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March 1, 2024 - RFK Jr. The Defender

01:40:24

Path To Peace Episode One

Robert F. Kennedy Jr discusses the pathway to peace in the Middle East with Palestinian Mohammad Dajani Daoudi and Israeli Yossi Klein Halevi in this episode.

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	Good afternoon, everyone.
	I am very excited about this podcast.
	Of all the podcasts that I've done throughout my history on this media, there's nothing that I've been more excited about.
	I have today two men who I enormously, immensely admired, two men who are from different spheres in the Israeli-Palestine debate, and two men who have I've spent there at least many of the last years trying to find common ground and a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.
	I'm going to begin by introducing Professor Mohamed Dejani Daoudi, a Palestinian educator and peace activist.
	Professor Tajani gained international recognition for his work in helping to raise Palestinian awareness concerning the Holocaust through a variety of media.
	He has also been active in forming relationships with Jewish and Christian religious leaders, peace activists, and others to spread the Wasatia message of understanding.
	Wasatia is the name of his NGO. And it means moderation.
	It comes from the Koran.
	It means tolerance, coexistence, and brotherhood.
	Professor Tajani is tackling the ideological roots of extremism through education and authentic religious awareness.
	And my other guest is Yossi Klein Halibi, a senior fellow at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
	Halevi's 2013 book, Like Dreamers, won the Jewish Book Council's Epic Book of the Year Awards.
	He's one of the most respected and revered scholars in Israel.
	His latest book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, Thank you.
	Letters to my Palestinian neighbors.
	It's one of Israel's most powerful attempts to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians and into the heart of, quote, the enemy.
	I'm going to read a short passage from the book at the beginning.
	I call you neighbor because I don't know your name or anything personal about you.
	Given our circumstances, neighbor might be too casual a word to describe a relationship.
	We are intruders into each other's dream, violators of each other's sense of a home.
	We are incarnations of each other's worst historical neighbors.
	In a series of these letters, Yossi Klein Halibink explained what motivated him to leave his native New York in his 20s and move to Israel to participate in the drama of Of the renewal of the Jewish homeland, which he is committed to see succeed as a morally responsible democratic nation in the Mideast.
	This is the first attempt by an Israeli author to directly address his Palestinian neighbors and describe how the conflict appears through Israeli eyes.
	Alevi untangles the ideological and emotional knots that have defined the conflict for nearly a century.
	It's an evocative language.
	It's a beautiful book, and I urge everybody to read it.
	Both of these gentlemen have devoted their lives to de-escalating this conflict and by encouraging us all at our deep religious and spiritual cores To find the best angels, the best version of ourselves.
	I want to start with a little introduction to my background of assumptions.
	A Palestinian man was convicted of the murder of my father, and indeed confessed to it at that time.
	At that time in 1968 my family signed a letter to Judge Walker asking him not to give the death penalty to Sirhan Sirhan.
	At that time we all believed Sirhan had been responsible for my father's death.
	A couple of years later my brother was hijacked The Black September group, a Palestinian terrorist group, his plane was diverted to a landing strip in the desert in Yemen.
	The Palestinian leadership of that group demanded the release of Sirhan Sirhan from prison.
	The plane eventually was blown up and it was burned.
	My brother, thank God, was released.
	And many, many years later, I read my father's autopsy report and found other evidence that Sirhan Sirhan, although he clearly participated, In the ambush that killed my father and fired shots at my father, his bullets were not the ones that killed my father.
	I ended up reaching out to Sir Han.
	I asked if I could visit him in prison, and I did so.
	The parole board had said that although they believed he killed my father, that he was of no harm to society.
	For two reasons, I've spent several years Fighting for Sir Ann's release.
	One, because he served 50 years, and he no longer posed a threat to society.
	And I believe my father, who was a big advocate for bail reform, And payroll would want this person out of jail.
	And then also because I believe that he was wrongly convicted of murder.
	But either one of those reasons is sufficient for me to go to his aid.
	And the day that I spent reaching out to him and understanding how he experienced those events, And the events of the last 50 years took away, removed the last kind of resentments and bitterness that I had toward him for participating in my father's murder.
	And resentments are poisonous.
	They're corrosive.
	They're like swallowing poison and hoping someone else will die.
	And there's no cauldron of resentments that is larger, more volatile, more longer-lived.
	And the tension between Jews and Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in the Mideast.
	And I wanted to invite these two gentlemen here because I think all of us are watching what's happening with horror today in Gaza.
	And I want to begin and we need to understand what is the path to peace.
	We know that the strategy of killing all of your enemies will never work.
	We know that violence begets violence, that zealotry begets zealotry, that the zealots on both sides feed on each other and narrow that center that we need to enlarge if we're going to actually My own bias, which I'm going to reveal, is based upon not any intrinsic loyalty to one side or another.
	I don't believe one side or another is more deserving than the other, but because of my study of history, I believe that the Israelis have repeatedly, in good faith, offered a peace deal That would create a Palestinian state.
	They did this in 1937, in 1947, in 1967, in 1973, in 1993, in 2000, and in 2008.
	And that the answer to that In each case was violence and war.
	And I believe that to the center of my core.
	I believe it because I believe that I applied critical thinking and careful analysis to the issue.
	But I also understand that there's a counter-narrative.
	Where there's a whole group of people on the other side who believe something entirely different.
	And that clash of narratives is a thousand years old.
	And it's one of the oldest sources of hatred in human history.
	Tribalism is, we're biologically hardwired for tribalism, and there is no more toxic forms of tribalism than anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim.
	And in the Mideast today, those two hatreds are threatening to destroy and destabilize our entire globe.
	And we need to all be thinking about how to make sacrifices of our own assumptions.
	How to put them aside and find a common ground with people that we've been taught to or we've learned to disbelieve or not like.
	So I want to start by opening the floor to Yossi Halibi, who I have spoken to before.
	Mohammed, I've never met you, and I don't believe that either of you have ever met each other in person.
	We have.
	We actually have.
	We live 10 minutes away from each other, and we've become friends over the last few years.
	Oh, Josie, why don't you start?
	Well, first of all, Bobby, I'm so moved to meet you and to be with you, and especially to hear how you approach this conflict and the personal dimension.
	Of course, I wondered When we first talked about how you deal with the fact that Sirhan Sirhan is in jail for your father's death, and I hadn't known the follow-up on that.
	The generosity of spirit that you bring to this is exactly the right background.
	It's the right ground for us to begin this conversation.
	And I have to tell you, I'm so deeply moved by what you said and how you said it.
	Thank you.
	Thank you for opening yourself in that way.
	I was a boy when your father was killed.
	I remember that night very, very well.
	I was 14.
	And I loved your father from a distance.
	It was one of those moments that was the dividing line between childhood and childhood.
	Awakening into the world as we know it.
	And for me, it affected me more deeply than your uncle's assassination.
	I was really too young to fully process that.
	I was so moved.
	And I followed your father's campaign.
	I was old enough to be To resonate and to feel this tremendous stirring of hope.
	It was such a tumultuous and And despair in time.
