I was born in Dura, in the hills of Hebron southwest of Jerusalem, into a family that carries love for the land and the memory of loss with quiet dignity. My grandfather was a Palestinian fida’i (a martyr or “sacrifice”) who was killed by the Israeli security forces in 1978. I was taught the details of his death, but they did not teach me to seek revenge; they taught me that courage must serve life. Since I was seventeen years old, I have labored to create spaces in which enemies could encounter one another as human beings. This has not been easy. Over the last two years, even in this fresh hell, notwithstanding the unprecedented bitterness between the two communities, I have worked to help young Palestinians and Israelis speak to one another as human beings. I studied at Birzeit University and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and I try to let dignity lead toward repair. People often ask me: if I am so critical of Zionism, why do I still believe that peace is the only way forward between Jews and Palestinians? My answer, my creed, is simple and stubborn: because through the years I have met so many Jews, those who have caused harm, those who have healed, and everyone in between. Beneath every belief, every behavior, and every political attitude or orientation, I have always seen the same thing: a precious, vulnerable human being who longs to feel safe and free to be themselves. Even those capable of evil are also capable of love. This is true of Palestinians, too, just as it is true of all human beings. My son looks an awful lot like the children who spoke Hebrew near where I was born – on both sides of the green line. When I look at a child, any child, I do not see ideologies. I see a longing for life, a longing to laugh without fear, to run without looking over his shoulder, to grow into a man or a woman unhindered by walls, checkpoints, accusations, or revenge. I see the same pure longing in Palestinian children and in Jewish children alike. Children should not be fed on revenge, it is a poison. I believe that if we choose to nurture our children’s childhood rather than erase it, we can build a future where our safety is no longer bought at the expense of other people’s dignity. Ramallah, October 5, 2023. I was driving with my son in the car, turned a corner, and met rifles. Soldiers in the headlights, voices sharp, the air suddenly thin. We both recognized the IDF uniforms. His small fingers tightened on the seat. I spoke in Hebrew and English with my hands open on the wheel, each word chosen to lower the temperature of the moment. One soldier eased his weapon and said that it was a surprise, a lucky break, we were not killed, as if being alive was a reprieve for which we should be grateful. We were the exception. The instant we were clear, my son, six and a half years old, reached for his phone and played Bob Marley singing “Three Little Birds.” Music filled the car. “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing./ Every little thing gonna be alright.” We did not speak. In that quiet I understood something that years of dialogue had only suggested. Dialogue can open hearts, but it cannot build a safe reality — not by itself. Dialogue is too easily thwarted by power. Two days later, as the world woke to October 7, I fled the West Bank with my son. We will go back one day, when it is safe. Criticizing political movements, including destructive policies carried out in the name of Zionism, is not remotely the same as harboring hatred toward Jewish people. I have loved and learned from Jews who challenged the very injustices I raised my voice against, and some of them raised their voices with mine. (I have also been hurt by actions taken in the name of other causes — Zionism is hardly the only political movement that has been scarred by cruelty). All of these experiences have taught me an essential wisdom: politics is often vicious and inhuman, but people are far more complex than the causes they champion. No nation or people should be reduced to the worst acts done in its name, and no good deed should be blotted out because of a crime committed by the person responsible for the goodness, or by the group of which he is a member. My faith in the possibility of peace is not naïve. It is deliberate and it is open-eyed and it is stubborn. It has to be. I have cultivated it with intelligent intention. It is built on countless encounters: conversations that began with suspicion but ended in recognition, in acts of kindness that broke through long-calcified mistrust, moments when I sat beside strangers in discomfort and refused to let that discomfort harden into hatred. These experiences — some of which I happened upon by chance but many of which I sought out — proved to me that human beings can be shockingly altered by direct encounters with people we had mistaken for caricatures of themselves. I must not erase you and you must not erase me. I must accept the legitimacy of your self-definition and you must accept the legitimacy of my self-definition. I must learn to speak without contempt about Israel and you must learn to speak without contempt about Palestine. I do not demand of others that they accept my politics. I demand only that they accept something simpler and more fundamental: that any system that denies one group’s safety or dignity diminishes everyone’s humanity. You cannot dehumanize others without disfiguring yourself. A permanent security must be built upon a foundation of justice and shared rights, not of humiliation and domination. Any other “plan” will be brittle and break. Is this really so hard to understand? Imagine
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