By Nate Feldman
Because the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians remains as intractable and controversial as ever, there are many people who are trying to find ways to resolve the issue and understand the perspectives of the sides involved in it. This has led to a kind of literature, as well as documentaries, where individuals or groups interested in understanding the conflict have traveled through Israel and the Palestinian territories meeting with local people, documenting their perspectives and life experiences. Two books I have recently read, The Future is Peace by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, and Sleeping on a Wire by David Grossman were about the authors traveling throughout the Holy Land, interacting with Israelis and Palestinians alike. Though both share this basic premise, there are many differences between the books.
The first big difference is the reason for the journey. Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon are people who have lost relatives to the conflict. Abu Sarah's brother, Tayseer, died after being arrested by Israeli authorities and being subjected to abuse in prison. Inon's parents were killed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 inside of their kibbutz home. Despite this, they advocate non-violence and a commitment to other perspectives. Their journey, which took place after Inon's parents were killed, was a chance to hear people talk about their experiences and hopes for the future.
David Grossman, an established Israeli literary figure, wrote his book to get the perspective of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. He wrote his book in the early 1990s to try and understand how Palestinians who lived within Israel proper, not the West Bank or Gaza Strip, saw themselves and what their goals for the future were.
One important similarity is that both authors emphasize the importance of listening to personal stories. In Sleeping on a Wire, Grossman spends time with Palestinian citizens of Israel and allows them to tal about their daily lives, frustrations, and identities in their own words. Rather than presenting a political argument alone, he shows how individual experiences reveal the complexity of Jewish-Arab relations. Likewise, in Peace Is the Future, Abu Sarah argues that lasting peace begins when people hear one another's stories instead of relying on stereotypes or fear. His own transformation, from anger after the death of his brother to becoming a peacebuilder, illustrates the power of personal encounters.
I would say the biggest difference from my opinion, which is why I slightly prefer Grossman's book, are the types of people interviewed. Grossman interviewed people of all sorts. Islamic leaders, mixed Jewish-Arab couples, Jews from Arab countries, Arab women, politicians, and writers. One of my favorite chapters was the one where he sat down with A.B. Yehoshua and Anton Shammas, two important Hebrew literary figures and allowed them to debate one another. Abu Sarah and Inon, on the other hand, interviewed family and people involved with activist work. It also felt like most of the people, whether Israeli or Palestinian, shared similar perspectives of the conflict, which at times felt more leaned to the mainstream Palestinian point of view. I was fine with that, but I felt that if part of the mission is to listen to voices you don't hear, they weren't including that many voices in their journey.
In both cases, I wish they had interviewed some of the less talked about communities, i.e. Druze, Circassians, Armenians, and Bedouin from the Negev (some who actually serve in the Israeli Defense Forces). I feel both didn't get the full spectrum of voices in Israel and Palestine, something that I think needs to be done in future journeys of this sort.
Nevertheless, I feel both of these books are great reads for people trying to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that doesn't demonize the other side completely and gives a chance to give voice to people you don't often hear of mainstream media, namely those who want Jews and Arabs to find a way to co-exist in perhaps the most contested land in the world.
