An Israeli and a Palestinian Talk Peace, Dignity and Safety | Ali Abu Awwad and Ami Dar | TED

Cloe Shasha Brooks: Thank you so much for being here, and welcome.

Ami Dar: Thank you.

Ali Abu Awwad: Thank you.

CSB: So to get started, it would be helpful to hear a brief,

overly simplistic summary of what each of you envisions

when you imagine a peaceful future for Israel and Palestine.

And from there we can go into the details

of how your visions might become a reality.

So let's start with Ali, and then we can go to Ami.

AAA: Hello, everyone, thank you for having us.

Ami, you look great.

Well, I envision, as a solution-maker,

I envision a place where our both identities are in harmony of our life.

Both sides have tremendous deep roots to this land,

from the ideology side of it, from the political side of it,

from the national side, from the religious side of it.

So peace for me is where these two identities

are practiced freely in harmony,

in cooperation with the whole world and the Middle East around us.

That's my big vision.

Ami Dar: Thank you, Ali

and thank you Cloe for having us and having me here.

I would say yes to everything that Ali just said.

I would add a couple of things.

One is that when people talk about literally solutions to this,

there are always these debates of, you know, one state, two state,

confederation, all of those things.

There are seven million Palestinians who live, as we say,

between the river and the sea.

There are seven million Jews who live between the river and the sea.

And I think it's important to start by saying that all of them are staying.

There's a sort of set of poisonous beliefs out there

that wants to either get rid of the Palestinians

or tell the Jews to go back to where they came from or whatever.

None of that is going to happen.

The Jews are staying, the Palestinians are staying.

And I think one of the almost, like, most urgent things right now

is to create a sort of informal coalition of all those people

who agree on that basic starting point,

which is that whatever solution we end up with

has to include and encompass everyone who is there.

No one is leaving.

And ironically, there are lots of people on the outside

who I think are sort of poisoning the well a little bit

by saying things like, you know, they should leave or they should go,

while the people who are there know that they're basically staying.

So the specific solutions, you know, one state, two states,

cantons, confederation.

I sort of, as long as there is peace, justice, freedom, dignity for all,

the mechanics of it matter less to me.

I have my preferences.

But it starts from this idea that the people are there,

they're not going anywhere,

and we have to find a solution together.

CSB: Thank you both for sharing that.

And to get to that place of peace,

it's going to require fundamental shifts

in so many aspects of reality right now, right?

Security arrangements, economic cooperation

cultural education, human rights under the law

and, of course, leadership.

So let's dive in a bit further.

What are some of your visions for what these shifts must entail

and how they might truly occur?

And we can go back to Ali for this one.

AAA: Yeah, I think any peace process needs an umbrella,

a political umbrella that will guarantee enough

and promote enough development,

enough healing, enough recognition,

enough cooperation between both sides.

You know, one of our biggest problems,

as solution makers and peacemakers, sometimes,

between me and Ami, I promise you, put us in a room for one hour,

we come up with an agreement.

The problem is we need a clear,

direct mechanism on the ground

that will speak to the people's needs,

not just transform people's emotions.

I mean, most of the Jewish people in this land,

most of the Palestinian people of this land are for peace yesterday,

not tomorrow.

Whatever you see in the media, I'm telling you, we live here,

we live with the people.

Their deep intention is to have peace.

But the problem is people fear solution.

People fear peace.

Peace needs courage, solution needs courage.

Number two, we still act as victims, both sides, still as victims.

We have this competition of suffering:

who suffers more?

And this always leads us to suffer more and more.

Number three,

we are a good resource for international politics.

As Ami mentioned,

there are many fingers and hands in this conflict

that are poisoning our reality every day for their own interest.

And that’s why no one is going to help us

as long as we are not able to help ourselves here on the ground.

So for me, nonviolence activism is my priority,

to create this nonviolence coalition

and nonviolence movement that I'm leading today,

which is named Taghyeer, “change.”

Because if we want to change reality, we need alternatives.

We need alternatives that speak to people's needs

to people's economy,

to people's security,

to people's freedom of movement, to people's education.