	And your father brought the hope of the 60s.
	He coalesced that.
	So it's an honor to be with you.
	I really just want to say that.
	And it's always wonderful to be with you, Muhammad.
	You are, for me, one of the heroes of this conflict.
	So what I bring to this...
	It's a very deep internal struggle, especially after the massacre of October 7.
	And what for me was the revelation of evil.
	It was one of those moments in history where we saw a distillation of pure evil being expressed.
	Not just the mass murder of 1,200 people, but the way in which they were murdered.
	The intimate Brutality of the slaughter.
	And this wasn't just a, you know, in war atrocities happen.
	But on October 7th, this was war by atrocity.
	The atrocities were the purpose.
	And the purpose was to frighten the Jews into believing that we have no future in this land.
	It was literal terror.
	In the most precise meaning of the word, the intention was to terrorize us, to flee this land.
	And Hamas and our enemies generally always tend to underestimate both the Jewish attachment to this land and our resolve.
	And what we're experiencing now in this terrible war, This brutal war is the realization by almost every Israeli, left, right, and center, that in the face of this evil, we have no choice but to fight and to try to uproot it, I believe, ultimately for the sake of peace.
	If Hamas remains on the border, in charge of Gaza, there will never be peace.
	And so you're right that violence...
	Creates violence.
	Zealotry feeds off of zealotry.
	But we also know that there are times in history when one must stand up against evil, and I believe this is one of those times.
	Ahmed, would you begin with your point of view?
	It is such a pleasure to be talking to you and to my friend, Yossi.
	It is such a...
	Sorry.
	It brings memories of the past because John F. Kennedy was my hero.
	And at that time, I was studying at an American school called Friends Boys School.
	And I remember vividly the day he was shot.
	And I think we were driving.
	I was in the bus going from my home.
	I went to the school and I heard the journalists, the sellers of newspapers shouting, Kennedy is dead, Kennedy is dead.
	And then walked into the class and the teacher walked into the class And wrote on the wall, Kennedy was and not is.
	And I still remember vividly those moments.
	And then...
	Also, I was shocked when your father was shot by a Palestinian.
	At that time, it was extremely shocking for us because we felt that we loved the Kennedys and we loved Robert and we hoped that he will Fill in the gap that John left, and then suddenly he's not there.
	And we felt a lot of sympathy, even as Palestinians.
	And at the same time, we felt anger because we thought it will not help the Palestinian cause.
	On the contrary, it will generate hatred for the Palestinians and their cause, which it did, actually.
	And so this is where I always felt...
	This is the first time, by the way, I hear the narrative that you said about Sirhan not being the main assassin of Kennedy, and I'm glad that he was not.
	And I hope that the message of forgiveness that you showed could...
	Also, we spread because now when I talk to my Palestinian people about forgiveness, they are totally against it and they think that this is softness and this is surrendering.
	And on the contrary, my argument is God forgives you and you seek God's forgiveness.
	So why don't you feel that if you want God's forgiveness, why can't you offer your forgiveness for somebody else, for your human being?
	And this is part of God's message, that you will be able to forgive.
	And I feel that this is very important, what you said about forgiveness and about peace, and it is part of our message of peace and reconciliation.
	And that's why I felt also when Yossi wrote his book, and the first time I looked at the title before opening the pages for the book, I love the word neighbor, that an Israeli calling me a neighbor.
	He's recognizing me as a Palestinian, as a human being.
	He's not demonizing me.
	He is not delegitimizing me.
	And in this way, it was very important for me that he was using the word neighbor, which is, in our culture, It is a very warm word.
	When you talk to others, if you call them neighbors, then that's a very warm address.
	The Prophet Muhammad said, be good to your neighbor, even to the seventh neighbor.
	And so in this way, we learn that our neighbor is like a relative to us.
	He is even sometimes more than a relative because he's close to you and your relative might be away from you.
	So that word, I think, was very important to use and in doing so, Yossi was able to cross the cement wall that separates our people.
	And one of my students, who was a young woman in Nablus, when she read in Arabic the book, she insisted on writing him a response to that book.
	And her letter was more than 70 pages that she responded.
	And I translated it to Yossi to English.
	And even till now, she keeps telling me Will Yossi be responding to me?
	How did he feel about it, about my letter?
	What did he think about it?
	And so I think it is very important that when we want to build bridges, And words can be important what words we use.
	And I think that this effort by Yossi to jump over the wall that was built by people who do not want us really to have peace and want to actually, like Yossi said, they want to scare the other people.
	And I will add from my side that we feel the same also against those in power or those who are extremists, because as there are extremists on the Palestinian side, there are extremists on the Israeli side.
	And our struggle, the challenges, is to empower moderation on both sides and empower the moderates, the moderate camp on both sides.
	And that's why we want to find joint values, joint ideas together and make To make religion to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
	And to make also, to build up bridges between people so that we can move on.
	And hopefully that we are planting now, in the midst of this conflict, by this conversation, by this podcast, we are building seeds of peace.
	Hopefully that in the day after those seeds of peace will blossom into flowers and make people actually see each other not as enemies, not as Animals or as devils, but rather as human beings.
	And in this way to cross over and see the human being in the other and let the good in the other come out so that we can have, we can move.
	from being heart of stone to heart of flesh and in this way we are able to love each other and to build a future for our children where our children can live in peace rather now we are living in this violent war and before it and after it and that's why we are hoping that our children instead of Leaving them the heritage of
	conflict, to leave them the heritage of peace.
	Yes, these days are very hard, but we will not allow the extremists to win.
	Because if we are traumatized, if we feel sad, if we feel enemy hatred, enmity, then the enemy has won.
	And the enemy is the extremist.
	And so that's where we want to cross this barrier and be able to move on to finding peace among our people.
	I want to make one comment on one of your historical observations about how the impact of my uncle's death Affected people in your community.
	It's very well known to people that my family has a strong relationship with Israel.
	My uncle John Kennedy was there in 1931.
	My father was in Israel during the war in 1948 covering it for the Boston newspapers.
	During the Eisenhower administration, relationships with Israel cooled.
	It was Truman who was a Democrat who was the first to recognize Israel.
	But during the Kennedy administration, our relationship warmed enormously.
	And then my father, my uncle, We're the architects of the exodus of Soviet Jewry from the Soviet Union, where they were being oppressed and abused, to the United States and to Israel.
	And our families had a long, long relationship.
	We had the same kind of relationship with the Arab world.
	And that began, my uncle was on the African subcommittee in the United States Senate.
	My uncle, John Kennedy, when he was a senator, he made a famous speech in 1956 about Algeria specifically, but about all of the Arab countries demanding that they be given their sovereignty and that the colonial powers leave Arabia to its own devices and to assist in every way possible.
	In making the Arabs the sovereigns of their own lands and not of colonial powers.
	And that speech earned him enmity within the Democratic Party.
	He was openly condemned by Adlai Stevenson, who ran for president that year.
	By the Democratic left, by the Republicans, by Rockefeller, Goldwater, Richard Nixon, they all said, you can't talk about the colonial powers.
