The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been ongoing for a number of decades. It is a topic of war, bloodshed, hate, and discrimination. All those who are affected by this conflict, including those people who only read of this subject, may experience emotions of suffering as a result. The goals of this paper are to help the reader who may carry feelings concerning this subject alleviate their suffering and to educate on how I create peace with Palestinians. While there are many that may doubt that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians can take place, there are also many people, including myself, who believe that peace is achievable. I have seen this in my life on an individual basis and I have begun seeing it happen on the world stage with new movements for peace such as Realign for Palestine and The Abraham Accords.
Peace between Israelis and Palestinians on an individual basis can be easily achieved with logical reasoning. If one realizes that both parties have no reason to hate one another when they do not think of themselves primarily as Israelis and Palestinians, then one can conclude that hatred in cases such as this is foolish behavior. This form of hatred is strictly based on the labels of nationality that one places upon others and neither party has a real reason to hate one another as they do not even know each other. What people need to know is that not every Palestinian wants war and not every Israeli agrees with new settlements in the West Bank. There are individuals, families, and groups of both sides who would enjoy peace, going to work, and living their lives. There are some who would argue that this conflict of war is over land. I would argue that, as we can see, the Israelis did not take that much land from the Arab world and that losing land or material possessions is not the end of the world. Life can continue from that point forward, and doing so is preferable to resorting to barbaric behavior such as violence and bloodshed. I, personally, have lived an unusually difficult life, and there was a time when I lost all of my material possessions. Rather than focusing my energy on seeking revenge, I continued living my life from that point forward. This is the preferable approach to living life as we continue taking steps towards prosperity instead of taking steps towards additional misery and sorrow. The continuation of this conflict of war is unnecessary.
Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis on the world stage can be a permanent ceasefire and we can have that at any given time. This depends on the governing bodies of the Palestinians and Israelis. Until both governing bodies agree to a permanent ceasefire, we cannot enjoy peace on the world stage. We can, however, enjoy peace with one another on an individual basis. I, an Israeli-born man, have enjoyed making peace with Palestinians here in Los Angeles. When I encounter Palestinians here, I tell them nice things like “We come here to get away from the conflict” and “We come here to wash our sins away in the Pacific Ocean.” Peace on an individual basis is an easy process and many other Israelis and Palestinians as well as Jews and Muslims enjoy it here in the United States of America. My first best friend in America was a Muslim, in high school I played basketball with Palestinians and I even had a Palestinian best friend. One of my graduation photographs from college is myself doing a fist bump with a Palestinian graduate. I performed a rap presentation for my trigonometry class with a Palestinian beatboxer and posted the video on YouTube. One of my favorite memories is the time a Palestinian woman jumped me with a hug. As a known peace-maker between our peoples in the Los Angeles area, it was brought to my attention that there is an Israeli-Palestinian marriage that happened in Los Angeles.
In the media of today it may be difficult to navigate through all of the hateful rhetoric when it comes to this subject. It seems that our understandings of the terms “Pro-Israel” and “Pro-Palestinian” are ones of strictly supporting one of the sides with the opposition to the other when we can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. From an American perspective, as our political objectives are to create peace between Israelis and Palestinians, we should seek to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. What this means is not being anti either side and wishing for a safe lifestyle for both peoples.
I have studied the teachings of Christianity in order to enhance my networking skills as I live in a Christian majority nation and I have discovered a useful teaching. Christianity teaches it's followers to forgive their enemies. While it may appear in some cases that forgiveness is outright stupid, in many other cases it is not and could serve the purpose of cleansing our own minds of negative emotions. This is why, whenever it is possible to do so, we should forgive our enemies. We can find ways to forgive our enemies in order to cleanse our minds. For example, we can forgive our enemies on the basis that they may have received poor education and that they may be under pressure from others to oppose us. Teachings such as this as well as ones that are included in Buddhist wisdom can help us alleviate our suffering.
In recent times, there have been campaigns of misinformation that have been targeting those who support Israel. These campaigns of misinformation teach lies such as “Israel is a European colonial project” and “All Jews are white.” I am personally offended by the latter, which has arisen numerous times in conversations that I have been around, as I am a man of brown skin tone of 100% Yemeni Jewish descent. It is also worthy to note that Israel is not a European colonial project and is a direct result of the unfortunate genocide of the Jewish people known as The Holocaust. These campaigns of misinformation bring about chaos in the world and we must shun their voices as their objectives are not ones of mutual benefit to both peoples of this conflict. Adolf Hitler taught that if you tell a lie enough times then others will believe it. This is why it is important for these voices to be shunned. There are also people on both sides who may post on social media or say things that are based on emotional feelings instead of rational thinking when it comes to this subject and offend other people as a result. With the proper education, we can minimize this problem as well as solve many others. It can be viewed from the perspective that the Palestinian people have the opportunity to be the group of people in the world who granted peace upon the Jews.
The truth is that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is achievable. The statement that it is achievable is true. I also know from personal experience that our peoples are compatible with one another. Whether the governing bodies of both peoples reach an agreement for a permanent ceasefire cannot be controlled by the ordinary person, however, we can enjoy peace-making on an individual level. By seeing the truth of the individuality of people, we can eliminate the hatred that we may foolishly hold for an entire group of people. Efforts toward progress in the peace-making process can bring about real change and hope, and even through the clouds of hateful rhetoric, we can see this happening right now.
© 2026 Hazon, Nir