We need all of those systems as part of a sustained political agreement

that hopefully both sides will push for.

We need recognition, we need to see each other.

I mean, we should stop arguing each other's identities

and switch to argue each other's behaviors.

Because occupation is a behavior.

Violence is a behavior.

So if we feel secure to change,

to see and recognize our identities,

we will be able to change these behaviors that cause us this ignorance

of ignoring each other's identities.

This is a fundamental need for any peace process to happen.

And we need good leadership to lead the process.

The good leadership with the grassroots pressure.

This is how I see it.

Otherwise, believe me, we fight.

We killed each other enough.

No one is going to disappear.

No one is going to give up who he is or his commitment to this land.

And with my sorrow, it seems like the world doesn't exactly love Jews

and the Arabs don't exactly love Palestinians.

We just have each other.

AD: Yeah, thank you for that.

Again, I can agree with every word that Ali said,

so I won't, you know, repeat any of that.

I just sort of add a few things.

Maybe just, you know, piggyback a little bit

on one thing I think you said, Ali,

I think in terms of perception,

I think perception very often ends up being truth.

Self-perception is a truth of the situation.

In a David and Goliath situation, both sides believe they are David.

This is really important.

Now, of course, outside people say, well, what do you mean?

Obviously Israel is stronger, etc.

Absolutely, compared to the Palestinians.

But within the broader Arab and Muslim world

and within sort of Jewish history,

the deep perception of Israelis is that we are the David,

they are the David versus a Goliath out there.

And so this sort of victimhood Olympics gets played all the time:

who’s more of a victim?

And that gets pretty tiresome pretty quickly.

In the end, we have to all come out of this.

Before going on, though,

I do want to recognize that we're not having this conversation

in a vacuum.

People are dying in Gaza right now.

There are hostages in Gaza right now.

The situation is the worst it's been in my lifetime.

And so I think to just acknowledge that the sooner that can end

the damage that has been done now,

you know, for the last four months,

is going to last lifetimes.

It's going to be remembered for lifetimes.

And so the sooner that can stop

and anyone, anywhere who can do anything to stop it,

is welcome to contribute to stop it.

I mean, the deaths, the killing, the hostage situation has to stop today.

So I just want to acknowledge this is happening right now,

and it's dire.

People are on the verge of starvation in Gaza.

Aid has to get in now.

So just to sort of acknowledge that.

Then just a couple of things more,

You asked about the future, Cloe.

For things to move forward,

both sides -- and some people hate when you just say the word both sides --

well, both sides in this case, all sides,

have extremists that are going to make peace very difficult.

And they're not just a couple of hundred people.

You know, there are hundreds of thousands of people on each side

who believe that the whole place belongs to them

and are going to make peace difficult.

And the problem here is that each side has to sideline their own extremists.

Israel, I don't believe, this is my personal view here,

Israel is not going to defeat Hamas.

I think Hamas represents an idea.

I don't think Hamas can be defeated.

In the same way, it's not for the Palestinians to go

and defeat the settlers.

I don't think they can.

I think that the Jews have to handle their extremists.

The Palestinians have to handle their extremists.

This is really the work that Ali is doing.

And that is incredibly, to me, heroic, dealing with your own extremes.

Otherwise nothing changes.

And unless both sides can deal with their extremes,

nothing is going to change here.

CSB: Thank you both for that.

And Ami, you're sort of touching on this a bit,

but I think it would be really helpful to hear from both of you

on what you each view as distinctly Israeli

and distinctly Palestinian responsibilities

in this quest for peace.

You've mentioned extremists, but what else is there in that?

And feel free to continue, Ami.

AD: Well, there are two things here.

Let me actually start with the more abstract one.

I think sometimes people ask, you know, each other,

or they can ask me in some cases, why is this whole conflict so intractable?

And I think there are two answers.

One answer is sort of the obvious one,

which is that you have a piece of land [that] the two groups want.

And this is not a border dispute,

this is something relatively rare in the world.