	Those are European bulwarks against the Soviet Union.
	They will rely for their wealth on those Arab countries, and we have to leave them alone and not talk about it.
	My uncle said, no, that is inconsistent with American values.
	The Arabs should govern themselves, and Africans should govern Africa.
	It shouldn't be colonial.
	And throughout my life, I've met many people from the Mid-East who actually have the Kennedy name and who remember that speech and have a great, great love for my family because of the history my family had of standing up for sovereignty of those nations in the Mid-East.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	And then I wanted to talk about the larger issue that both of you addressed, Which is that religion at its best is an expression of ethics, of high ethical conduct.
	But at its worst, It's just a masquerade for tribalism.
	The orthodoxies in the extreme, there's a very famous scholar in this country called David Lohr, L-O-E-H-R, and he's written about the evolution of orthodoxies, and he said that the orthodoxies of every religion have more in common with each other than they do with the underlying religion, and that every religion at its best Is it striving for ethics, for truth, for justice, for love?
	And at its worst, it just becomes a methodology, a weaponized methodology for organizing tribal impulses.
	Our worst most Most atavistic impulses.
	I know you've thought about that, because during the Middle Ages, Islam was the most enlightened religion on the planet.
	It was encouraging.
	Suleiman had a court that was filled with poets, with mathematicians.
	He actually invited St.
	Francis of Assisi to join his court, sort of one of the key Christian leaders at that time.
	And when Francis refused, he gave me a safe passage, a seal that guaranteed him the safe passage throughout the Arab lands.
	His court was a center for intellectual achievement, for architecture, for poetry, for mathematics, for every kind of scientific achievement, and tolerance.
	It was the place during the During the Crusades, the Jews flew to the Arab sides of the city, the Muslim-controlled parts of the city, and then 1492, etc., during the Spanish wars.
	But something happened.
	There was a devolution kind of back into that orthodoxy.
	And number one, I'd love your thoughts on how that happens and how do you...
	How do you go back the other way and make religion function as a promoter of ethical behavior and tolerance and moderation and restraint?
	When we look at the three Abrahamic religions, we will tend to find that there are so many values there which are shared values.
	That in which we differ, we will leave to God on Judgment Day to judge among us.
	And that's what the Quran teaches us.
	That on Judgment Day, God will decide among you in that in which you differ.
	So, if God is going to judge among us in that in which we differ, why should we fight about it now, about what we differ?
	So we can leave aside those things in which we differ and enjoy those values, those shared values.
	And if you go back to the Ten Commandments, you will tend to find that we all share the same Ten Commandments.
	All religions, Call to be compassionate, to be merciful, to love one another and to help the needy and to help the poor.
	So that's where we should meet, on this ground.
	That's what I call the wasatiyya ground, which is the middle ground.
	It's a call for justice.
	It's a call for balance in our life and our behavior.
	And that's how we can...
	Help each other and support each other and cooperate with each other and in this way we can bring the good in each other and that's how we should live.
	And our life will be much better than living in hatred and anger and wanting vengeance and hostility and violence.
	Yeah, I think the three of us have something in common, which is that we're all people of faith.
	We're all people who love the religions we come from.
	But what we also have in common is that we're acutely aware that Of the problematics of religion in its excess.
	When religion becomes a pretext for arrogance, for kind of spiritual arrogance, for not seeing the other.
	And we live in a remarkable moment in history when, really, for the first time, we have the opportunity to know each other's fates, to, first of all, in just the most mundane way, All of our sacred texts, the writings of our various mystical traditions are all available in translation.
	And this is something that's new in history, where you don't have to convert to another faith to experience something of its inner beauty.
	And that's on the one side, and that's the interfaith encounter, which is really something that has flowered over the last 50, 70 years.
	And that gives me tremendous hope for the future of humanity, for the future of religion.
	On the other side, we're seeing a retrenching of the most atavistic forms of And almost as a reaction to this opening, and Muhammad spoke of a flowering.
	And so we're living at a time of extreme dissonance.
	Between the hope of religion at its best, which for me is expressed by the interfaith encounter by a Catholic, a Muslim, and a Jew being able to sit together and actually speak about their spiritual commonalities.
	And on the other hand, we see religion at its worst.
	And it seems to me that the most important conflict Today is not between secularism and religion.
	That's a very 19th century model.
	The 21st century model is the internal conflict within each of our religions.
	As Muhammad says, between the language that Muhammad uses as moderates and extremists, I would use the language of those who are expansive, In their spiritual imagination, those who are religiously generous and curious about the other,
	and those who can only see their own religion, who can only see what they've been taught, how they've been raised, and have no curiosity, no empathy for the other.
	And that, to my mind, is really the negation of the Monotheism, which is oneness.
	The essence of monotheism is the one God.
	And what does it mean to believe in oneness?
	That we all exist within this unified being.
	Within this unified consciousness.
	And in the past, that was an insight that was really confined to mystics in our religious traditions.
	But I think today, that should be the language and the experience of any religious believer.
	You know, one of the things I remember David Lohr making this observation that all of our religions, in all of our religions, the creation story, has God making human beings in his own image.
	But what Lohr says in kind of the tribalism, the orthodox, the extreme orthodox models, humans make God in their own image and God becomes much smaller.
	And it's a God that shares our own bigotries, our hatreds, our prejudices, and the darkest sides of human nature, the tribal sides that evolved, that we were biologically hardwired into us during the 20,000 generations.
	Our race spent wandering the African span in these small tribal groups that had to have a strong leader, a strong male leader.
	Women were treated as chattels because you couldn't marry your sister, you had to trade her.
	So her loyalty was not to the tribe.
	There was an iron dogma that...
	That cemented unit cohesion, that religion would justify any behavior with people in the in-group and fault any behavior by people in the out-group.
	And you have all these characteristics that today are characteristics of religion at its worst, and that there was an evolution where religion became the highest expression of ethics, which is the opposite end, which is the end that I think we all try to aspire to.
	Which, as Professor Muhammad was saying, instructs us that we have to be disciplined and restrained and respond to hatred with love and respond to aggression with tenderness and to be able to listen and sit still and trust and have faith.
	Let's talk about, you know, the path to peace.
	Let's try to be pragmatic about that.
	And I'd love each of you to talk to me about, you know, How do you think we get there, given this huge gulf in the narratives?
	How do you start bridging that?
	Do we do it one person at a time, like in this meeting, and try to elevate the voices that want that, that are articulating that?
	Or is there some other path?
	Is there some way that we can quickly end this violence, No, I want to hear both of your thoughts about that.
	Yossi, why don't you start?
	I would just like to very briefly comment about what you were just saying, which is that for me, the challenge as a religious Jew is to stand within the tradition that I love to affirm my loyalty to this 4,000-year Jewish story,
	while at the same time opening myself to To the universal truths of other faiths, to the experiences of other people, certainly of my Palestinian neighbors in this case, and to try to find the balance between maintaining the dignity or the integrity of who I am as a Jew while being
	mindful of the whole.
