A Bi-National Commission on Trust Building

This paper is a call to Israelis and Palestinians to together create a Bi-National Commission on Trust Building. This should be done at the national governmental level, but it will not be done by the people who call themselves our leaders. The people in power in Israel and Palestine seem to be quite content fostering the conflict between the two peoples and have no intention to seriously lead to the eventual peace and reconciliation that must happen. The conflict keeps them in power. We have been killing each other and denying the right of the other side for national self-determination for more than 100 years. We cannot continue to do this and because our leaders are at the root of sustaining the conflict, we the people must take action to change our course. 

There are approximately 20-30% of Israelis and Palestinians who will reject any peace agreement between the two peoples, basically regardless of what the peace treaties may contain. That leaves us with a potential majority of up to 70% on both sides of the conflict that could agree and support a peace agreement. Presently we are quite far away from that potential majority of supporters of peace. Since at least the beginning of the second intifada in the end of September 2000, most Israelis and most Palestinians have claimed that they want peace, but the problem is that the other side does not. After October 7, 2023 that majority of potential supporters of peace on both sides has become even more convinced that the other side does not want peace and is not willing to make any compromise that might even indicate a willingness to imagine the possibility that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved. But everyone must realize that when this war ends, we will remain on this land in more or less equal numbers because neither side will surrender to the other. We must come to the conclusion that after more than one hundred years of killing each other, we have to turn the page and find the way to live in peace on this land. 

The most basic problem is the total lack of trust between the two sides, each believing deeply that the other side does not recognize their national legitimacy or their right to have any national status anywhere on the land between the River and the Sea. But because the situation is so desperate, on the Israeli side there are those who think about unilateral steps, unilateral separation, withdrawing behind the separation barrier, but leaving the Israeli army on the other side. Alternatively, there are those who consider annexation and making Israeli control over all of the land permanent. I suggest that they should consider the lessons of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Unilateralism that emanates from desperation is a breeder of negative unintended consequences. In Gaza this was a failed strategy that did not bring the Israeli people security – nor will it in the West Bank. There are those on the Palestinian side who expect the international community to impose some kind of solution – Trump or the region, or someone else. This has been a failed strategy for years and has not brought the Palestinian people freedom.  There are no unilateral solutions and only direct negotiations need to be the direction that must unfold, but there are many obstacles to a negotiated peace – the total mistrust between the two peoples is perhaps the most serious obstacle.

If we Israelis and Palestinians don’t come up with the way to move forward, no one can do it for us. There are those who think that nothing can be done to change the situation. They believe that the majority of the people on the other side are so indoctrinated to hate that nothing can change that. Mutual hate and mutual fear have reached new heights since October 7 and it seems that we have not yet peaked. Statements from Israeli leaders and influencers that there are no innocent Palestinians in Gaza or in the West Bank strengthen Israeli public opinion that Palestinians are enemies dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invocations to "Remember what Amalek has done to you," referencing the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites in the Bible, President Isaac Herzog's statement "It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It's absolutely not true. ... and we will fight until we break their backbone," and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant's 'situation update' advising Israel is "imposing a complete siege on Gaza.  No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly”  - these are all a few of the statements that fortify the belief in the impossibility of ever living in peace. 

Similarly, a statement put out by Hamas on March 8, 2025 (Gaza Now Telegram page) are the kinds of words that solidify in the minds of Palestinians that Israeli is illegitimate and it is destined to be destroyed:  “Israel is not a state; it is a terrorist gang built on murder and plunder. A group of outcasts and vagrants from the West were gathered by colonial Britain and unjustly granted the land of Palestine. They established their illegitimate entity on the blood of children, women, and men, stealing homes and lands, and displacing the rightful owners into exile and refugee camps.Teach your children that this artificial entity is doomed to vanish, that the hour of liberation is approaching, and that the occupiers will return to their homelessness, just as they began. Despite all the world’s conspiracies, Palestine will return to its free people.”