You have a situation where large portions of two groups believe

that the whole thing is theirs,

and that the other one should just basically leave

or be second-class citizens.

So it's a fight about the whole thing.

And that part is relatively easy to explain.

You have a fight over a piece of land.

It doesn't help that on both sides you have substantial numbers of people

who believe that God is literally on their side.

That doesn't help.

You know, I tell people sometimes

that Jews and Palestinians get along in Brooklyn

because no one believes that God gave Brooklyn to them, right?

And so whereas here, you literally have a situation

where people believe that God is on their side, that's not helpful.

The part that's, I think, tougher, there's this conflict of narratives.

Both sides have a narrative

of why they are the ones that sort of should own this place,

the narrative that you believe, the narrative you are drawn to,

the narrative you support,

honestly, very often happens to be literally the first one you heard,

whether from your parents, your family, your nation or a friend,

you heard that narrative.

Both narratives sound good

because both narratives are legitimate.

And until enough people on both sides agree

that the narrative of the other side has some merit,

we don't get anywhere.

And this is, I think, what Ali was referring to earlier,

seeing that there are two peoples here.

And yes, you can argue forever on what happened 100 years ago,

200 years ago, etc.

I don't find those arguments helpful anymore.

We're here, we're stuck, we have to move forward.

We can acknowledge what happened.

And then lastly, Cloe, to your question about responsibilities,

obviously there's an occupation that Israel has the upper hand.

At the same time, and last thing I’ll say about perception,

and I hope this can make sense to some people,

the occupation is perceived very differently

by many or most Palestinians and their supporters

and many, many Israelis.

There's an interesting sort of metaphor

that I think works really nicely, of two people wrestling,

and one of those two people basically has the advantage,

is physically stronger

and is essentially the one on top, right?

So I'm basically pinning you down.

And that metaphor for the occupation

works in a sense of Israel is the one that's pinning down the Palestinians.

You know, it's the oppressor state, if you like.

And if you take that model,

then this ends when the oppressor gets up

and releases the one that is underneath, right?

That's that sort of basic metaphor.

And that's the Palestinian perception and supporters of the Palestinians.

If Israel simply stops occupying, the occupation ends.

The Israeli perception, not everyone, of course,

is that, yes, one is sort of, you know, pinning the other down,

but that the one that's lying underneath has a knife in their hand.

And so if I let you go, you will stab me.

And this is why, this is very specifically why, October 7 was so destructive.

Because it "proved" to those people

who believe if you just let go, they will stab you,

that in fact, they will.

And so you get into this whole thing of how can we allow, you know,

a Palestinian state in the West Bank, two minutes from the airport, etc.

if they will lob missiles from there?

So there's a mutual responsibility

because unless the perceived threat of violence and death is removed,

you're not going to sort of let go.

And so it has to come together.

There has to be, on the one hand, Israel, from my point of view,

and this is where Israelis can get mad,

I think Israel has not made a good-faith effort to say, let’s end this thing truly.

A good-faith effort would mean no more settlements, for example,

as we have in the last 50 years.

Let's truly find a way to end this, a way in which Jerusalem is shared,

in which we truly can live together in some way,

two states, one, I don't really care.

We'll make a good-faith effort,

truly a good-faith effort.

And then Palestinians can make their own sort of effort.

So, it's complicated.

It requires both.

One side can't do this.

AAA: Makes a lot of sense.

I mean, what I feel like adding to what Ami just said,

I think we have to start from the deep, deep roots of the problem.

First of all, both sides have to describe the problem right.

Because half way to the solution is the right description to the problem.

The description of the problem is all about the other side.

No, the problem is also us.

Each one has to look in the mirror

and see where they fail to achieve peaceful future for their kids

at least.

And this is very hard, painful lesson

because you cannot ask a victim to judge himself

because it's much easier to judge the other,

but not to judge ourselves.

Number two, we need a clear vision.

What is our vision of solution?

And when I say a vision,

I don't mean one state, two state, three states.