	In terms of the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy, what attracted me to Muhammad and really what's been the basis of our friendship was a shared vision of how to resolve this conflict.
	That ultimately, this is a conflict about legitimacy, indigenousness, the right of two peoples in a very small land, To be at home, and that these are two peoples who belong in this land, and we need to stop trying to deny the right of the other to sovereignty, to their place in this land.
	And those around the world who try to deny the rights of one or the other of these two peoples are not doing us any favors.
	What we need is an affirmation that this is a conflict between two peoples, both of whom are right in their identity, both of whom are right to assert that they belong in Islam.
	Now, my understanding of why this conflict is so intractable is because both peoples between the river and the sea, the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, believe that the totality of this land belongs to them.
	And in principle, I believe that all of this land is the historic land of Israel.
	But I'm aware, keenly aware of the fact that my Palestinian neighbor believes that all of this land between the river and the sea is also Palestine.
	And so the tragedy is that this intimate geography holds two conflicting conceptual lands.
	These are two lands that actually are one land.
	And so the only way to honor the two maximalist claims of both peoples is to start off by saying, yes, all of this is the land of Israel and all of this is the land of Palestine.
	That's the tragedy and that's the challenge.
	And so we have one of two possibilities.
	If all of the land belongs to me and all of the land belongs to you, we can continue fighting for another hundred years, and one side or the other may completely vanquish the other.
	Or we can go back to the only solution that was ever on the table.
	And you mentioned going back to 1937.
	That was the first time that the partition of the land was put on the agenda.
	And there is no, I see no alternative.
	Now, two states in this little land is not a good solution.
	The geography is too intimate.
	We're on top of each other.
	But the alternative to that is one dysfunctional entity in which we will be condemned to permanent civil war.
	It will be worse than Yugoslavia.
	It will resemble Iraq or Syria or Lebanon, countries that tore themselves apart.
	And so even though I think two states is a terrible solution, the worst option is to continue this way.
	And that's going to lead us to the abyss.
	So in the end, Mohammed and I came together with coming to this really, I think, from very similar places of realizing that the other side has a case.
	And we both have histories.
	This is also something that attracted us to each other.
	We both have histories in our youth of being extreme, being extremists, being militants.
	And in our older age of coming to realize that life is more complicated and I can't live Only within my own reality, as if what happens to my neighbor is of no interest to me.
	If my neighbor is living in misery, I will live in misery, and the opposite is true as well.
	Let me tell the story that I like to tell to my students always when there is a conflict between them or they disagree with me or they disagree with one another.
	And this is exactly the case in my relation with Yossi.
	In which we disagree on things, but yet he is right and damn right because I love the story about the rabbi where two Jews came to him and they had a conflict between them.
	And the first said this side of the story and the rabbi said, you are right.
	And the second said this side of the story and the rabbi told them, you are right.
	And after they left, Rabbi's wife looks at them and asks, but Rabbi, how can they both be right?
	And to her, he says wisely, you are also right.
	So basically, I disagree with Yossi regarding the two-state solution.
	Yet, I think that he is right.
	It is a terrible solution.
	But also I'm right that I would love that solution because it's the only thing on the table for us to move on.
	And in this way, for instance, I believe that the Jewish people want a state.
	That they call a Jewish state.
	That's their aspiration.
	The Palestinians want a state in which they will give them their identity, which is Palestine.
	And so two states for each, a state for each recognized by one another, to me, will bring trust between both people.
	Eventually, when there is trust, maybe it will eventually lead to a confederacy between those two states or a one-state solution.
	But in the beginning, I believe the first stage, recognition of the state of Palestine is important because it's a fulfillment of the UN Resolution 1947.
	I also differ with Yossi regarding how we look at religion.
	I agree with him totally that in this age it is the difference within the religion itself because I, as promoter of the Wasatiyya, I'm calling for That Islam came to complement other religions, while there are extremists within Islam that say that Islam came to replace other religions.
	If you are a Christian, if you are a Jew, you will not be allowed to enter heaven.
	If you are not a Muslim, and so you have to change your religion to become a Muslim in order to enter heaven.
	And I totally disagree with this analysis within the Islamic extremists.
	That's why I like simplicity.
	That's why I use moderates against extremists.
	And in the explanation, even within Islam, For instance, they take the Quran and they take verses within the Quran.
	They cannot change the verses, so they change the interpretation of the verse.
	So the extremists will explain or interpret.
	When the Quran says religion to God is Islam, they say, look...
	It says religion to God is Islam, then God is against Christianity and Judaism.
	And the Christians and Jews should become Muslims in order to enter heaven or to please God.
	But they miss that also in the Quran, it says Abraham was a Muslim.
	That long time before Christianity and Judaism.
	Also, Jews, Moses said to his people, and the people said, we are Muslim.
	We are Muslims.
	And Jesus talked to his disciples, and the disciples said, we are Muslims.
	Long time before the message of Islam.
	And so in this way, Islam, when God says religion to God is Islam, it doesn't mean the Islamic religion, but rather Islam who believes in God, the one who submits himself to God, believes in the unity of God.
	And so one is exclusive and the other is inclusive.
	And that's where the interpretation of the moderate versus the extremist.
	And I believe in every religion there are people like that.
	That's why we call for the unity and interfaith within the moderate so that we can have an Abrahamic bridge that will hold an umbrella over us in order to move.
	And that's where I believe that when they chant From river to sea, the extremists will say Israel and the Palestinians will say Palestine will be free.
	But I would say from river to sea, both Palestine and Israel will be free from prejudice, from hate, from animosity, from violence.
	That's what we want these both communities to be free so that we can live together and we can be in peace together from river to sea.
	Muhammad, that's why I love you.
	Let me play devil's advocate, because if you had two states right now, if you had an Israeli state that was roughly what Israel is today, and then another state that was made up of, at least in some part of the West Bank in Gaza, and the leadership of that was put to a vote, Assuming we're going to have a democracy.
	Today, it's highly likely that immediately Hamas would win any election, and Israel then would be fighting on two fronts, Hamas.
	This is what an Israeli would say now.
	This week, I had dinner with one of the leaders of The Muslim community in Michigan, which is one of our largest communities in the country.
	And he's somebody who's served in Congress and is a very popular, popular leader.
	And he said, you know, ultimately, a better solution would be a single state.
	And he pointed out that That Arabs, Palestinians, Muslims within Israel live in greater freedom and prosperity than Muslims almost anywhere else in the Mideast and have all the rights, that they have the rights to vote, that they serve on all the courts, that they serve in the Knesset, that they have freedom of speech, they have total freedom of religion.
	There's There's 28 nations in the Mideast, and 27 of them have official religions.
	Israel is the only one that doesn't.
	Israel is officially a Jewish state, but it has freedom of religion.
	You can worship anything you want.
	Arabs in Israel have all the rights of Jews.
	And would it be a better path to peace?
	This, again, was not my suggestion.
	This suggestion comes from one of the principal Muslim leaders in the United States.
	Would that be a solution, a one-state solution?
	May I respond?
