I Spoke to Palestinian Moderates; They Are the Path to Peace in the Region

By Richard McDaniel

When walking through Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem and Jericho, I can’t help but notice that many Palestinian businesses rely on Israeli products.

To be clear, I’ve never supported the Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. I’ve always thought (and continue to believe) that BDS is a cultish movement intent on obliterating the State of Israel and exacerbating the hatred between Israelis and Palestinians.

Yet, only now, do I fully realize the harm that the movement inflicts upon Palestinians. If Israeli commodities and institutions are boycotted, the negative ramifications wouldn’t solely be felt by Israelis, but also by Palestinians residing in both the West Bank and Gaza — who depend on Israeli goods to survive.

Toward the end of the Israel-Iran war, I met with former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative Sari Nusseibeh in East Jerusalem.

Previously one of the most visible Palestinian moderates, Nusseibeh expressed a similar sentiment to me: Since the vast majority of Palestinian businesses utilize or resell Israeli products, boycotts are harmful. Nusseibeh also told me about the importance of Israeli-Palestinian academic collaboration, especially since boycotts against Israeli institutions inhibit peacebuilding.

After criticizing the BDS movement, Nusseibeh stressed the corruption and ineptitude of Palestinian officials such as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Specifically, Nusseibeh criticized Abbas’ disastrous mistake of dismissing former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s apt two-state peace proposal in 2008.

While Israelis have perpetually issued similar criticisms, it’s never been more important to highlight and empower the voices of self-critical Palestinian moderates.

According to a 2024 poll, 81% of Palestinian respondents justified Hamas’ terrorist actions on October 7, 2023. On the Israeli side, only 21% of Israeli adults believe that Israel can exist peacefully next to a Palestinian state, and 16% of Israeli Jews think that peaceful coexistence is possible.

The Israeli-Palestinian relationship is already in dismal condition, and the widespread popularity of Palestinian extremism only further deters Israelis from seeking peace. Future Israeli-Palestinian relations also seem bleak. Among Palestinian youth, not only do the vast majority deny the Jewish people’s connection to the Land of Israel, but most also support a boycott of the State of Israel. This is a direct result of the Palestinian educational system — but for this generation, the results of that education cannot be undone.

Without the prominent presence of Palestinian moderates, there aren’t self-critical, rational public role models for Palestinian youth to look up to. Rather, Palestinian youth are largely exposed to figures who perpetuate hate.

Recently, I volunteered at a summer camp for Palestinian youth (hosted by a reconciliation organization) in Bethlehem. At one point, children were led into chanting what roughly translates to “we will die to make Palestine live.” This chant undeniably encourages violent terrorism, yet I was the only person (including among foreigners) who became deeply uncomfortable. Have many pro-Palestinian activists become so deluded to disregard blatant terrorist chants? The evidence points to the affirmative.

Importantly, Nusseibeh is not the only Palestinian voice that demands empowerment.

Prior to the Israel-Iran war, I interviewed Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid in West Jerusalem. After I asked Eid, who previously resigned from Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem because the organization refused to report on human rights violations committed by Palestinian officials, why Western media tends to downplay the oppression that Palestinians perpetrate, he explained that we are “living in the antisemitism era.”

When I further pressed Eid on the treatment of Israeli Arabs, he told me that while many “sometimes try to hide their satisfaction,” every “Arab and Muslim under the Israelis is very satisfied.” Although “Israel is not giving enough attention towards the Palestinian civilians” in Gaza, Eid insists that Israeli Arabs “have more dignity, more justice, more freedoms under the Israelis than any other Arab or Muslim regime.”

When I recently interviewed Palestinian peace activist Mohammed Dajani at his house in eastern Jerusalem, he similarly denied the accusation that Israel currently exists as an apartheid state.

Critics of Israel typically mention eastern Jerusalem as an example of Israeli apartheid, especially since approximately 5% of East Jerusalemites possess Israeli citizenship. While acknowledging the worrying rise of far-right extremism and the discrimination that many Palestinians there face (especially regarding building/residency licenses), Dajani claims that this is “not apartheid. The Palestinians are benefiting in exactly the same way the Israelis are. For instance, [they] can use the health services, the health welfare. The Palestinians, with their health services card, can go to any Israeli hospital and get taken care of without thinking that [they’re] a Palestinian.”

Dajani, whose Wasatia peace organization is actively suppressed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), also told me about the pressure within Palestinian society to eschew “normalization,” which is a term utilized to “label any peacemaker, or any [person] who [is] for dialogue with the other, a traitor.”

Since Palestinian social pressure discourages dialogue with Israelis, Dajani argues that what is needed is for someone to help “change the culture, to change the mindset [of the Palestinians]. It’s not enough to just bring the books, or write the best educational book and then distribute it to schools when the whole environment is anti-Jewish, antisemitic, anti-Christian, anti-peace, anti-tolerance, anti-dialogue.” For Dajani, one important step toward peace is changing the Palestinian school curriculum, which should include teaching about the Holocaust.

Moderate Palestinians such as Nusseibeh, Eid, and Dajani represent the fact that peace is still possible. While many observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict speak in black-and-white terms, there are Palestinians who don’t despise Israel and desire coexistence.

The empowerment of moderate Palestinian voices is needed to not only convince Israelis that Palestinian partners for peace do exist, but also to help transform the Palestinian movement. Israelis and Palestinians are not destined to hate one another. A principal step required to both cultivate an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence and achieve a just resolution to the conflict is to uplift Palestinian moderates.

Richard McDaniel is an undergraduate political science student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.