Any politician or any group of people, leaders,

[who] will put both identities in a place of harmony

and that can function in a way that will give everyone

the chance to practice who they are

without building their ideology

or security or freedom on the other side's expense,

he will be my hero.

One state, two state, federal solution, 100 state,

this is not the question.

The question will be to the mission, which is number three.

The mission has to be creating an environment

where solutions are possible

because today everything is impossible.

The only possible thing is to fight.

But when we look forward and when we look further,

we don't see ...

We just see graves.

We don't see any kind of normal environment.

Then the homework to do is through social change

that has to be created to lead for political change,

because there are values

that we need to build in our own societies.

We clean up trash from streets.

Then people say what [does] this have to do with the occupation?

It's all about to do with the occupation.

Because what's the connection between the trash on the streets,

if we want statehood,

if we want an independent, democratic,

clean society and the occupation,

we have to be free.

Because no one will free us as long as we are making an excuse

to destroy ourselves

and give the occupation even legitimacy to destroy us more and more.

So this is a self lead and a self responsibility.

On the other hand,

I have been saying, my biggest enemy are not the Jews,

our biggest enemy are not the Jewish people.

It’s the fear of the Jews that costs us a price of our dignity and freedom.

So Jewish people have to heal also their own fear

and understand that the Holocaust is over.

It’s over, and never again.

And Palestinians have to say that, never again,

before Jews say that.

Because this crime should not be allowed anymore

for any human being on Earth, not just for Jews, for everyone,

for the people in Gaza, for the people in Sderot, for everyone.

If we are really solution-makers.

Finally, this environment will be led

and labeled by nonviolence

because nonviolence can promote every solution for every need

in the society.

We cannot start with reconciliation.

Listen, we don't love each other.

We kill each other.

We cannot just hug each other for hummus

and say, let's pray for peace.

No, this is not going to work.

We need nonviolence activism

because Israelis and Palestinians need to achieve security and freedom.

Then we need a political agreement.

We need a reconciliation process between both sides.

So this is how I see it in three steps.

CSB: Thank you both for your beautiful words on this.

It's really powerful to hear both of you share how this could look.

And it's very inspiring.

And one question actually from several people

that has come up in different variations that I think is a nice segue,

is, what other countries can do to help this situation?

So let's start with you again, Ami, and go back to Ali after that.

AD: So two things.

One is I would say -- well, maybe three things.

One is do no harm.

There's a lot of harm coming in from people

basically from the outside, from far away,

less governments or in some cases governments as well,

who basically express the wish of one or two of these communities to disappear.

Basically, just say it straight.

That needs to stop.

So one is do no harm.

Second, even this is probably the worst moment

that we've had since 1948,

there are groups of people on the ground who are working together.

One, for example, relatively well-known right now

is a group called Standing Together, you can check them out.

People on the ground, Jews and Palestinians,

doing what they can to find a way forward.

Anything that helps them is good.

Anything that gets in their way is bad.

So that's like one way of saying this.

Anything that helps Ali in what he's trying to do is good.

Anything that hinders him is bad.

And then lastly the question really was about foreign governments.

I think that some pressure is useful.

Incentives, I think, are better.

Carrots are better than sticks.

These are two pretty stubborn peoples.

And pressuring them, I think, is like a pressure cooker

is not going to help.

So many Israelis and Jews are convinced that the world hates us anyway.

So if you do something like, you know, kick Israel out of the Olympics,

in Israel, that'll be taken as,

"Well, of course they did, they all hate us anyway," right?

So that is not going to actually move the needle.

Incentives, by the way, would.

And I’ll give you sort of a crazy-sounding one maybe,

but sometimes things have to be crazy.

Both countries are pretty small.

I mean, both populations are pretty small.

We're talking 14 million people.

If the European Union, that in many ways,

Europe "owes" us both for all kinds of historical stuff.

If the EU told the Palestinians and the Israelis,

"If you guys make peace,

you can join the EU."

Like, how awesome would that be?

But go make peace and get back to us,

and you can actually join the EU as full members.

It'd be great to have Lebanon as well.

That's a personal preference, that would actually rock.

But anyway, the Levant can join Europe.