	Yes, please.
	First, I think being in the United States is very far from Jerusalem.
	And here, the people, if you ask people, when they talk about the one state, They talk about it, not a shared state where each will have the right to vote or the same equal rights, but they will think of it as one state without the other.
	And that's why, because here in Israel, if you ask an Israeli, he will tell you, I would like to have a Jewish state.
	Now, if the Arabs want to become a minority within that, that's fine.
	The Hamas people will tell you we would like to have an Islamic state.
	If the Jews would like to become a minority in it, that's fine.
	But actually, both of us are wrong in the sense that We need to have two states in this sense.
	Now, they will tell you that Hamas will win the elections.
	But my answer is why Hamas should run in the elections.
	Because, basically, when Palestinians will say Hamas is part of the Palestinian fabric, I will tell them, no, Hamas is an outsider.
	It's not part of the Palestinian fabric.
	First, in terms of religion, Hamas has its radical interpretation, which the majority of Palestinians do not believe in.
	And also, politically speaking, Hamas was against the peace accord, while the majority of the Palestinians, when the Oslo was signed, were for it.
	So it is an outsider.
	Now, why should Hamas be allowed to run in the elections if Hamas does not believe in the Oslo Accords that set up the elections?
	It's like asking a football team to play football without believing in the rules of the game.
	The rules of the game here were that the Oslo Accords brought peace, and that was the peace process.
	Now, it was a big mistake for the Israelis and the Americans to pressure the PA to allow Hamas to run in the elections in 2006, where actually they thought they will be domesticated.
	And so they allowed it to run without it accepting the rules of the game.
	And so accepting the peace process and accepting the recognition of Israel, on which the legislative council that was built, that's the framework in which this legislative council was built.
	So I don't believe that in any future elections, those who do not believe in the rules of the game, who do not believe in peace, who do not believe in the framework Of the Oslo Accords should run.
	And in this way, it was a mistake that should be rectified.
	And only those who believe in the rules of the game and to abide by these rules of the game and to join the peace process, then they are the ones who should run and should be part of the To rule, but to use religion and to use democracy as a ladder to become power.
	Look what Hamas did in 2007.
	Hamas killed more than 1,000 Palestinians who were Fatah, who were their leaders and cadres.
	And so, because we allowed them to run in 2006 without having them agree to the rules of the game, and in 2007, they actually violated the rules by their coup d'etat to take over the legitimacy by becoming the illegitimate ruler of Gaza.
	And this is where we should go back to legitimacy.
	And the road to be taken is the peace road.
	Those who are not willing to join the peace process, they should not be part of the peace, of that peace.
	I think that there are two opposite trends happening in the Middle East today.
	On the one hand, there's the Abraham Accords.
	And the possibility, the tantalizing possibility, of the Saudis joining in the normalization process with Israel.
	And bear in mind that the Saudis are the custodians of Islam, of the holy places, and For the Saudis to end the state of war with Israel would be a transformative moment.
	And so on the one hand, there's the hope of a transformed Middle East, of normalization between Israel and large parts of the region.
	And on the other hand, there's the model of October 7th and the war in Gaza, which represents the unraveling of the Middle East.
	And these are the two poles that we're navigating.
	And in order to move toward a more normal Middle East, We need to be realistic about what we're facing, what the chances are.
	And so I believe with Muhammad that we need a two-state solution, but I see that as a vision, a vision that we need to be practically working toward, but it's going to be a long-term process, especially after October 7th, and for the reason that you brought up before, Bobby, which is that What October 7th said to Israelis was that we can't trust the Palestinian national movement at this moment.
	And if we were to withdraw from the West Bank, chances are that Hamas would fill the vacuum.
	And then we would be facing, on our most sensitive border, the border between the West Bank and greater Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, The kind of vulnerability that we were facing in the Gaza border.
	But it can't end there.
	We need practical ways of shifting the momentum away from a one state, which is where we're heading now.
	We're heading to more and more settlement building, a sense of hopelessness, And we need to be slowly shifting, and I emphasize slowly and gradually, but with determination to be shifting toward a regional solution, bringing in Israel's Arab partners.
	And you know the very fact that Israel now has Arab partners Is unprecedented.
	And so we need to be using that as a basis for moving forward.
	You know, I mean, one of the big problems that I think everybody is worried about is how do you break this cycle?
	You know, you have Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that Where the leadership essentially uses anti-Semitism and uses the indoctrination of a new generation of children in violence and hatred to cement their own authority and the riches that then pour into them from this cycle of violence.
	You know, they're all billionaires.
	But the problem is, and it is a very, very potent tool of power, teaching hatred and anti-Semitism and Or bigotry.
	We know that in our country and other countries.
	It's one of the great alchemies of demagoguery.
	You can create a populist movement through hatred.
	But it also locks those leaders into a system where they cannot negotiate in good faith with Israel because their own followers are now...
	You know, indoctrinated with this zealotry that has the core of its narrative, Israel has no right to exist, that Jews need to be exterminated, and anybody who negotiates with them is a traitor to Islam.
	And, you know, that's one of the reasons that Yasser Arafat told Prince Bandar, I cannot sign, you know, the offers that were made in 2001.
	Because my own people will kill me.
	You know, that to me seems like a very, very difficult obstacle.
	They've now got a whole generation of children that's been raised in this religious ideology.
	And any of the leadership that breaks from home, I'm sure that your life is in danger, Muhammad, because you're talking about peace and you're talking about negotiation.
	So how do you break that?
	And do you agree with me that that's a problem or do you think it is not?
	Basically, I think that what I'm trying to tell the Palestinians is exactly what I want to tell the Israelis, in the sense that when you look at the other, don't see the other as a homogenous entity.
	And so here, Palestinians look at Israel.
	I didn't hear you.
	You said don't look at the others as?
	As one homogenous entity.
	There are variations.
	For instance, when people talk about, when Palestinians talk about Israel, they see it as if it is a homogenous body, homogenous entity.
	While in Israel, actually, you have two Jews and five Jews.
	Five ideas or five views.
	And so here in Israel, there are those who are for peace and there are those who are against peace.
	Those who recognize Palestinian rights and those who do not.
	And so Palestinians look and do not see Those who support Palestinian rights.
	And that's why I'm against the BDS and the boycotts, because it calls for boycotting Israel as a whole, while in this way they are also boycotting those who are supporting them.
	And the same thing with Israel.
	Israelis look at the Palestinians and keep using the word Palestinians without recognizing that there is a voice of enmity within this Palestinian and there is a voice of peace.
	And in this way, even October 7th, there are people, Palestinians were, people say Palestinians this, Palestinians did that, but that's not Palestinians.
	These are Hamas radicals who did that, who believe.
	Who are anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, and this is how they are raised.
	But these are a section of the Palestinians.
	They are not the Palestinians.
	So it is not the Palestinians who did October 7th.
	The Palestinians were not consulted.
	They did not know about it.
	They were shocked to hear about it.
	But they will tell you that Hamas, the Palestinians in the West Bank, 90%, the police say 90% support Hamas.
