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

A general view picture shows part of Givat Hamatos, an area near eastern Jerusalem, November 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun.
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.
The post I Spoke to Palestinian Moderates; They Are the Path to Peace in the Region first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.