Aziz & Maoz: An Israeli and a Palestinian Refuse to Be Enemies

Serge
So Aziz, Maoz, welcome. You each have gone through heartbreaking loss, and instead of opting for revenge, you went for building peace. You wrote a magnificent book, The Future is Peace, and I’m so happy that you’re here.

Thank you for having us. We are honored. And so the story starts with loss.

And in the book, Day One, Maoz, you recall a conversation on October 7, early morning, when your father is still alive.

Maoz
Yeah. I was waking up in Binyamina, where I’m speaking from now, and it’s where I lived for the last 20 years. And waking up, I saw that my father sent a message in our WhatsApp group that the war just started, that they can hear the shooting, the shouts, bombs and sirens.

My parents lived 40 a mile, maybe 300 meters from the border with Gaza. But as strange as it might sound, we get this message every few months, once a year, that there is a cycle of violence between Israel and Gaza. So I said, okay, once again, it’s one of these days.

And as I was making coffee for my wife and for myself, I could see on social media that the wall has been fallen. Hamas Toyota trucks are in Sderot. It’s the biggest town of the region.

And that Hamas intruded the Israeli community. And my parents’ community in Etiva Asara is the nearest community to the Gaza border. So I called my father, quarter to eight, Saturday morning.

and he shared with me from the safe room that they locked the house and they are waiting to see what’s happening. So I told him, Daddy, I love you. Send my love to Mom.

I could hear her in the background and I’ll get dressed, get ready, and I’ll call you soon. And soon after, five minutes after, I’m calling my dad again, and this time there was no answer. So I called my mother and again no answer.

I woke up my three sisters, my young brother, and we tried to reach them. Through the day, we tried to call their neighbors, people we knew from their community, and no one picked the phone till 4 in the afternoon. Only then, one of the neighbors answered our call, and we told him, just tell us what’s going on.

We don’t need you to soften it for us. We don’t need you to come here. Just tell us what’s happening with our parents.

And he told us. He told us that my parents’ house is burned to ashes, and that there are two bodies inside.

Serge
yeah yeah yeah so i can not really imagine how devastating it must be to hear that and and what then happened soon after is that you and your family decided that you were clear on one thing that you did not want this to be part of a cycle of revenge exactly standing morning

Maoz
October 8th, we started the Shiva, the Jewish way of mourning. And on the second day, we were just sitting, the five of us, the five siblings of our beloved parents, Bila and Jacobi. And my young brother urged us to make a family decision that we don’t want to revenge the deaths of our parents, that we don’t want to avenge October 7th, because by avenging their deaths, we’re not going to bring them back to life.

We’re only going to escalate. the cycle of bloodshed, fear, hate trauma that we, Israelis and Palestinians, have been trapped within for a century. And of course, this is the decision we made, and this is the voice and the message and the call we’ve been saying ever since.

And only a day after, I received a message from Aziz, who on Facebook Messenger offered his condolences and saying that he’s standing with me. and with my family in this tragic moment. And for me, I wasn’t maybe realizing it back then.

It was like a hand, a hand reaching out, saving me from drowning into the ocean of sorrow and pain. And in the last three years, working together, quartering the future is peace, forging a brotherhood. I can now, I’m very proud to say it again and again, and then it brings a big smile to my face and tears too.

I lost my parents. I lost so many of my childhood friends, people I knew my entire life on October 7th, but I won Aziz. I won Aziz as a brother.

I love you, Aziz.

Aziz
Thank you, Mahalos. Love you too. And it makes me smile too.

Serge
And so, Aziz, at the time, you were not brothers. You kind of barely knew each other. And so maybe do you want to tell a little bit about the journey that led you to actually reach out to somebody like Maoz?

Aziz
Yeah, at the moment, we had met only once before, about 10 years earlier. The two of us worked in the travel industry at the time, and our companies did work with each other, but we didn’t. Maoz started the Abraham Hostels and Fawzi Azhar Inn and Abraham Tours, and I co-founded Mejdi Tours. And so our companies had a lot of work together, but we did not.

We met once, changed, became friends on Facebook, and that was pretty much the limit to it. When I sent Maoz a message, you can see the history of messages between us, and there was none. On October 7th, when I got up, I learned about what happened, And within the next two or three days, I found out about many people I knew, some friends who were killed, taken hostage.

