Two activists who have each suffered severe personal tragedy have made an impassioned plea for diaspora communities to support them in their quest for peace between Israel and Palestinians.
And, speaking at JW3 last Thursday, Maoz Inon and Abu Aziz Sarah announced that in May they would be among the leaders of “the biggest peace rally in the Middle East for decades”, the “People’s Peace Summit”, due to be held in Jerusalem.
In conversation with BBC journalist Michael Daventry, Inon and Aziz told their heartbreaking personal stories — Inon’s parents were killed on their kibbutz, Netiv HaAsara, during the 7 October attacks on southern Israel, while Aziz Abu Sarah spoke about the loss of his elder brother after he had been beaten by Israeli soldiers.
Despite these tragedies, both men are determined to advocate for peace. Their joint global journey has taken them — post-7 October — to TED talks in Vancouver and to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican.
In London, the pair also spoke to MPs and peers in Parliament, and Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergy at Westminster Abbey.
Maoz Inon and his portrait of his parents, Bilha and Yakov, killed on the morning of 7 October
Aziz Abu Sarah, 45, who grew up in East Jerusalem, has been recognised amongst the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan. Like his friend Maoz Inon, he has been heavily involved in tourism, founding an alternative travel company which operates both in America and the Middle East.
He told the JW3 audience that “the first time I was shot at, I think I was seven or eight years old, at the time. My next door neighbour was killed when I was nine. Then my brother was arrested from home during Ramadan, on suspicion of throwing rocks.
“He was beaten up so he would confess to the charges, and by the time he was released from prison was pretty much on his deathbed.” Weeks later his brother died in hospital from internal injuries, aged 19.
Aziz’s reaction was to become an angry Palestinian activist, telling the audience: “I was very bitter, and I felt revenge was the only appropriate way to respond, because I felt there was no choice and that was my path for the next eight years.
“I became very involved in politics immediately. By the time I was 13 I was a political activist”.
What changed him, he said, was finishing school aged 18 and realising there was no future for him in Jerusalem, either for work or study, unless he could speak Hebrew. So he became the only Palestinian in a Hebrew ulpan, aimed primarily at immigrants to Israel.
Not only was this “the first time an Israeli treated me as a human being”, he said, but the ulpan was also “my first introduction to Israelis and to Jews who are not soldiers and settlers, where we could sit as equals. And that’s not very common”.
His Hebrew teacher “definitely changed my life”, he said, in “transformational moments” in which she asked Aziz “to talk about Palestinian culture in the classroom, or to bring Arabic music so we could translate to Hebrew together and then bring it to the class and teach them about Arabic music. Those were small things, but that changed my whole perception of Israelis”.
Maoz Inon, 50, was also involved in alternative tourism, founding several travel companies which offered tours among Israelis and Palestinians. On 7 October he and his siblings learned that their parents’ home on their kibbutz “was burnt to ashes and that there were two bodies inside”.
The Inon family shiva was the first of the Gaza war, beginning on Sunday 8 October.
“I think it was on Monday morning that our youngest brother asked us all to make a family resolution, to agree that we are seeking no revenge — and we want this message to be sent everywhere we can.
“He explained to us that by avenging the death of our parents, we’re not going to bring them back to life and we’ll only escalate the cycle of bloodshed, of war, of revenge that is been going on for a century”.
Inon said: “For three days and three nights, I was drowning in an ocean of sorrow and pain. My body was broken into thousands of pieces, but I realised that if I want to cure myself, if I want to be healed, I must choose the path to peace and reconciliation”.
Although he was clear that “nothing can prepare you for such a tragic loss and catastrophic event”, Inon said that “I realised that I was prepared. My family was prepared. I’m sure some of you can guess who prepared us: our parents. Our parents prepared us for the moment of their death”.
Shortly after the Hamas attacks, Inon received a social media message of condolences from Aziz. “I realised that I had lost my parents, but I wanted a partner, a brother. And together we are walking on the path to peace and reconciliation. And there is no other way to reach our destination if we don’t walk it together”.
In March last year the two men met in Geneva with 70 Israelis and Palestinians in a three-day event. Aziz said: “For three days, we had the past and the present outside the meeting rooms. [And we said] let’s envision the future. There were many people from different walks of life, academia, business, government.
“For three days we were really working very, very hard and had very, very tough discussions”.
The meeting ended with a declaration, “a one-page charter which basically recognised our shared values, equality and dignity, shared acknowledgement and recognition, reconciliation and healing, security and safety”.
Now, said Inon and Azis, they believe that “us together is much stronger than each of us alone”. They think that “there’s many more of these kind of partnerships waiting to happen”.
Inon added: “We’re not going to agree on terminologies. We’re not going to agree on everything in the past. We’re not going to agree on everything in the present. You know, we can argue about many of those things, and it is important to have dialogue about these things, but being able to move forward toward what can we do together is much more important than just arguing about semantics.
“This is our only mission, the lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians”.
Both men agreed that “the concept of believing that it is possible is very important. We hear it over and over again, that ‘this generation is done, we need to wait until the next generation’”.
Aziz and Inon declared: “That’s the biggest load of ******** you’re going to hear from people, especially those in power today. Basically what they are telling you is, give up. And they are telling us, we are destining your families, your friends, yourselves to a life of misery, to a life of suffering, to a life of death…We’re going to live by the sword and die by the sword”.
But the pair said: “We refute that because we care about our families, we care about our friends, we care about our people. Saying that it’s impossible to do it in this generation: we think it should happen as soon as possible, not even in five years, but as soon as possible, because the price of not getting there is significant”.
The visit of both men was organised by Next Economy Trust. NET partnered the JW3 event together with Jewish News and Oasis of Peace.
