As the four delegates sat around a table for a discussion chaired by the Board’s senior vice president Adrian Cohen, it was an unlikely tableau, not least because one of the participants, Ibrahim Al-Jaafari from Bethlehem, wore a black-and-white keffiyeh.
For Jaafari, the trauma that brought him to the group arrived early. He recalled how, aged nine years old, he saw his 19-year-old cousin Jihad shot dead by an Israeli soldier in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp while he was standing on the roof during a raid. “I didn't fully grasp the meaning of death,” he recalled. “I only remember his mother came screaming towards him, screaming his name, and only silence followed her screams.”
Later, when he considered joining the forum, other Palestinians warned him off. The PCFF, he was told, were “normalisers” and guilty of “working with the occupation”.
But, “when I saw all the PCFF does, I realised how wrong that label was. The PCFF is a place where bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families… use their sorrow for understanding and dialogue.”
Beside him sat Mor Ynon, co-chair of the forum’s governors. Her parents, Belha and Yaakov, were murdered in their home in Netiv Ha’Asara on October 7.
Afterwards, she said, she felt “physically unsafe in Tel Aviv” and found herself imagining “terrorists coming out of the bushes.” At the same time, she was incandescent at Israel’s institutions. “I was angry at the IDF and the Israeli government… None of them took responsibility.”
What pulled her towards the forum was a need “to learn more and be in a dialogue. When you don’t know someone… you dehumanise the other side, and when dehumanisation occurs, terrible things happen on both sides.”
Meanwhile, Mai Alibini Peri joined the forum after his Manchester-born uncle, Daniel Darlington, was murdered on October 7 and his grandfather, Chaim Peri, was kidnapped to Gaza. He was killed four months later.
“I come from a leftist environment, and my grandfather was a peace activist. My only way to carry on his legacy was to join the peace effort,” Peri said.
But he is aware of how this plays in some quarters. Gesturing toward his Palestinian colleagues, he noted the symmetry of the criticism. “They’re being called normalisers, we’re being called traitors. You're supposed to be loyal to your country, but I am loyal to my values and to humanity.
“Wanting to help Palestinians is not something that is against Jews or against Israelis… Even though Ibrahim is Palestinian and I am Israeli, we are on the same side.”
[Missing Credit]Members of the Parents Circle Families Forum being hosted by the Board of Deputies
From Hebron came Mahmoud Al-Qerm, the forum's Palestinian office financial director, whose cousin Selmi was shot by an Israeli soldier while playing in a schoolyard during a raid. He said that for most Palestinians in Hebron, “there are two kinds of Israelis: settlers and soldiers,” but working with the Forum had shown him another face of Israel.
His friends accused him of “normalising”, he said, but he brushed it off. “The forum has proven that we can work together… This organisation is like my family.”
He said he was working for his children. “One day, we will all have one country, two countries, I don’t care. I just want dignity for Palestinians.”
All four described how much harder their dialogue work has become. While some members left after October 7 (a relatively small number compared to those who joined), the biggest issues have been practical.
Since October 7, Palestinians can no longer freely cross into Israel, forcing most joint meetings onto Zoom. For seminars, Israeli members must relay their Palestinian partners’ experiences secondhand or via video.
Jaafari offered a glimpse of life in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the West Bank, where he says water and electricity can be sporadic. He recalled telling an Israeli PCFF member that he hadn’t showered for two weeks because his neighbourhood had no water.
“He genuinely thought I was kidding… He was shocked that I live in the same land that he does, and it's totally two different worlds.” These gaps in basic understanding, he added, are precisely why dialogue matters.
When asked about the political situation for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Jaafari said “lesser evil is in the West Bank – at least the PLO supports a peaceful solution.”
When asked about support for the October 7 attacks from some Palestinians in the West Bank, he said: “There was a lot of misinformation about what it was, the nature of it. For example, I remember hearing rumbles about fighters reaching the prisons and freeing the no-trial prisoners. And that was something that a lot of people would celebrate.
“But the reality was a little different,” he went on. “So you're going to see a lot of videos of people celebrating, a lot of videos of people amazed that it happened. I'm not going to say all, but a big chunk of the videos are invalid.”
However he added, that there are still people in the West Bank who “still support everything that happened and know everything that happened”. According to a recent poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), 59 per cent of West Bank Palestinians and 44 per cent of Gazans support the October 7 attacks.
In Israel, the Ministry of Education is attempting to push the PCFF’s dialogue programme out of Israeli schools, a move the forum is challenging in court.
They have approached senior politicians, including Yair Lapid. Ynon indicated that the leader of the opposition was not willing to lend party support to the PCFF – and the group continues to work to build broader political support for their vision.
Ynon thanked the Board for hosting the forum. “By inviting us, you already support us… Sometimes we feel very lonely in Israel.” She also asked the British Jewish representative body to challenge Israeli politicians, “Your power over them is much stronger than mine.”
Addressing the discussion of approximately 20 people at the Board’s HQ, Cohen said: “We [the Board] do promote organisations which are involved in this space”[of dialogue].”
“We have been quite outspoken on some of these issues, for example, in relation to violence against Palestinians. Famously, when Bezalel Smotrich came to the UK some years ago, we said he should go home,” Cohen added.
He said he was pleased the Board had the “opportunity to host” the forum.
The four members of the PCFF have been in the UK for a week of meetings with Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities, supported by the UK Friends of the Parent Circle.