So I think incentives of all kinds would be more helpful.

Security guarantees are also, you know, useful.

Just applying pressure, I don't think is going to work.

AAA: Yeah, I have been, I mean,

for the last 20 years of my activism of nonviolence,

I have been calling on everyone.

If you are pro-those or pro-those,

this is not going to help.

We need you to be pro-solution.

Yes, definitely we are not equal.

We're not equal on the ground, we are not equal by life condition.

But we are both capable to run ourselves by ourselves

and to create the best cooperation in the Middle East

between Israel and Palestine.

And we need you as a third party to be part of the solution,

not part of the problem.

Because if you cannot be part of the solution,

don't be part of the problem.

And if you are not part of the problem already,

try to be part of the solution

how to engage in this conflict, and it's not easy.

I'm telling you, watching the images that come out of Gaza is not easy.

Watching the hostage people there is not easy.

I mean, it's so hard to be nonviolence activist these days,

and the challenges are so huge.

And that's why we need a collective movement

that can speak to the reality and to the need.

And by the way, people are calling for cease fire.

I'm not calling just for cease fire.

I'm calling for cease conflict.

Because if we agree about ceasing the conflict,

we will not need a cease fire.

This is going to be a part of an international agreement

with international guarantees, with international pressure,

that both sides also need to trust the process itself

by engaging the third party.

And last thing I will say, if you are pro-Israel,

don't jump on any Muslim and hurt or smash his face.

If you are pro-Palestine, please don't create conflict in your own community

because we have one conflict to deal with.

We're not ready also to deal with conflicts

that have been created in your own communities

because you are pro one of us.

CSB: Thank you.

And we're getting some insightful questions right now

that are about sort of the bigger picture here.

As one of you said, this conflict doesn't exist in a bubble, right?

So Karen asks, since the conflict is not limited to Israel-Palestine,

but is just a fragment of a conflict between Israel

and Arab countries all across the region,

what can you say about a peaceful future in that context?

And let's start with you, Ali.

AAA: That's a great question.

I mean, watching the normalization process with Israel in the last few years,

within the occupation, within the injustices

is just a big answer to this question.

I think the Arabs are ready to normalize with Israel

and even the top Arab country, Saudi Arabia,

has mentioned this already.

But these normalization processes are happening between governments.

This is not a real normalization.

We need normalization between people.

And normalization between people will never be achieved

by ignoring the Palestinian issue aside.

The Palestinian people will be the best gate for Israel

to enter the Islamic and Arab world.

Without that key, Israel will never be able to normalize.

On the other hand,

all of these normalization efforts are good if they become effective

to transform Israel

and Israeli mind toward the Palestinians.

I'm not against it,

but I don't think this is the right approach

without the Palestinians.

The world has changed.

And don’t think that the Arabs just hug us and they love us.

Believe me, sometimes Palestinians get humiliated in Arab countries

more than Israelis.

Many Israeli friends recently has traveled.

I mean, before the war, not after.

Have traveled to Emirates, to other places.

And they try to speak about the Palestinians,

Israelis, can you imagine?

Then the Arab response was, we don't want to speak about this.

Can you imagine, Israelis are raising our issue

and the Arabs are putting it down.

AD: I agree with every word that Ali just said.

And I think that part of the -- you know,

as a kid, you know, growing up in Israel,

the big threat was Egypt and Syria

and Jordan and these other countries.

And I think that that fundamental feeling of threat is still there.

Even though Sadat came, you know, 45 years ago

and we've had, yes, not the warmest peace,

but we've had a very functional peace with Egypt and Jordan.

And, you know, Lebanon could easily happen.

Saudi Arabia has very seriously been looking for this and wants this.

And so again, you know, Israelis can get mad at me for saying this,

Israel has to decide what it wants.

Certain people within Israeli society have to decide what is more important,

keeping the West Bank, you know, forever

keeping the Palestinians as oppressed citizens,

without rights in the West Bank and also in Gaza.

Or, integrating in the region.