	But they don't see that they are not supporting what happened on October 7th.
	But they are sympathetic with what is happening in Gaza in the post-October 7th, in the sense of all the destruction that took place.
	30,000 people killed, all the demolition, the children, and all that.
	So when the Palestinians are talking, they are not talking about October 7th, but rather the post-October 7th, or pre-October 7th, but not October 7th.
	And in this way, in that way, they...
	When we describe things, I think that we should not use the general term Palestinians to describe what is happening in the West Bank, in Gaza, but understand that within the Palestinians, as well as within the Israeli community, there are those who are for the big dream, which is river to sea, without the other.
	And there are those who are for the small hope, which is sharing the land and wanting to live with the other and believing in the true sense of the Quran, where actually God sent the three religions,
	whether it's the Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they are all Sent by God, messengers of God and the books of God, holy books of God.
	And this way, I believe that this is what we need to understand.
	We need to differentiate within the community between the total use of the generalization and to talk about those who are for peace and those who are against peace, whether on Israel or in Palestine.
	Mohammed and I, we differ perhaps in our temperaments more than we do in our ideology.
	Mohammed is really a more optimistic person than I am, certainly about the conflict.
	I've spent the last year demonstrating against the extremists in my government.
	I was out on the streets literally Every Saturday night, sometimes twice or three times a week.
	So I'm painfully aware of the inroads that extremists have made in my own society.
	And I look at Palestinian society today, and what I see there is very strong support for Hamas, very strong support for October 7th.
	Now, of course, that's not the entire Palestinian people.
	But I look at the polls and I see support for the massacre itself.
	I live across the way.
	Literally, I live in the last row of houses in Jerusalem.
	This is the border between the sovereign state of Israel and the West Bank, where I'm sitting and talking to you now.
	And I'm looking out at the lights of the West Bank, right?
	Maybe 2,000 meters away from where I'm sitting.
	The night of October 7th, the skies were lit with fireworks.
	They were celebrations.
	And I can't pretend that that's not the reality.
	Just as I will not minimize the threat of extremists from within my own society, I have to look very realistically at what's happening in Palestinian society and be very cautious about the Taking any premature moves that could be fatal in the long term for Israeli security.
	And so that's my dilemma.
	On the one hand, I believe that… To solve your dilemma, don't focus on the past, don't focus on the present, but rather on the future.
	Because I think what you saw, those celebrations, it was not by the people.
	Maybe it was by the pro-Hamas people.
	But that does not mean that it is the Palestinians.
	This is going back to that.
	And at the same time, you have to understand that till now, when people look You are looking at the war from your side.
	But rather, if you wear the shoes of a Palestinian, you will tend to see it totally different.
	Why?
	Because the Palestinian is not looking at October 7th.
	He's looking at what happened post-October 7th.
	And that's where, emotionally speaking, He is not supporting Hamas in terms of its ideology, but he is supporting Hamas in terms of being angry at what is happening in Gaza.
	And as a result, supporting Hamas will displease the Israelis.
	Let me support Hamas to displease the Israelis because of what they did in Gaza.
	And so it is an emotional state.
	But rather not a rational state.
	So where you and I agree, where you and I agree, is to look to the future.
	And you are my partner for the future.
	Definitely.
	And you are my partner for the future.
	And I enjoy this dialogue between us because it's not a monologue.
	It is not that you have your side, I have my side.
	No, you are right in the way you think.
	I'm right in the way I think, basically because we are looking at things from different angles.
	And I would like to see...
	I try myself to see things from your angle, and this makes me an outsider within my community.
	But I don't mind that, because I feel I do not want to walk with the crowd When I know that the crowd is walking in the wrong direction.
	And even if that affects my security, even if that makes me an outsider and makes me the target of people saying, you are king of normalization.
	And my response, yes, I thank you for that, for crowning me king of normalization.
	But normalization to end occupation and to build peace is good.
	I'm not in normalization in order to empower occupation.
	Or to beautify the occupation.
	And there is a difference between both.
	And that's where I believe that we need to move on.
	We don't...
	The purpose of what happened on October 7th was to widen the gap, like you said, Yossi, to widen the gap between our two people.
	Now, if we make If we make that wide gap, remain wide as the extremists want, then they win.
	We should not let them win.
	And we should try to narrow that gap by trying to move on with planting seeds of peace despite the anger, despite the hate, despite the animosity, despite the hostility, despite the violence.
	And in this way, in the day after, there will be peace.
	But if we don't do that, then the day after, there will be another October 7th and another Gaza demolition.
	And now it is Gaza, tomorrow it's the West Bank.
	And now it is October 7th, tomorrow it is October 10th, whatever.
	And that's where we need to end that.
	We need to end this cycle of violence by moving ahead and looking to the future We inherited this conflict.
	We should not let our children have the legacy of this conflict, but rather to have the legacy of peace.
	Despite your people might not like it, my people might not like it, but that's the way to the future.
	I'm going to give you two more questions because I've taken up so much of your time.
	The first one is the concrete reasons for optimism.
	I have a friend who's a Palestinian.
	I think he's probably the richest Palestinian today.
	His name's Adnan Majali.
	He's from the West Bank.
	He has a West Bank passport.
	He has businesses in Ramallah.
	And by the way, I've been to Ramallah.
	I've met with a Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and spent a lot of time with Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank.
	But Adnan Majali, who's a billionaire and goes back and forth from Ramallah to Los Angeles, told me recently, he said, you know, the Palestinians, there are many Palestinians like me who believe, who understand that Palestinians need a strong Israel.
	Because if Israel ceased existing, the region would be taken over very quickly by others, by Iran particularly, and that the outcome for Palestinians would be very, very much worse, if you can imagine it.
	So that's one of the things he said to me.
	I know we talked about the Abraham Accords earlier.
	That is a genuine hope for peace, that the surrounding Arab nations may follow Egypt and sign a peace agreement with Israel and trade agreements and normalized relations.
	That would be astonishing, something almost unimaginable five years ago.
	There are also Palestinians now in the Knesset.
	Who are genuinely interested in peace.
	We've seen the rise of a wonderful Palestinian leader who gives us a lot of hope in the Knesset, Mansour Abbas, not to be confused with Mahmoud Abbas, who runs the Palestinian Authority, but Mansour Abbas was an Israeli-Palestinian who has really focused on improving the lives of his people and on negotiating and working with Jews and government officials.
	And the relationship between the Palestinian people in Israel, I think it's very noteworthy that the And that, to me, is, you know, really also astonishing and a very, very good sign of hope for the future.
	So I'd love you guys to both address that.
	And then I'm going to ask you a final question about what the concrete steps are toward peace that each of you have.
	So let's talk about reasons for optimism first.
	And why don't you start, Yossi?
	I very much appreciate the reasons you cited.
	The conflict has never just been between Israel and the Palestinians.
	It's a regional conflict.
	It's always been a regional conflict.
	And a regional conflict requires a regional solution.
	And for the first time in the century-old conflict, We have a real dynamic of peace between Israel and the Arab countries of the Abraham Accords.