And so it was quite a devastating time. But at the same time, also, I knew about what’s about to happen in Gaza and what about to happen in the West Bank. And this is, I think, why for many Palestinians, they felt paralysis.

Many people were living in their own kind of fear and trauma and not able to look beyond. I felt it was important to reach out because especially in those dark moments, it’s really important for us to be together, those of us who believe in peace work, that it’s important to reach out. And so I decided, you know, I struggled it through, is this the right time or not?

I decided eventually to reach out to Maoz. And the incredible part is he also responded and responded immediately. And that, again, wasn’t the case at the time.

Very few people, if any, have spoken against revenge, against war, against what’s going to happen in Gaza, as also was starting to happen. And Maoz was one of the, not one of the, I think, the first voice that was on television and was publicly speaking against it and saying I’m not only crying for my parents, but also for the innocent people being killed in Gaza. And so this empathy worked both ways.

The two of us understood Being stuck in only your own trauma and being stuck only in your own pain and ignoring or not being able to see, being blinded about others’ pain is what leads us to this reality, is what led us to that moment.

Serge
And so your own pain is very real. And there is also the other pain. And it’s very hard for us human beings, especially in times of conflict, in times of collective trauma, to really hold on to both and see both. Instead of seeing my pain means that you don’t exist and you’re bad.

Maoz
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you don’t have or show empathy to the other, then basically you are losing empathy for yourself. So it’s for us, Aziz and I, and the work we are doing, and many in the peace movement is not to separate or between pain, and there is no others. We are all one human being and humanity, and we must thrive and work to create a one shared future that is based on values we all agree within.

Serge
Yeah, yeah. And it’s not a response that comes naturally to us human beings. And so maybe I’m turning back to Aziz, where the loss of your brother happened when you were very young.

Aziz
Right. Yeah, it’s not natural. People will always compare.

But in reality, whatever, even if my pain, your pain is less, it’ll always feel more because it’s your pain. It doesn’t matter. So the comparisons never work in the sense you always, you know, if you have a headache and I have a gunshot wound, still your headache will hurt you more than my gunshot wound because it’s your headache.

So that’s what I think a lot of times we get stuck on is saying, but look at the magnitude of my pain versus that other pain. And people will always feel their pain more. And it takes exercise to realize, like Maos said, it’s our pain.

It’s not yours versus mine. In my case, I grew up in Jerusalem, grew up during the first intifada, very much experienced the full experience of living under military occupation from being shot at as a child to tear gas to all these things to pogroms from settlers that happened back then in the 80s and still happening today. And when I was nine years old, my older brother, Taysir, was taken from home on suspicion of throwing rocks.

He refused to confess to the charges. He was arrested from home, and so he was tortured until he eventually signed whatever confession was in front of him. And as a result, soon after he was released from prison, he ended up dying due to the beating.

And I was 10 years old at the time. Teixeira was 19 when he died. And as you can imagine, a 10-year-old doesn’t know how to process trauma and pain except in one way.

It’s feeling angry, feeling bitter, and feeling betrayed, feeling that the only way to honor your brother is through those feelings of revenge and anger. And those are the feelings I had until I was 18 years old when I went to study Hebrew. And it was only then that for the first time I met an Israeli who treated me like a human being, like an equal.

And that was my teacher. And this relationship was what put me on this journey of peacemaking. And I think in many ways, I would connect it to why Maoz and I became brothers, is, you know, being united in loss and being united in vision.

These are the two things that brought us together. So, yes, the trauma united us, but that’s not enough to make you brothers. It’s very important to be united in something beyond that.

And to us, it was a vision of how do we move forward? How do we move from our pain and not being stuck only in our own trauma and pain and think about how do we create a better future? That vision is really what eventually brought us together.

Serge
Yeah, yeah. So that the trauma could define you into a predefined role. But actually how you choose to respond to the trauma is actually what defines the future and what defines your being human and taking an active role in life.

Aziz
Yeah. Very well said. I agree.

We talk a lot about that. You cannot change the past. What happened to our loved ones is there’s nothing we can do to change it.

It’s done. But what you can do is shape the future. And in essence, when we, the two of us, it shows forgiveness, the choice we made was to take our trauma and to use it differently, to take our pain and use it differently.

