A Palestinian and an Israeli: together for peace

Just listened with emotion to a dialogue on France Inter between two people who “should” be enemies, but who, transformed by empathy, recognize each other as sisters. They are Aziz Abu Sarah, 46, a Palestinian peace activist and conflict resolution trainer, and Maoz Inon, 51, an Israeli peace activist.

“I lost my parents on October 7. I lost childhood friends, I lost people I had known all my life, but I gained you as a brother. Thank you, Aziz.” Maoz Inon, an Israeli peace activist, explained that the Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah sent him a message of condolences after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Since then, the two men have been working together for peace between their two peoples, notably through their NGO InterAct International. In April they published in collaboration The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land.

For Maoz Inon, Aziz Abu Sarah’s message represented “an outstretched hand that saved me from drowning in a sea, an ocean of pain and mourning.” The Palestinian activist recalls: “When Maoz lost his parents, I did not think of him as ‘the other’, but as a human being, a human being who had lost his parents.” He himself lost his brother when he was ten years old. “It took me eight years to overcome grief and hatred. Maoz needed only a few days,” he emphasizes. “The more we waste our time in killing, destruction, and war — in Gaza, in Israel, in Iran — the farther we get from peace. Maoz understood that immediately, right from the start.”, he adds.

“War is a cancer. Hatred is a cancer, and we must confront it,” Aziz Abu Sarah declares. “I have lived through more than twenty wars. Where are we after twenty wars? I have no freedom, and he has no security,” the Palestinian peace activist denounces. Maoz Inon calls for agreement on “a future based on shared values rooted in equality and brotherhood,” with “peace and security for all of us, for each and every one of us.”

While images of activists from the “Gaza Flotilla” being mistreated by Israeli authorities, under the complicit and satisfied gaze of far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, circulated around the world, Maoz Inon stated: “What Ben Gvir and the police do to flotillas from around the world, they do every single day to Palestinian prisoners in prisons, but people speak much less about that.” If he is traveling across Europe with Aziz Abu Sarah, it is notably to raise awareness among Western audiences about this issue. He calls on European countries to impose “powerful and strong sanctions against anyone who chooses force and ethnic cleansing.”

José Arregi

Aizarna, May 22, 2026

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