	These are not glorified ceasefire agreements, which is really what we had with Egypt and Jordan in the past.
	These are genuine expressions of normalization.
	And one of the reasons, I believe, that Hamas We really got
	that backwards.
	Because both peoples will require an envelope.
	of support in order to move forward.
	In the past, we thought that that support would come from the international community.
	I believe it must be the region itself that deals with its own problems.
	And so Israel, together with its new Arab allies, finding allies in Palestinian society, moving toward ways of leading us gradually Out of this model of occupation and enmity and despair to a possibility long-term for a two-state solution.
	That's the vision.
	And I don't think that even though it seems in one way so utopian today to speak about peace, I believe that the counter-trends in the region really change Will point us in a different direction.
	The last thing I'll say here is the role of Iran, which you raised.
	Iran's goal is to dominate the Middle East, and Israel is the only force capable of stopping Iranian expansionism.
	Iran controls effectively four Arab countries today.
	Iraq, Lebanon, to some extent, Syria, Yemen.
	And the great obstacle to Iran is the Jewish state, which is why the Abraham Accords happened in the first place.
	Arab countries are looking toward an alliance with Israel to stop Iranian expansionism.
	And so this war that's happening today is not just between Israel and Hamas.
	This is really, to my mind, the first stage of the Israeli-Iranian war, which began on October 7.
	Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy sitting on Israel's northern border.
	We're facing Syria.
	We're facing Yemen.
	These are all fronts of Iran.
	And so in the Middle East, Peace often happens together with war.
	The Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement happened after the Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.
	No one in 1973, when the war ended, Could have imagined that four years later, the most right-wing prime minister in Israel's history until that point, Menachem Begin, would sign a peace agreement with the Arab leader who launched the Yom Kippur War.
	And yet it was precisely as a result of the war which exhausted people's capacity for war.
	People just came out of the Yom Kippur saying, how much more of this can we take?
	And my hope is that the aftermath of the Gaza war will have a similar impact on the region, and that we will unite with our allies against Iranian expansion, because that is the real war.
	The war is not between Israel and the Palestinians in the long term.
	Neither of us are going anywhere.
	Not the Palestinians and not the Israelis.
	When this war is over, both peoples are going to wake up into the same ruins of the Middle East.
	But the real threat is Iranian expansionism, Iranian imperialism, and the Iranian regime's attempt to dominate this entire region.
	But you see, we do not want to have the Iranian imperialism defeated, and then we have an Israeli imperialism.
	This is part of the problem, because I agree with you that We do not want Iran to have the hegemony within the Middle East.
	But at the same time, we do not want Israel also to have the hegemony in the Middle East.
	We do not want imperialism to stop.
	And the problem is the way we can judge that is how we can deal with what is happening.
	And so is Israel dealing with issues softly by peace, by diplomacy, or is Israel dealing with things militarily and by crushing the other?
	So basically, that's where our stand.
	Now you are talking about The Abrahamic Accord, which is government to government so far.
	And then the problem is when the people look at what is happening in Gaza and the insistence of the Israeli government to use force rather than diplomacy.
	We don't want Hamas to be ruling Gaza.
	And at the same time, we do not want all this destruction that's happening in Gaza.
	And so in order for Israel really to have a place and to be a light in the region...
	It has to include within it, people will judge Israel and how Israel will deal with its minorities, with the Palestinians in particular, as a people and as a nation in this sense.
	And this is where The Abrahamic Accords, I believe, fail in not including the Palestinians because, yes, there are Palestinians against the Abrahamic Accord, but there are Palestinians also for the Abrahamic Accord.
	So instead of excluding the Palestinians from the Abrahamic Accord, there should be an inclusion of the Palestinians within the Abrahamic Accord so that it will become, instead of Government to government to become people to people.
	And the only way it will become people to people is for Israel to act justly to the Palestinian people.
	And in this way, the people in the Arab world and in the Muslim world, when they see that, it will make a lot of difference.
	I'll give you an example.
	Look at Ramadan now.
	Ramadan is coming.
	Now, those extremists in power, Will they want to exclude Muslims from going to pray at Al-Aqsa, at Al-Haram Sharif?
	Or will they allow Muslims to do that?
	So this is how Israel will be judged accordingly.
	And in this way, that's where we need to understand.
	We want the soft face of Israel.
	We will support a powerful Israel and a strong Israel.
	But if that strong Israel is against us, and in order that they will crush us, we will not support that, definitely.
	And that's where we need to To see the soft face of Israel, the good face of Israel, which is actually part of the Jewish values.
	These are Jewish values.
	When I see a Jew doing something good to me, like today, I was at a Jewish hospital where I was having exams for my eye, and I see that, and I feel that's the face I want to see.
	I don't want to see the face that crushes me or destroys me.
	And then I'm supposed to be in peace with them.
	And this is where...
	And I believe the majority of Jews are religious and they believe in compassion and mercy and forgiveness.
	And the minority does not.
	The same thing with us.
	Within Islam, people look at the minority within Islam and they think this is the majority of Islam.
	That's not.
	Islam is a face of mercy, of compassion, of love.
	And so if you see extremists, that does not mean to generalize for the whole.
	And that's my hope.
	I would like to look at the other and see the good face of the other, the soft face of the other.
	I would say one thing.
	If you're saying that Abraham Accord should not go forward without Palestinian participation, but what if you can't find a Palestinian willing to, a leader, a genuine leader willing to participate?
	You could have made the same argument.
	With the Camp David Accords in 1978, the Palestinians rejected it, and we would have gone 35 years without peace between Egypt and Jordan if we had waited for Palestinian leadership to emerge.
	And I believe that when I meet face-to-face with Palestinians, they're some of the most generous, kind-hearted I find in Israel the same vision that you've articulated today.
	But I think that the leadership, particularly Hamas and the PAA, are locked in systems that are corrupt and that thrive off the violence that makes it very difficult for their leadership then to go and make a compromise.
	I think it's a trap that they've made.
	That has been created by those leaders who are now trapped in that system.
	And that, I think, is a challenge of how do you get somebody to actually sit down at the table and, Yossi, why don't you get a chance to reply?
	And then I'll ask you both, because we're winding down, to talk about what the concrete steps are that we need to be taking to bring people together.
	We have...
	Deeply religious people from three religions on this Zoom call.
	How do we make that happen across the board in the Mideast, where people can sit down and talk with each other without hating and violence?
	Go ahead, Yossi.
	I think that Israel's dilemma is that we're not facing a people, we're facing A dictatorial regime that doesn't give place for the expression of its people.
	And in Israel, with all of our imperfections and all the rising extremism that we're dealing with, there's an open conflict in the society, which I have been very much a part of.
	I want to add, too, that I also am with you on that, and I'm opposing the Netanyahu regime and the judicial reforms.
	And, you know, so how do we—we'll go ahead on you.
	But so my point about that is that in Israeli society, you can measure— Who is for peace?
	Who you can deal with?
	Who are the extremists?
	When I'm dealing with Palestinian society, I'm not dealing with the society.