And saying that if you don’t do this, if you remain bitter, then you are being a slave to the person who hurt you. The person who killed Moses’ parents, who killed my brother. Every time you choose to respond in this direction, you become a slave to that person.

And the last thing any of us want to do is reward the person who hurt us again and again and again every day in our lives. So the anger is still there. The pain is still there.

It’s just instead of fueling that anger or using that anger to fuel more hate and more death, we use that anger to say it needs to stop and it needs to stop today.

Serge
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that the person who killed your brother, people who killed Marisol’s parents, can really pull you into the cycle of hate, and you play their story. And what you decide is to say, no, actually, I don’t want to honor you. by becoming a slave to your story. And we’re writing our own story.

Maoz
Yeah. Exactly. This is the choice.

This is the agency. Each one of us has or can take. And we definitely supported each other in making this decision.

And also, if for me it started as a very emotional and spiritual journey to peace and reconciliation, Just days after the death of my parents, through working with Aziz, who has working experience as a peacemaker in nearly 60 conflict zones around the world, I learned also about how conflicts are being solved, what is needed to solve a bloody or a devastated conflict, and becoming more and more aware and reassured that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end. Because this is what history proves, that all conflicts end one day. So when we titled our book, The Future is Peace, it’s not a wishful thinking.

It’s not an ill thought. It’s an historical fact based on 5,000 years of civilization. And the only question that we should ask, when will it happen and how many lives will be lost till we reach this…

resort this end of a just peace. And we have a roadmap, and this is why we are working so hard. We have a roadmap to achieve peace by 2030.

And this is why we are so focused and why there is a huge urgency, because if we won’t reach peace by 2030, the consequence of it will be a loss of many, many more life.

Serge
Yeah, yeah. So the two of you have a very clear vision of how, you know, peace will happen. Either it happens when we’re all dead in terrible suffering, or maybe we can make it happen a little sooner.

And so, you know, that’s great. However, you know, what happens when you talk to people who are so upset by what’s happening that they think of you as naive, They think of you as almost a traitor. And how can you look at them in the eye to share your vision?

Maoz
Maybe, Aziz, maybe I will start with the naive and then maybe you start with the traitor. Naive are those, again, naive are those who believe that war can defend, that bombs can bring quiet, and war can bring security. They are naive and fools because it never works throughout human history.

The only way to achieve security and safety is through looking to each other in the eye, recognizing and acknowledging the suffering, the pain, the trauma. By dialogue, by compromising, by investing in reconciliation, not investing in wars. So we, Aziz and I, and the peacemakers, we are the pragmatic.

we are the voice of reason, of logic and now since we are living in a broken reality it’s impossible it’s impossible to convince through words through logic because we are living in an unnormal reality or present so it’s not through logic that will fix it it’s through vision it’s through listening and first and foremost through actions we must act on the ground to prove that reconciliation is possible to prove that by forgiveness you are gaining back your own agency so this is why we are saying it to ourselves and each one of us to oneself and to everyone it’s time for action it’s not time to debate it’s not even time to convince it’s time to act to model the future and allowing others to join us and to follow us.

Serge
Yeah, yeah. So what I’m hearing is if you talk now, it’s like talking to a wall and just it’s impossible for people who are in shock to hear you. And so that’s the engagement, that leap of faith of saying we want to make it happen so that you can see what happened and you can be convinced by what happens.

Aziz
Yeah, I also think the only vision being presented to people today, whether on most mainstream media or whether through politicians or whether through the news that they hear every day or the lived reality that they have, is a doomsday. I mean, I listen to politicians. There’s an election in Israel.

I’m listening to politicians. It is incredible to me. I have yet to hear somebody present a vision for what’s going to happen tomorrow.

They all talk about what they won’t do. I’m not going to allow a Palestinian state. I’m not going to allow this.

I’m not going to allow that. I’m going to defeat Hamas. Okay, what’s your vision?

And I don’t hear it. I don’t really hear a vision from Hamas. What are they going to do?

What’s their real plan? There is no vision. It’s a vision of we’re going to fight until the last drop of blood.

That’s not a vision. That’s a suicide. So politicians today don’t offer that.

And if you listen to the media, there is no vision. And so Mao’s and I believe and know that, you know, it’s a biblical thing. It says where there’s no vision, people perish in the Bible.