I think the region is absolutely ready to --

that's my sense --

most of the region is ready to, for lack of a better word, do business.

I mean, you see it now in Dubai.

You see it in other places.

So I think this can absolutely happen.

But there has to be a decision of what really matters,

sort of, in the end.

The Palestinian conflict, the Palestinian issue, is a hard one.

If that gets settled, everything else falls into place, I believe.

AAA: The closest people to Israelis are not the Saudis.

They are the Palestinians.

And if you try it, you will figure it out on the ground.

We are the closest Arab to Israel, even though the occupation,

even though the hate, even though the violence,

people are existing from each other already.

AD: I think one thing on that, Chloe, is that when, you know,

if someone wants a moment of optimism, in the middle of this whole horror,

the best thing that anyone can do is to visit a hospital in Israel.

If you visit a hospital in Israel,

what you will see is that even though

about 22 percent of Israeli citizens are Arabs, Palestinians,

more than 25 percent of physicians in Israel are Palestinian,

40 percent of pharmacists,

more than 30 percent of nurses.

So if you go to any hospital,

you'll see that the teams are basically completely integrated,

the patients are sitting, are lying side by side.

Muslims are operating on Jews and vice versa.

And it works.

And it works more than many other national rivalries

I can imagine.

There was someone in Jerusalem a few years ago

who had this idea of, you know,

a "for peace" idea where all he did was on Friday evenings,

he invited people across the city to play backgammon.

That was it.

Come play backgammon.

That's the agenda, basically.

And you had hundreds of people, religious, secular, Arabs, Jews,

coming and playing backgammon and laughing and eating.

And you could see how, yes, of course, there's a conflict,

But actually, culturally and personally, people get along and can get along.

Now all this to say, and I just,

I think Ali and I are bringing sort of positive outlook to this.

The moment is horrible.

The moment is the worst in my life by far.

I mean, I'll tell you one really quick sort of thing

to give some perspective to this.

I woke up on the morning of October 7, that Saturday.

I think, you know, people learned about this,

depending on when they went to bed.

So I learned that this was happening at eight in the morning,

that Saturday morning, I woke up, I was in New York,

and I opened and someone said,

"Oh, there's something happening in Israel."

I'll never forget in my life.

The New York Times headline said,

“Terrorist incursion from Gaza, 22 dead.”

In that moment, it was 22 dead.

That's all that was reported.

And my wife came down the stairs, and she saw that my face had changed.

She said, what's going on?

And based on those 22 deaths, I said,

"Everything is over."

Everything is over, basically.

Peace in my lifetime, Gaza.

And then of course, it went up to, you know, hundreds and over 1,000.

But it's hard to explain to people the depth of what happened that day,

the depth of the shock.

If two Hamas people, if two terrorists,

two, had crossed the border

and had killed one family and kidnapped two people,

that would have been a national scandal in Israel.

What happened was completely unimaginable.

And this is why, four months later, most Israelis are still there.

Also, this is what they're seeing on television every day.

Every day in Israel now on TV is a repeat of October 7.

Very few images of Gaza.

Israel is probably, I know this is going to sound weird,

and maybe literally incredible to some people,

Israel is probably the least informed country in the world

about what's happening in Gaza.

The media does not show the images.

You have to go look for them.

And obviously you don’t necessarily want to,

or you justify them in all kinds of different ways.

And so I don't want to minimize because of, you know,

Ali's and mine sort of positivity here,

that this moment is horrific,

and it's going to take tremendous work to come out of this

and that the priority is to just stop the deaths now,

if we possibly can, whoever has influence on that,

this has to stop as soon as possible.

CSB: It's a really powerful reminder

of how every part of the world will see this so differently,

based on the stories that they are told and how the media portrays it,

and also how we feel based on history.

And it actually makes me think of something you said earlier, Ami,

which was, you said that people associate the conflict

with the first story that they were told,

you know, however they understood Israel Palestine is

as children when they learned about it,

is how they will interpret the conflict today.