	There is no free media.
	I don't know.
	Who do I talk to?
	I wrote my book.
	In part because I wanted to find Palestinian partners.
	And that's how I found Muhammad.
	He responded to my book.
	He wrote me a letter back.
	I wrote a letter to an anonymous Palestinian neighbor.
	He read the book and then wrote me a letter.
	And now my Palestinian neighbor wasn't anonymous anymore.
	But when I'm facing Palestinian society, I have that blockage of a dictatorship regime.
	How do you get past that?
	I've been involved with people-to-people efforts for the last 20-25 years, and over and over again we come up against that obstacle.
	Of people who are afraid to speak out publicly.
	Muhammad is a very rare and courageous person.
	And Muhammad, you've taken risks that I haven't taken.
	For me to be demonstrating against my government is part of the democratic game.
	I didn't have any real risks.
	You really, you have taken risks and you have faced violence.
	You have faced consequences in frightening ways.
	But that only exacerbates the dilemma.
	And so when you say that Israel needs to present a soft face, I agree with you.
	Israel needs to present a soft face, but it also needs to maintain its hard face with those who want to destroy us.
	And for the history of this conflict, we have faced, for the most part, A region that did not want us here, that did not see our legitimacy, that didn't recognize our indigenousness.
	And I've been desperate for voices like yours on the Palestinian side.
	And I've committed myself to looking for those voices and standing with you.
	Even when we disagree, especially when we disagree.
	And to model what a respectful relationship of overlapping, entwining agreements and disagreements looks like.
	And in the end, what's really important for me is our friendship and our refusal to give into despair and our shared vision of That each of our peoples deserves its place, its legitimate place.
	We need to stop trying to deny the other people's right to exist in this land.
	How to do that?
	You know, you ask, Bobby, how do we turn this into a practical vision?
	I'll give you an answer that Maybe dissatisfying emotionally, but I don't know what other answer to give.
	And that is that each of us in the place where we are needs to do what we can.
	And so, for example, I'm not a politician.
	I'm not a leader.
	I'm only a writer.
	All I can do is try to create some language for peace that Palestinians and Israelis may find useful.
	And so I wrote a book.
	And Muhammad stood up and responded.
	And our relationship has reverberated way beyond our friendship.
	We've been doing this now for a number of years, looking for partners, looking to expand the circle.
	And that's on one level.
	On another level, we are also part of societies.
	We belong to peoples that are at war with each other.
	And I have a responsibility to To make sure, first of all, that my people are safe and Muhammad has the same responsibility for his people.
	That's my first priority, that my people is safe.
	My next priority is that my neighbor is safe and that I can have a relationship with my neighbor.
	And so how do I navigate between those two commitments?
	That's the story of my Israeli life.
	Amen.
	I totally agree with what Yossi said.
	Basically, I feel that there is a need within the Palestinian community to wake up and to move on.
	That was my message.
	And it's difficult to be able to steer that when the elephant in the room is the occupation.
	That's part of the problem.
	And that's where one step to move forward is to end that occupation in order that it is not being used as a pretext in order to incite people.
	And also, I think that it is important for the Palestinians to have the courage to move on.
	Unfortunately, those with the courage are not supported by others, by the Europeans, by the Americans, by the Japanese, by the international community, by even the Arab states.
	There is That's where we need to support the moderation vision and the moderates within the Palestinians in order for them to rise up and stand and in order for them to move on.
	I do hope that we will be able to move on.
	Today was a very important experience for me personally, although I went through this before.
	And it affected the way I feel.
	For instance, I was using the light train, where actually most of the people or most of the people using it are Israelis.
	And I was worried about my safety being among them during this time.
	On the contrary, one of the young people stood up and let me take a seat.
	And that affected me, looking at him doing that.
	And then in the hospital, everybody was trying to help.
	And everybody, and they did not look at me as an Arab, as a Palestinian, who is holding hostages, Jews, and who did October 7th and all that.
	And on the contrary.
	And so I cannot Thank you.
	Reward that feeling with feeling of animosity or anger or hostility.
	And that's where I believe the good in the other will bring out the good in me.
	And in this way, we can be able to move on, whether it is one state or two states or ten states.
	The important thing is that the solution, that we seek a solution and we reach a solution.
	I think, Mohammed, you're touching on a very important and underused resource for peace, which is the practical experience of coexistence that Jews and Arabs have within the state of Israel and within Jerusalem.
	The fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis mingle in Jerusalem every day.
	We ride the same light rail trains.
	We use the same hospitals.
	We share the same parks.
	Now, I'm not pretending that this is an idyllic situation.
	But in my building, for example, half the families are Palestinian citizens of Israel.
	Half the families are Jewish citizens of Israel.
	And we're coexisting.
	We live together in the same building.
	We're neighbors.
	And I'm sure there are tensions under the surface, especially in these last few months.
	But we greet each other civilly.
	We smile at each other's children.
	It's life.
	And so when we speak about peace, there's the abstract and there's the concrete.
	And Arab citizens of Israel and Jewish citizens of Israel have lived together for the last 75 years in one society.
	Not always happily.
	But on the whole, we've learned what I would call the habits of civility.
	And that same pattern of interaction is played out every day in Jerusalem, between East and West Jerusalem.
	Again, it's not to minimize the tensions that are there, and those tensions flare up, especially around the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa, When sometimes there are riots there, and then there's an Israeli crackdown.
	And so we are living on a volcano in Jerusalem, but we are living on this volcano.
	And so there is a basis for some form of decency, a decent alternative.
	We have models for this.
	We need to expand those models.
	We need, first of all, to acknowledge them.
	And hold them up as signs of an alternative future.
	Mohammed and Yossi, thank you so much for joining.
	Can you tell us, before we go, how can people support each of you individually and how can people support the Joint Project of Peace in Israel?
	Mohammed, how can people reach you?
	I believe that it is very important to support projects that is done by moderate NGOs and civil society.
	This is one way to rebuild what has been destroyed and to move on.
	And I hope that we can be able to eventually see an end to this war.
	And be able to find peace within both communities.
	And I feel that it is very important for the U.S., the Europeans and others, and the Japanese to support the moderates within both communities.
	All right.
	Professor Mohamed Dajani Daoudi, Thank you very much.
	And Yossi Klein, is there a way people can reach you or support you?
	Yeah, I sit at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, which does very important work in bringing Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel together.
	And we have programs bringing high school principals of Arab and Jewish schools together in joint study.
	We have programs of developing curriculum for teaching coexistence to both peoples.
	I personally work primarily as a writer, and I've written a number of books about About attempted coexistence, I wrote a book called The Entrance to the Garden of Eden, which tells the story of a two-year journey I took into Islam and Christianity as a religious Jew in the Holy Land.
	And my most recent book, The Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, which includes an extensive epilogue of Palestinian responses, including a wonderful letter from Muhammad, which really began our friendship.
	And the book attempts to model a new kind of conversation between Palestinians and Israelis.
	And so that's Those are the areas in which I work.
	Yossi and Mohamed, thank you very much for joining me today.

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