And we’re living that prophecy. There is no vision and people continue to die. And then the more this happens, people become more afraid and eventually they lose sight of what’s possible.

they stop being able to dream of what tomorrow can look like they are so stuck in today and and again i’m not blaming and neither does maus we don’t blame people being in this reality because if you live in gaza today if you were witnessed october 7th if you in the west bank it is very hard to look beyond but somebody has to provide that vision because we doubt it we have nowhere to where we’re going. We have to show that tomorrow can look different. This is why, in my opinion, the powers, the people in power do everything possible to stop us from modeling this tomorrow.

This is why many media outlets, you know, maybe once a year, they’ll show an Israeli and a Palestinian together as if it’s super rare and it never happens and they can never be together and possibility and the unique, this is a bunch of crap. It should be shown every day, but it scares them because they know this is the biggest threat to extremism. This is what scares people who have a vision of supremacy and a vision of it’s either me or you because we show what’s possible. And the moment you show people what’s possible, they do listen. They’re not stubborn. The moment you show them that this is, you know, there are some people who won’t listen, but I think a lot of people are thirsty for a message of hope. And that’s why it wasn’t a surprise in some ways, maybe a little bit, but I wasn’t surprised how successful the futures piece has been, that it is a bestseller, that it is being translated into many languages, that when we came to do talks in Islam Palestine, we had packed rooms of people who wanted to come and listen to it because that is something missing and even those who are suffering tremendously they need hope without hope what else do we have yeah and hope and hope is an action and that’s what maos was talking about we tell people vision is built on us working for it if we’re not working for that vision then you’re gonna feel hopeless because you’re not doing anything to change the reality.

And if we can convince just enough people who already agree with us that it’s not about believing and agreeing, as the Bible also says in the New Testament, faith without deeds is dead. Hope without you doing something to nourish that hope is dead. So act and things will change.

And it doesn’t matter what government there is. It doesn’t matter how many people will call you naive. It doesn’t matter how many people will call you a traitor.

Action makes you able to change reality. This is the simplest thing any of us can do. And yet it’s the most powerful thing we can all do.

Serge
Yeah, yeah. So that’s a beautiful and simple, but at the same time complex message. On the one hand, you know, we’re talking about hope, a sense of inspiration in believing in the future, and saying that people who are in the middle of terrible conditions, it’s understandable they can’t have it. But, very clearly, it’s not just hope by itself disembodied as some kind of an ethereal quality, but it is hope that leads to action because it is action that shows that actually hope is a reality.

Maoz
Exactly. I will say also our formula for creating hope is we must envision a better future together with other people and then act on the real life again with others to make this vision into a reality. So it’s about being courageous and brave enough in time of despair, in time of destruction, in time of loss, to be courageous and brave enough to vision with others, and then acting together in order to make this vision into reality. And as long as you do it more and more, and are able to group together a coalition of hope makers, then it’s becoming a second nature. And then you can strengthen each other, you can learn from each other, share knowledge, share experience, share ideas, and then it’s also more effective as you continue to do it.

Serge
So I love the phrase you’re using, a coalition of hope makers, and that sense of that self-reinforcement, that building momentum while doing something. And so that’s very inspiring in a way in things big or small. How can we be part of a coalition of hope makers?

Aziz
Well, there are steps that we talk about. And the first of those steps is to believe in a vision. Kafka is accredited with saying that impossible is what we have not desired enough. And by envisioning something, we bring it into existence. And so it starts as small as it sounds, is believing that peace is possible, that the future is possible, that justice and equality and dignity and recognition, these values not only are possible, we can bring them into existence by envisioning them.

That’s a future we have to envision. And so that’s number one. The number two is to amplify that vision, to amplify those beliefs, to amplify those standards and principles and values that we believe in.

And the more we amplify them, because if we don’t have mainstream media on our side, we still have many people. And in today’s world, even without social media, just being able to share those stories with your friends, your neighbors, your family, that makes a huge difference. And if enough of us do that, it will make a difference.

And then to legitimize that dream, Where can we get this vision and how can we get people in power to listen to this vision? It is too many people like to believe that it’s going to be good leaders who sign peace agreements. And yet from history, we know most peace agreements were signed by quite an awful people, war criminals, who eventually won Nobel Peace Prizes, which is fine.

