not just physical, but also emotional and moral,” to come together, says Limor Yehuda, who heads the Shemesh Center for the Study of a Partnership-based Peace in Jerusalem. “But it needs to happen if we want another future here.”
