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Last month, I, a Palestinian of East Jerusalem, journeyed to Kfar Aza, one of the kibbutzim devastated on October 7. I came to pay my condolensces on behalf of myself and Palestinians, to share with the Israelis the grief, sadness, and sorrow of everything that has happened since that dark day.
As a person who spent all his life opening channels of dialogue with Israelis, I am one of few who can claim to be an expert on both Palestinians and Israelis—and all that they share. Both believe they are engaged in a just fight, and thus both believe they will eventually win. Both also believe the other side to be the problem—failing to see that we are each other's solution.
Knowing well both Palestinians and Israelis, I know we will work our way out of the current tragedy. We need to stop looking always backward to our dark past and shift one eye toward the future. With this eye looking to the future, we will find a political horizon in which the war is over and the hostages released.
The horrors of October 7 and of the ongoing war on Gaza do not change the fundamental facts about Israelis and Palestinians. Both will continue to live in this land. Israelis will continue to look for peace but worry about their security, and Palestinians will continue to look for peace which must include human dignity, rights, and justice.
The lesson to be learned from both from October 7 and the ongoing war in Gaza is that war has never been the correct option. Peace is inevitable.
To make this happen, Palestinians and Israelis need partnership throughout the region and full support by the Americans.
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, must go, as must the current far Right Israeli leadership. President Abbas must leave the political scene and be allowed to live his remaining days in dignity. Palestinians deserve a more representative, accountable and younger leadership through free elections. A new unified Palestinian government must be established through a free a fair election, and this government should adopt a strategy of transparency and forthrightness—countering the corruption in the West Bank and destruction in Gaza. It must establish foundations of democracy, accountability, and a separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial authorities. It must bring together all Palestinians, allow them to engage in political life, respect their rights, safeguard their freedoms, begin social and economic development, and, most important, find a way to join hands with Israel in bringing down the curtain on one of the most complex and controversial conflicts of the modern era.
Changes in both Palestinian and Israeli leadership would open the door for renewed negotiations that might bring this long and bitter conflict to an end.
I hope that one day an Israeli activist or leader may visit Gaza as I visited Kfar Aza, that they might sit and offer condolences and share our grief and sadness over the tens of thousands of civilian casualties lost in this war.
We both need to acknowledge the moral responsibility of our actions and of actions committed by members of our communities. We Palestinians have the moral responsibility of whatever was done on October 7 by any Palestinian in our name, and with that same logic, Israelis bear the moral responsibility of all the civilian loses and destruction that is still happening in Gaza today.
Now, and before it is too late, we have a small window to end all the madness and exit toward peace. It is time for a ceasefire which will release all hostages and prisoners from both sides and set a new chapter of relations between Palestinians and Israelis. It is time for us Palestinians to adopt a new Palestinian strategy based on guaranteeing security to Israelis and for Israelis to adopt a new strategy based on guaranteeing human dignity, respect, and prosperity to Palestinians.
All the stars are aligning now. The International community has placed the Middle East at the top of its agenda with unprecedented diplomatic efforts to push all sides toward new political horizons. The Saudis signaled clearly their intention to normalize with Israel, and all the other Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE are willing to be engaged into a new regional arrangement that will be able to guarantee security to Israelis and national aspirations to Palestinians.
The time for peace is now.
Samer Sinijlawi is a political activist and a Palestinian political commentator from East Jerusalem. He is a Fatah opponent to the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and he is chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