The failed Oslo peace process attempted to place the issue of mutual recognition up front, but it did not succeed. While Arafat wrote to Rabin “The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security”, Rabin wrote to Arafat: “the Government of Israel has decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people”.  This was not parallel mutual recognition of the right to exist as a people on part of what is viewed by both sides as their homeland. Israel never recognized the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the PLO never recognized Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people (perhaps a demand that should have never been made by Israel but once it was made and refused by the Palestinian leadership, it became a symbol of proof that the Palestinians are not prepared to make real peace with Israel). 

In truth, both peoples have more than ample evidence that the other side is not willing to make peace with the other.  The deepening Israeli occupation and control over the Palestinian people and their land for years, the expansion of settlements, the increased settler violence supported by the Israeli army (or not prevented by the Israeli army), the unimaginable limitations of movement of Palestinians, and more, are daily reminders to Palestinians that Israel is not at all interested in making peace with the Palestinian people. Palestinians are reminded everyday who is the enemy that has no intention of ever ending their occupation and control over their freedom. Israelis witness continued acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians and continued attacks against Israeli soldiers, in the West Bank and in Israel. Israelis witness Palestinians celebrating when Israelis are killed. Israelis see Palestinian public opinion polls that increasingly show large segments of the Palestinian public supporting the armed struggle against Israel. In fact, there is very little reason why Israelis and Palestinians should trust each other or believe that the other side is interested in living in peace. 

The daily reality of Israelis and Palestinians impacts the lack of trust or reason to trust the other side, and all of this is reinforced by public incitement and even more so by what is taught and what it not taught in our schools, on both sides. Much has been written and researched on the issue of text books and the research has clearly pointed to the compounding problem of our education systems in fostering stereotypes, fear, and hate, and providing a basis for denying the legitimacy of the other side’s right to exist as a people and as a nation-state. In the Oslo peace process, confronting the issue of education and the people-to-people aspects of peace building were an after-thought. They were not an integral part of the negotiations, nor a key element in the plans for peace building.   In reality, there is no better measure of the values of any society than what they teach their children. This is even more relevant when curricula and text books are determined at the national level. Any objective review of what we teach the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians will clearly demonstrate that we do not teach them that peace and mutual recognition is a possibility. We don’t teach them anything positive about the other people living on this land. We don’t enable our young people to be exposed to the culture of the other side. They don’t read literature from the other side, the don’t even learn the language of the other side and here it is worth noting that Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages which are amazingly close to each other. Teaching the other language should be the least controversial action of what I am proposing – all Israelis Jews should learn Arabic from grade one. All Palestinians should learn Hebrew from grade one. This should not even be considered as something negative. 

In the future, what we teach and what we don’t teach the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians (the crime of omission is as serious as the crime of what we include) will be denoted as one of the primary obstacles to breaking the deadlock in relations which has sustained the conflict for too many years. Eventually there will be a renewed peace process. That process must begin with genuine mutual recognition at the national level. The right of both peoples to self-determination is not negotiable. Secondly, the peace process must begin with the agreement of both sides to serious evaluate what they teach in their schools and to commit to reform and rectify what is taught within a given time frame. Each side must evaluate their own systems. It would not be wise for each side the evaluate the other. This is a national undertaking and in order for it to be serious, and to be taken seriously, each side must commit to do it on their own. The two sides must agree on the same criteria for evaluation, but the evaluation and recommendations of change and reform must be done separately by each side on their own side but then presented to each other. 

Since this will not be done by our governments in the foreseeable future, we the people must undertake this bi-national mission. We are undertaking the mission of launching this process and enlisting the top experts from both peoples to engage in the joint mission of beginning a process of building trust which will be the foundation stone of genuine peace making and peace building between the peoples of Israel and Palestine. If you are interested in taking part in this mission send a letter with your CV to: [email protected]

The author is one of two founders and co-directors of the Alliance for Two States. This call is in the name of the Alliance for two States