Peace in the Middle East: And yet there is hope

Recently, at a workshop in Berlin, a young woman from East Jerusalem asked me a question. “I am a Palestinian Christian,” she began by saying. And that she couldn't condone Hamas' actions - she condemned them, she said. But at the same time, she sees clearly that diplomacy has not helped the Palestinians so far. “So what should we do?” she asked, visibly upset. “What should we do to gain our right to self-determination and live without a military occupation that is ruining every aspect of our lives?”

The young woman says they've tried everything: "Armed resistance. Diplomacy and negotiations. Peaceful resistance. Nothing has helped so far." The seminar room was full of Palestinians and Israelis. They were all ready for dialogue, for an attempt to strengthen cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. Some of the Palestinians came from the West Bank, others from East Jerusalem.

I was the only one from the Gaza Strip, and the young woman probably knew my stance as a critic of Hamas and as someone who supports the human rights of Palestinians. She was hoping for an answer to her question from me.

“Nothing,” I finally said. “There’s nothing we can do.” It was one of the most depressing answers I had ever given. This isn't the first time I've thought about the question. But I still haven't found a good answer. The woman turned away. I thought I heard her murmur, “So armed resistance after all.”

When I was asked to write a post on the anniversary of October 7th, I was told to give people a spark of hope. It was said that we had already written and read so much about suffering. But I felt like I did in the workshop: I had no answer and no hope to offer. So I spoke to friends in Gaza, scoured the news and scoured my social media, looking for a ray of light, a glimmer of hope from Palestine-Israel. I found nothing.

Instead, I remembered that terrible day three years ago: images of Hamas atrocities, of Israeli children and elderly people kidnapped and taken into Hamas tunnels. I found uncertainty and fear while speaking to family and friends in Gaza.

On my social media, I found a Christian mother and her daughter caring for displaced Palestinian families. And a university lecturer and her mother killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building early Saturday morning. The ceasefire that theoretically exists in Gaza does not mean that the bombing has stopped or that civilians are no longer being killed.

In fact, after the ceasefire was signed last year, the Israeli army killed over 1,454 people in Gaza, including 301 children and 246 women and girls. We continued in the West Bank. Settler terrorists attacked these villages in a single day: Osarin - Beita - Burin - Aqraba - Khirbet al-Marajim - Sebastia - al-Mughayyir - Rantis - Ni'lin - Wadi al-Rakhim/Masafer Yatta - Arabuna - Baqat al-Hatab - al-Zawiya - Biet Ummarin - Burqa - Jaba'. They set houses and vehicles on fire, punched holes in doors, tore out power connections, broke tiles, and smashed windows.

So where should I find hope? Israelis will elect a new parliament at the end of October. The major parties - however different their goals, from the bloc for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the largest opposition parties of Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman - have one thing in common: they promise in different ways that a Palestinian state will not be possible under their government.

The situation is no different for the Palestinian leadership. Hamas remains in the same genocidal mindset as the current Israeli government. A way of thinking that aims to “get rid of” the other and not to live with them. Strictly speaking, even the word “leadership” is misleading. As recent Arab Barometer polls showed, the vast majority of people in Gaza and the West Bank, 55 percent, said they would not vote at all - or refused to support one of the traditional parties that ran in the 2006 elections. At the same time, support for Hamas among the population surveyed has fallen to 24 percent.

And yet. There is a glimmer of hope. The same survey shows that support for a two-state solution has risen to 64 percent in the Gaza Strip and 56 percent in the West Bank. And I know it from all my conversations with my friends and acquaintances in the Gaza Strip: The people there are thirsting for a life in peace. They thirst for a life where their children can wake up in the morning and go to school. They long for a house with a roof over their heads that will protect them from the heat in summer and from the cold in winter. And they are not interested in fantasies of an eternal battle with the Israelis.

It is not as if ideas for peace do not come from the area between the river and the sea. There are actually a number of suggestions that we could build on. There is the so-called Geneva Initiative, led by Israeli politician and peace activist Jossi Beilin and former Palestinian Authority minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. It offers an unofficial, detailed blueprint for a two-state solution.

One could also revisit the Arab Initiative, a proposal endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut in 2022 and reaffirmed in 2007 and 2017. He offers Israel full diplomatic normalization with the Arab world - if a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders is accepted. Recently, Jordanian Prime Minister Jafar Hassan told the UN General Assembly that he, along with all Arab countries present, was ready to guarantee Israel's security should the country choose a two-state solution.

The problem is: The fear and anger on both sides is so great that I don't see how Israelis and Palestinians could take steps towards each other on their own. So when I am asked on the occasion of October 7th whether I can write a hopeful text, then I have to, in a sense, turn the order around. I have to say: I alone cannot give you this hope. If you want hope from me, then you have to help. Because in order for something to change, we need the international community.

Pressure is needed on the Israeli leadership to end the occupation and return to the negotiating table. At the same time, a veto is needed against any decision that wants to include factions such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad in future elections.

Part of this international community is the pro-Palestinian movement. Its representatives should be aware that they have influence - they should use that influence in a way that truly benefits Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This also means: distance yourself from militant and Islamist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Calls for an end to the occupation and a two-state solution.

The US government and European governments – including Germany, with its close ties to Israel – must stop managing the conflict and start resolving it. We need all the political levers necessary, including sanctions and boycotts of products from West Bank settlements. And above all, we need support by recognizing a Palestinian state within the framework of a two-state solution, led by a secular Palestinian government and ensuring the security of Israel.

In fact, I ended up saying this to the young woman from East Jerusalem at the workshop. She shook her head. "We want to live in dignity. We don't want to wait for the mercy of the international community." What I didn't say again, but should have said, is this: We have two options.

One means that we use violence. We saw what happened on October 7th, we saw the atrocities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This path comes at the expense of civilians on both sides. It is a terrible path that leads nowhere and will ultimately protect no Palestinian child. The other opportunity is that of diplomacy, a determined international community. So that at some point a generation will grow up that can have a better life than us.