So I'd actually love to hear, if you're both willing to share,

what the story you think should be told to the next generation,

because everyone puts so much hope in the future and in the young,

the youngest generation, sometimes too much,

too much pressure on young people to solve the world's problems.

But if we can start there with the story that we tell to our children,

What could that be?

Let's start with you again, Ami, and then go to you, Ali.

AD: We're in this together.

We're basically Siamese twins that have sort of been,

you know, condemned to live together.

And at some point you either see the other as equally human or you don't.

You're not brought up to.

This is not how you're brought up, to see the other.

But if at some point you cross that threshold,

there's no going back.

And so to me, you know, what I would tell my daughters

is we're all human here, we're all in this together.

No one is leaving.

The past matters a lot, but the future matters more.

And so what can we do now about the future?

The past, you know, the past can be as important as you want.

I don't care how important you want to make it.

The future matters more.

To me, always.

And it's about also human friendships.

I think one of the sad things is that, you know,

not enough people on either side

have true friendships on the other,

true people that you would, you know, lie down for.

And I think that's important as well.

So making and then keeping those friendships

becomes, I think, really critical.

CSB: Thank you. And how about you, Ali?

What do you believe the story should be told to our children?

AAA: The main elements for the story is to tell the truth.

But not just our truth.

It's also the other side's truth.

Because what makes our truth truthful is not that we believe in it.

It makes it true and truthful when others start believing in it.

But others will not start believing in it if we practice it one-sided.

If we don't include the other.

And this is a big problem for both sides.

They practice, they go to history as one nation, one people, one land,

one God, and that's it.

Well, I believe one God,

but I think the same God has created both of us.

And this is the first truth.

It's not anyone who brought, I mean, Israel here.

Even Judaism didn't come through people here.

It came by God.

And this is what’s in my Koran as Muslim,

this is one fact.

So this is something that has to be taught.

But we don't teach that.

On the other hand,

we don't teach about the Holocaust.

Many people will ignore or limit the Holocaust.

We just label the other by blinding ourselves to their truth.

And this doesn't work.

Listen, I didn't grow up with the best education for peace.

But I didn't grow up with hate.

I mean, I was born as a refugee.

My father's story was to lose his home because of 1948,

when Israel was established.

Then I was born to a political mother, who served years in prison.

Then I throw stones on Israeli soldiers, where I served years in prison.

Me and her had to have hunger strike for 17 days to see each other.

And after I was released by Oslo Peace initiative between both sides,

I was wounded by settlers, and my brother was killed.

What more do I have to prove

that even though all of these prices,

I'm still willing to see Ami as my best partner,

my best human being and my best friend?

What do I have to do more to prove to the world that I am capable

and I deserve dignity because Ami's security is my top priority?

What do I have to do more?

But with these dictators who are managing both of us,

nothing, no voice is heard

because they know how to destroy.

Both sides, their leadership.

Number two, I am teaching my kids my story.

But I'm not teaching them just my story.

I'm teaching them the story of an Israeli mother

who had lost her daughter by a suicide bomber,

and she’s still willing to stand for our mothers and women.

These stories have to be taught, and the world has to repeat them.

And I'm so thankful to you to give us, me and Ami,

this platform to tell the world that whatever the world will do,

we will never give up each other because we cannot.

You know, I speak to Israeli soldiers sometimes before they go to the army.

I tell them, listen, you are not going to secure Israel.

Your top priority is to secure the Palestinians.

You cannot refuse the army, fine.

But don't be humiliating Palestinians because of that security issue.

Because it's like drugs.

And when I tell Palestinians,

I'm not asking you to love the Jewish people,

I'm not asking you to jump tomorrow and hug the soldiers.

But I'm asking you to love yourself first,

because when we start loving ourselves,

we will be able to see the beauty of the other side.

It's like exactly nonviolence.

Nonviolence is, you know,

it's not my humanity that is my weapon in nonviolence approach.

It's Ami's humanity that's become my weapon.

It's my enemy's humanity, who's supposed to be my enemy.

These are lessons and practice that we teach our kids,

and we have to teach our kids every day.

CSB: Thank you, Ali, for also sharing part of your powerful story

and what brought you to this work.

