For decades, peace in our region has been negotiated between governments. What has been missing is a shared story between peoples. I learned this across divides that many Israelis never cross: in the IDF’s District Coordination and Liaison unit in Jericho, coordinating with the Palestinian Authority’s police, and later as a spokesperson for the Peres Center for Peace.
October 7, 2023 made one truth impossible to ignore: The way our region was living was not working for any of us. The massacre of the Yazidis and the civil wars in Iraq and Yemen made that clear long before that day. After it, I returned to those old relationships with one message: something had to change.
I did not believe that lines on a map, on their own, could resolve a conflict rooted in identity.