Samer Sinijlawi (pictured above), a Palestinian political activist from the Old City of Jerusalem, spent five years in an Israeli prison as a teenager for participating in the First Intifada in the 1980s. He’s just written an article for the December issue of The Atlantic called “How to Build a Palestinian State” in the print edition, and “My Hope for Palestine” online. In prison, he learned how to negotiate and interact with Israelis as people, rather than simply jailers and oppressors. Out of prison, he became a leading activist and official in Fatah, the main party within the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
He writes as a proponent of the two-state solution jointly advocated by the former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert and Nasser al-Kidwa, a former Palestinian minister for foreign affairs. Sinijlawi sees it necessary for both peoples to “radically change their thinking—and their leadership.” While identifying “the first obstacle [as] Netanyahu and his racist allies,” with the need for Israelis to vote them out of power, he also came to see the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas as “corrupt and ineffective.” It is this capacity to see both sides implicated in prolonging this bloody conflict that marks him as unusual:
It’s hard for my own people, oppressed as we feel by Israeli power, to appreciate this, but the fears of Israelis are real, not exaggerated or invented. The images of October 7 are seared into their minds. Especially since the massacre, they desire the sort of security that any of us would want, and they will never bargain away the safety of their families. They are not a suicidal people. . . .
This is the DNA, a desire for both safety and self-determination. By acknowledging and attending to these twin desires—rather than parsing right from wrong or replaying history—people of goodwill can solve the conflict. . . . We envision a ceasefire in Gaza and a return of the hostages held by Hamas since October 7, and we have worked out the details of a two-state solution, proposing a plan for drawing borders, determining the status of Jerusalem, and rebuilding Gaza.
“How to Salvage a Two-State Solution” – The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/israel-palestine-…
Finally, he sees it incumbent upon Palestinians — as the weaker side more urgently needing relief — “to make the first move . . . to make sure that the Palestinian Authority properly criminalizes violence committed by Palestinians—just as Israel must end settler violence in the West Bank and respect that the lives of Palestinians are as sacred as the lives of Israelis. Both sides in this conflict need to gain control over their violent tendencies.”
This explains his visit to one of the devastated border kibbutzim, Kfar Aza, early this year, to voice his public condemnation of Hamas, and also his decision to study for a master’s degree in conflict resolution at Hebrew University.