And thank you, Ami, for your answer as well.

I think we have time for one more question,

and several TED members have asked a version of this,

which is that both of you hold these beliefs about Israel and Palestine,

that other respective Israelis and Palestinians

have critiqued each of you for,

saying you're not advocating for your own community's interests enough.

And so how do you respond to that?

How do you make the case that what you believe is worth spreading?

And let's go back to you, Ali, again.

AAA: I think my first community priority is peace.

But sometimes, what peace are we talking about?

Is it to be good kids and accept the status quo?

This is not the peace that I'm advocating for.

You know, sometimes people ask me, "What do you do in life?"

I tell them I collect garbage of others,

but I make sure that I recycle that every day.

Because otherwise it's easy to get broken.

So we're dealing with trauma.

We are dealing with injustices every day.

We are dealing with threats and violence every day.

It’s not easy to be a solution-maker.

And by the way, I'm not optimistic.

What motivates me is not my optimism.

What motivates me is my belief.

There is big difference between those who have hope

or those who are believers.

Give me one believer who managed to create change on this planet

without paying the highest prices for that.

From the prophets to politicians to nonviolence leaders,

even to militant leaders.

There is always a price.

But nonviolence for me is not,

has not come by a promise from anyone

that Israel is going to give me my freedom tomorrow.

My belief of nonviolence

because the one who killed my brother

and the one who humiliated my mother

wanted to bury my humanity in the same grave of my brother.

I refuse for my humanity to be buried.

Why?

Because I will never accept a freedom

that will be built on other Jewish graves.

This is not the freedom that I want.

I want a freedom that will be built with other lives.

And for me, nonviolence,

don't think that I live in a paradise, OK?

My life is full of poison every day.

Meeting those who are

like, full of hate, of anger.

But I can see the beauty of their humanity,

and I can still take that to activism.

And I transform thousands of people.

Nonviolence gives me a taste of my life every day.

Nonviolence gives me a reason to wake up in the morning

and be able to transform an officer in a checkpoint.

And there are many stories.

Hopefully my manifesto will be public soon.

We don't need everyone to be in agreement

because when you build a bridge, you don't need millions.

You need a group of professionals with a good plan and good resources

where millions can pass through afterward.

Nations are, in general, followers of good leadership.

We need leadership.

And we need those millions on the ground

as I said,

their interest is to have peace yesterday, not tomorrow.

AD: Ali, thank you, you got me to tear up earlier,

which, thank you for that.

Everything you said.

What Ali is doing right now in the West Bank in Palestine

is really hard.

It is one thing that I want also people to take away from this chat

is that he's doing it.

There's another pervasive myth out there in the world

that someone like Ali could not be saying what he's saying and be safe.

That Hamas would have killed him years ago for saying what he's saying.

Well, there he is.

He's going to go have dinner after this,

and he's perfectly safe.

And so I think this is absolutely possible.

I also want to say, Ali, that, you know, you mentioned your prison,

your mother, your brother,

and I know that I did not do this personally,

but I just want to say that I'm sorry.

I think that that doesn't happen enough.

I'm extremely sorry for everything you have had to go through

just for the accident of being born there.

None of us chose where we were born.

And so I think that ...

And the last thing I think is that -- sorry ...

There's a human piece here.

There are people in Israel

whose dream is to kick Ali out of his house

and of where he is.

And all I can say is, you'd have to go through me first,

because the human piece here is more important

than any kind of national slogan.

And so, yeah,

you don't remove Ali from this place without having to go through some of us

to do that.

So thank you all for having us.

I know we're pretty close to the ending here.

Thanks for those who stuck with us.

And, Ali, more more power to you.

AAA: Thank you, Ami, thank you.

Thank you.

CSB: Thank you both so much for this incredibly moving, powerful,

and productive discussion.

Thank you again, Ali, Ami, have a wonderful day.

And we wish you well.

AAA: Thank you for having us.

[Want to join conversations like this live?]

[Become a TED Member!]

[Sign up at ted.com/membership]