Young Israelis and Palestinians are giving up on peace. It’s on all of us to fix that
Fire and smoke erupt after Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Dec. 14. Photo by Mahmud Hamsmahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images
Laura E. Adkins December 15, 2023
Inside an empty mosque in the city of Jenin in the West Bank, an Israeli soldier kneels on the red carpet. He’s clad in military fatigues and a helmet, rifle in one hand and a microphone in the other. Plugged into the PA system, he begins to chant a Hebrew prayer religious Jews recite several times a day: “Listen, people of Israel: God is our lord and God is one.”
In translation, the Shema is similar to the first two lines of the Muslim call to prayer: “God is the Greatest. I testify there is no deity but God.”
Before a peaceful prayer service, either phrase is a benign declaration of faith. When recited while brandishing a weapon, it is an act of incitement.
And it was treated as such. When a clip of the incident went viral, social media leaped to condemn the clip as another example of Israeli arrogance. The soldiers who appeared in or filmed the video were swiftly punished by the IDF.
But this incident is just one symptom of a much deeper and more urgent problem. For years, I’ve been documenting the shift among Israeli Jews my age — not to mention Palestinians — toward militaristic jingoism and right-wing politics. They’ve all but given up on a two-state solution. And we fail to reckon with this reality at our own peril.
Israelis in their 20s and 30s, not politically aware during any version of a peace process, were instead shaped by the bloody violence of the Second Intifada, the deadly consequences of the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, and now, the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Likewise, young Palestinians, subjected to occupation and abandoned and abused by their own political leaders, have seldom interacted with an Israeli except across the barrel of a gun. Despite the frequent cry that Hamas was a democratically elected government that enjoys popular support, in Gaza, no one there under 34 has ever had the chance to vote.
The polarization of Israeli and Palestinian millennials doesn’t represent a foreboding future, but a terrifying present. The median age in Israel is 30. In the Palestinian territories, it is 21. The Jenin refugee camp, near the mosque in the incident I mentioned earlier, has already become such a hotbed of terrorist activity that even the Palestinian Authority barely dares to venture in.
Israel, still reeling from Oct. 7, is single-mindedly focused on defeating Hamas. But it will never do so if all parties involved can’t provide a hopeful vision of what comes next. If we want to reverse the trend of radicalization, we cannot just talk about it. Instead of lamenting and making broad gestures toward peace and stamping out extremism, we have to provide actual alternatives.
It will not be easy. Last December, a joint Palestinian-Israeli survey found that support for a two-state solution, broadly seen internationally as the only real way to bring peace to the region, was at its lowest in decades. Just one-third of Palestinians overall, and 20% of Israeli Jews aged 18-34, support it. Most Israeli Jews and Palestinians see no partner for peace on the other side. Roughly 40% of Israelis — and just 20% of Palestinians — would even be “willing to participate in a workshop that brings Israeli Jews and Palestinians together.”
The cynicism toward coexistence workshops is understandable, as the words have started to feel empty after decades of stagnation. Perhaps the crux of it is this: As of Dec. 2022, 84% of both Palestinians and Israelis reported seeing themselves as “an exclusive victim” in this conflict. For two-thirds of Israeli Jews and 90% of Palestinians, it follows that “this suffering grants them with a moral right to do anything they deem as necessary for survival.”
After Oct. 7 and the Israeli response, these numbers are likely even higher.
It might fuel our righteous indignation to point out the extremism in other communities. But it is our absolute duty to stamp out extremism and nihilism in our own. In order to do that, we must do much more than broadly gesture toward “diplomatic agreements.” It is simultaneously true that there are no leaders on either side ready to rise to that challenge and that it is our obligation to find and cultivate them.
There are many competing visions of how to share or divide the land. But well before that, there’s a lot that we can do within our own communities as well.
Take the paths of least resistance
“Palestinians we have engaged online who currently live in the West Bank and Gaza have indicated that they cannot continue with us until the situation improves,” Heart of a Nation CEO Jonathan Kessler, whose organization brings young American, Palestinian and Israeli leaders together in regular dialogue, wrote in a recent newsletter. “Palestinians living, working and studying abroad, however, would like to expand their participation in our online sessions; that is also true for Palestinian and Bedouin citizens of Israel.”
We know from the data above that trust in coexistence work among Israelis and Palestinians is dwindling. And how many American Jews can genuinely say they have meaningful and regular social interactions with Palestinians? And vice versa?
Decades of research shows that social contact fosters feelings of interconnectedness. Building opportunities for Jews and Palestinians to regularly come together into our existing U.S. Jewish organizations and our own local communities would be a good place to start. Many leaders in both Israeli and Palestinian history — including Yasser Arafat, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres — were born in the Jewish and Palestinian diasporas. Many others, like Benjamin Netanyahu, spent formative years of their lives within it. The idea that the next hope for peace, too, could emerge outside of the heart of the conflict, is not a pipe dream.
Religiosity correlates strongly with anti-coexistence views
It is not an exaggeration to say that the rift between secular Israelis and religious Zionists is threatening to tear the very fabric of the Jewish state apart.
Violent extremists in the West Bank, egged on by cheerleaders in the Israeli government, have been wreaking havoc on Palestinian communities. Hundreds of settler attacks on Palestinians have taken place since Oct. 7.
This should be absolutely intolerable — especially for those of us with ties to the religious Zionist world. As Rabbi Shai Held of the Hadar Institute wrote recently in the Forward, there is an urgent need to stamp out radical ideologies within our religious institutions, and everyone with ties to the religious Zionist world has a responsibility to work within those communities to change things.
“If ever there was a time when moderate religious Zionists must speak up and make their voices heard,” he wrote, “it is now, when the pyromaniacs are working hard to start a massive conflagration in the West Bank.”
There is genuine pain and trauma in the Jewish and Palestinian communities. We should acknowledge that trauma, and work to process it. But we should not allow that trauma to fuel militaristic bravado.
Pressure campaigns for peace
This will be a controversial contention. But instead of calling for a cease-fire while Hamas still rules Gaza with impunity, a foolhardy move that would be intolerable for Israel, U.S. citizens genuinely interested in peace should use the same political energy to pressure the U.S. government to condition all aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on a good faith return to the negotiating table.
It is unacceptable that Jews and Palestinians my age have never experienced a genuine diplomatic effort led by Israel and the Palestinians. There is very little political will that would inspire either side to do so of their own accord. But if those of us who claim peace and coexistence are still possible want to be taken seriously, we cannot simply call for two states and leave it at that. We must genuinely put our money where our mouth is, and do something about it.
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