Five days from hope to hell

I left Jerusalem on Thursday, June 12 with a suitcase full of hope and a heart weighed down by the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza that has no end in sight.

I had been invited by the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) to attend the Paris Peace Summit. The aim of the summit was to bring together leading civil society actors, mostly Israeli and Palestinian, “united in their commitment to promoting the two-state solution and a shared future based on mutual recognition, peace, and security for all.”

The Arkia flight to Paris from Tel Aviv was remarkable. The plane was filled with hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians, many of whom are close friends who work in over 180 member organisations of ALLMEP. As soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, many people stood up and began conversations across aisles on everything from our feelings about the rushed planning of the trip to discussing political ideas about how to end the suffering in Gaza.

Closer friends also shared dilemmas and challenges that arise from working in organisations that are much maligned in both Israeli and Palestinian society. I’ve been to many think tanks and brainstorming sessions in my life, but this altitude networking experience was something else.

As the plane soared over the Mediterranean, my wife Carm and I thought about our teenage children, and how they would manage during their first weekend home alone. But I also thought about the opportunity ahead, to be part of something bigger—a movement striving to ensure that all the children of this land grow up with full bellies, not heavy hearts; under skies not haunted by drones and missiles, but alive with laughter and joy.

The next morning, Paris was its marvellous romantic self. But between obligatory photos of the Eiffel Tower on the drive from the hotel to the conference venue, our phones were buzzing insanely with notifications that Israel had attacked Iran and that many of our loved ones had spent the night in bomb shelters. Paris, with its grand boulevards and historic monuments, felt worlds away from the chaos back home.

We focused on the purpose of our gathering. John Lyndon, ALLMEP’s director, captured the mood perfectly when he said, “The past few days have been some of the most intense in ALLMEP’s history. With just three weeks’ lead time, we brought hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians to the Paris Peace Forum to participate in a milestone conference we co-led under the patronage of President Macron. I say ‘milestone’ because it marked the realisation of something we’ve long demanded and worked toward: the integration of civil society into Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic strategy, and the implementation of the G7 policy shift we secured last year to advance that goal.”

For the first time, civil society was not just a footnote in the diplomatic process: it was at the heart of it. Hundreds of us, Israelis and Palestinians, sat together in working groups brainstorming, debating, and drafting proposals. The energy was electric, but so was the pain. Every person in that room carried stories of loss, fear, and hope. Some spoke with anger and fire, others spoke in tears.

One of the most powerful moments came when ALLMEP Regional Director, Nivine Sandouka, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, read the vision of our collective to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and hundreds of attendees: “Our histories are filled with pain, but our future is still unwritten and you now hold the pen. We stand ready, not as subjects of your policies, but as partners in this essential mission. The world watches, and history will judge.”

Rita Baroud, a 22-year-old journalist who got out of Gaza a month ago, was the standout speaker. “I’m Rita, but there are two million names in Gaza, two million people who want to live. So, this war must end now,” she said. “Don’t let Gaza bleed in silence. Don’t kill our hopes the way our bodies are being killed,” she concluded.

Daniel Lifshitz, the grandson of murdered hostage Oded Liftshitz, 84, and returned hostage was Yocheved, 85, spoke of the need for Israeli security as a prerequisite for peace. “The more security provided, the more long-awaited peace will come. The world must speak with a strong and unified voice, release the hostages, ease suffering, disarm Hamas and empower peace for your people and for mine, bring them home now.”

Saturday: Stranded

At the end of the conference, we had the honour of meeting with President Macron in the gardens of the Élysée Palace. It was a surreal moment, standing in such a historic place, surrounded by fellow peacebuilders, and presenting our five-point plan to end the violence and ensure a more secure future for all peoples in the region. Macron listened intently and adopted our plan, promising to bring it to the attention of the international community.

As we met with Macron, phones began buzzing with news of a massive missile barrage back home.

All flights to Israel were suspended. Hundreds of us were stranded in Paris, unable to return home. My wife Carm and I were in Paris. Our teenage children were under attack in Jerusalem.

It would have been easy to give in to despair or to spend the weekend sightseeing, but that’s not what happened. Instead, we gathered at the Ibis Hotel in Paris to brainstorm on how to build peace. I was in a working group exploring ways to share ideas in both mainstream and new media channels that could promote the values of compromise and negotiation as tools for problem-solving. The focus and determination in all the working groups was remarkable.

As John Lyndon put it, “As if to say, ‘If I’m going to be stranded thousands of miles from my family during a moment of crisis, you’d better believe I’m going to make it count—and do everything I can to ensure a safer future for my children.’”

With flights to Israel still suspended, Carm and I consulted with a close Palestinian friend of mine who explained to us the process of returning to Jerusalem via Jordan. We then flew to Amman and crossed into Israel via the Sheikh Hussein bridge that spans the Jordan River. It’s one of the few ways possible to enter or leave Israel at the moment, and it only exists because of the peace agreement signed between Rabin and Hussein in 1994.

Crossing the bridge, I thought about the vision of those leaders—the understanding that the security that comes from peace is far greater than can ever be found through rockets and missiles. It was a poignant reminder of what we are fighting for.

As I entered Israel, I read more horrific news. A devastating strike on a building in Bat Yam leaves 9 dead. 42 people are injured in Rehovot, including a mother and her toddler. In Ramat Gan, the city where I was born, 74-year-old Etti Cohen Angel, a mother of four, was killed. “She was a smiling, beautiful, kind woman,” her daughter, Nurit Cohen-Elstein, said.

My Instagram feed began to fill with requests from people living in Gush Dan looking for accommodation in other cities. I wonder if any lace in Israel now that is safer from any other in this war?

The reality of the conflict hits me hard on a personal level as well. The house that was hit in Tamra belonged to a close friend of a participant in the Kids4Peace dialogue program where I work. The mother and two of her daughters were killed. This teenager now has a whole life ahead of her without her mother and siblings. How does one comprehend such grief and loss?

After two hours in a taxi from Beit Shean to Jerusalem, I was finally reunited with my children in a moment of deep appreciation for the preciousness of family.

My WhatsApp was flooded with messages asking if I was okay. My family and I are thankfully physically fine, but none of us is actually okay. In between rocket alerts from the early morning to the middle of the night, cancelled plans, and life on hold, no one, Arab or Jew, who lives in this land will be okay until this horror ends—and maybe not for a long time after that.