But it wasn’t signed in most cases. And I’m struggling to think of the good ones who did it. There are a handful, but mostly it’s war criminals.

At least on one side, there was a war criminal. And so, but how do they get there? Because they are pushed to get there.

And this is how you legitimize peacemaking. You push more politicians. You push the media.

You push communities. You push religious leaders. And you do that by legitimizing peacemakers and bringing people like Maoz and myself and others into these conversations.

That is very important. Us meeting with Pope Francis was legitimizing not just Maoz and Aziz, but was legitimizing the vision. Meeting with Pope Leo, meeting with these kind of figures publicly and getting them to engage in this conversation is very important.

And then push for a policy change. Our politicians work for us, and we need to remember that, and they need to be pushed to change their policies instead of investing in destruction and in war and in weapons. We need an investment in peacemaking.

And finally, it’s us who create the political will. And people continue to often tell us, oh, but the majority of people will vote super right, super this, super that. And that incredible part, there’s a book called Why Civil Resistance Work.

And in it, they talk about how through history, it’s a small group of people who believed in nonviolence, who changed reality. And they were way more successful than those who believed in weapons, in war, and so on. And often the numbers are as low as a three and a half percent of a society who works nonviolently on a daily basis, actively, to change a reality that they’re able to do it.

And this is our message. We can change the political will if we all come together.

Serge
Yes, yes.

Aziz
Or if enough of us come together.

Serge
If enough of us, because you pointed out the 3.5%, so we’re not talking about 50%. We’re talking about a small number of people that is a big enough base. And I want to say you’re talking about imagine, amplify, legitimize.

And maybe what I would put a little footnote on is the word imagine might to some people imply that it’s not existing yet. And you have to totally imagine it out of nothing. And what you’re talking about is there is plenty of evidence and there’s plenty of actions on the ground, including yours.

And so it’s not so much maybe imagining as paying more attention to what there already is. Yeah. And showing how we can apply.

Maoz
Yeah, note taken. And we use a lot of historical evidence to prove that what we are imagining happened in even worse conflicts in the past. And what we’ve recently been saying is that many times two weeks before peace emerged in Berwick happens, No one believes it’s going to come.

Not the politician, not the peace, even not the journalists, the public, and sometimes even peacemakers. Before Ayanwar Saada, the Egyptian president, visit to Israel in 1977, there was a poll within the Israeli discourse. And it says back there, two weeks before his arrival, that 72% of the Jewish Israelis are against negotiation.

that they were stating that Egypt only wanted to erase the existence of the state of Israel. And the discourse was, there will be no peace in a lifetime, to have Sinan Peninsula without peace, then peace without Sinan Peninsula. And Israel was preparing to the next war.

And of course, Samuel Saadat arrived, and the children of Israel were waiting for him in four major cities, Tel Aviv, Yerushalayim, Beersheba and Tel Aviv, with two flags in their hands. the flag of Israel, of course, and the flag of Israel’s biggest enemy till the day before. And Menachem Begin wasn’t born a peacemaker.

Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister, welcomed the Egyptian president. He was a wanted terrorist by the British mandate. He was the commander of the Irgun, a terrorist militia that was accountable for the deaths of civilians, innocent people, Palestinians, Brits, and even Jewish people.

And he’s welcoming Sadat in 1977 and stating in a historical speech, we can prevent the next war. We can prevent the next war, but we cannot prevent peace. Peace will definitely happen.

And it goes to North Ireland, to Rwanda, to Europe after two world wars. It goes to Vietnam, to Japan, to the U.S. All conflicts end in the end.

And it’s our work, our mission to end it sooner than later. And sooner means maybe two weeks from today, because that’s what many times happens.

Serge
Yeah, two weeks before peace, nobody believes in it. And so that’s where you have to be ready to make it happen instead of the realism of the status quo.

Maoz
Exactly. And again, if enough people will be prepared and get ready for peace, it’s going to come in two weeks from now.

Serge
Thank you, Aziz and Maroz. Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

Maoz
And Sergei, thank you again for inviting us. We would love to be in contact in future events, online, physical ones, with you, with everyone, all your community, audience, network, because when we are talking about coalition of hope makers, it’s an international coalition. We need everyone to get involved, to support a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine and to import the solution, the solution and the future that we can create together here in the Holy Land. Yes, yes, very much so.

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