They have met two Popes in two years, carried the Olympic Torch for the Winter Olympics – the first Palestinian and Israeli to do so together – and launched an NGO with the slogan “Peace is Possible”.
While war rumbles on in the Middle East more than two and a half years after October 7, Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah have been travelling to deliver the message that more death and destruction is not the inevitable destiny of the region.
The duo were in the UK last week for the launch of their book, The Future is Peace, appearing at the Charleston Festival in Lewes, the Hay Festival, and London’s JW3, among other venues. Before that, in Paris, their itinerary included Sababa, a restaurant run by a Palestinian from Gaza and an Israeli.
“The question should not be: ‘Is peace possible between Israelis and Palestinians?’ But: ‘When will [the conflict] end?’” Inon says. “We believe it can end soon.”
The book is an account of the joint pilgrimage they made together through Israel and the West Bank in late 2024, trying to look at the situation through each other’s eyes, sharing personal stories and meeting people who bridge the national divide.
It is a response to the violence ignited by October 7, which claimed the lives of Inon’s parents.
Yakovi and Bilha Inon were shot at Netiv HaAsara, a moshav which is the nearest Israeli community to the Gaza border, and their house incinerated. It took 14 days to identify Yakovi’s body. Nothing was left of Bilha, although her art studio survived the fire.
Maoz Inon (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]
Abu Sarah has also lost family to the conflict. When he was 10, his brother Tayseer, 19, who had been arrested for throwing rocks in the First Intifada, died shortly after his release from prison of damage to his internal organs that he had suffered from the beatings of his captors.
Abu Sarah grew up in East Jerusalem, his family unable to live in their home in nearby Bethany because that would have meant having to relinquish their residency status in Jerusalem. At 18, he decided he would need to learn Hebrew to get a decent job. When the teacher welcomed him in Arabic, it was the first act of “kindness and recognition” from an Israeli he had encountered – an act which shifted his life from anger and hate to a different direction. He later became chairman of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, for bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families, who have lost a loved as a result of the conflict.
Aziz Abu Sarah (Photo: Courtesy)[Missing Credit]
The two had met once over coffee over a decade before in Jerusalem through a mutual friend. But it was when Abu Sarah reached out after hearing that Inon’s parents had been killed on October 7 to offer his condolences, that what they now refer to as a “brotherhood” began.
While most Israelis support the country’s recent military operations and Hamas remains popular – according to polls – in the West Bank, Inon says: “We know where the polls are now, but we know it can be changed. It can be changed through leadership, not through despair.”
He was one of the first Israeli Jews to voice opposition to the war in Gaza, part of a very small minority at the time. But the third People’s Peace Summit, recently held in Tel Aviv, shows that momentum for peace is growing, he believes.
For 20 years or so, Inon had been in the tourism business, running a group of Abraham Hostels – named after the patriarch revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims – which he had hoped would foster co-operation among people. But now, he has moved on.
“I realised, without solving the Israel-Palestine conflict and creating a just and peaceful future, I am wasting my time in tourism. So now, I am investing all my time and energy in peacemaking,” he explained.
Abu Sarah pursued a parallel course. In 2009, he co-founded Mejdi Tours which uses a “dual narrative” approach, with Palestinian and Israeli guides recounting history, each from their own national perspective. The model has successfully been exported to 30 other places abroad, which has enabled Mejdi to withstand the problems of Covid and war, which have caused many other tourism businesses in the area to fold.
Aziz Abu Sarah (left) and Maoz Inon at a meeting in the States (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]
During their book tours abroad, they have noticed that polarisation over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “very clear”, Abu Sarah says.
“People don’t know what’s happening in most cases; people are within their own echo chambers. I talk to people in the Muslim and Jewish communities here who receive news only from pro-Israel or pro-Palestine sources.
“I have friends in the Jewish community who have no idea what the settlers are doing in the West Bank, no idea that the army is protecting them as they do what they do… I talk to people in the Muslim community who still don’t know what happened on October 7. And so, it’s important to get these communities out of their echo chambers.”
They hope their own activism will inspire communities to come together and rally in support of peacemaking.
“If we can overcome those feelings of hate, of revenge,” says Inon, “and transform them into a dialogue, a partnership, a brotherhood, so can you – in the UK, between the Jewish community and the Muslim community. So, we must find a way to work together, not against each other.”
But Abu Sarah believes that diaspora communities, whether Jewish or Arab, have “not been very helpful so far”, fearful of being accused of betraying their co-religionists if they speak out.
He says: “I have heard from some Palestinians that if you criticise Hamas right now, you are justifying what Israel is doing to us.” But, he adds: “On the other hand, within the Jewish community, if you criticise Israel… you are justifying what Hamas has done.”
Instead, they want rabbis, imams and other leaders to actively promote the work of peace – and readers and viewers to press media outlets to cover it.
“We have so much news from Israel-Palestine on a daily basis. How many times do peacemakers get interviewed about that news?” says Abu Sarah.
People should demand for peacemakers to be brought into the studio. “We don’t need the analysis of only professors and generals, lawyers and politicians. We have a legitimate space to be at that table; we have got to start demanding that. I think the experts must include Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers,” he says.
The Hebrew and Arabic editions of the book are due out by early next year. It was important to launch it in English to reach an international audience both because without outside intervention, a solution to the conflict is not achievable, Abu Sarah says, and because “being successful first abroad helps the book be significantly more successful back home”.
To read history from the other’s point of view is ‘not going to be easy’, Abu Sarah says. ‘It is going to be hard - but hard is good’
But the book is only one platform. Apart from the NGO InterAct International to promote reconciliation initiatives, they have launched a website, dualnarrative.org to provide resources from both Palestinian and Israeli perspectives.
To read history from the other’s point of view is “not going to be easy”, Abu Sarah says. “It is going to be hard - but hard is good.”
They are also developing Beit Fauzi Azar, a restored Palestinian mansion in Nazareth, which was previously one of Inon’s hostels, as a hub for peace education and activism. Two documentaries are also in the pipeline.
For Inon – whose brother Magen works for the anti-occupation campaign group Yachad in London – the call of the prophets for peace and justice has never been more urgent.
The Hebrew word for prophet, navi, also means “we shall bring”, he says. But “we don’t have the luxury and time to wait for the prophets. Each one of us, if he is Jewish, or Muslim, or Christian, if he is living in the Holy Land or diaspora, should act like he is a prophet, Then together, we shall achieve a great peace. Navi shalom gadol.”
For more information: thefutureispeace.com/
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