“We share the land – can we share the future?”
by Samer Sinijlawi
With Saudi Arabia fast becoming the gravitational centre of Middle Eastern diplomacy, resolving the Palestinian question has never been more urgent. This is no longer just a moral imperative. It is a strategic necessity for Israel. Peace with the Palestinians unlocks a new regional reality: one where normalisation with Saudi Arabia becomes possible. If Saudi Arabia, undisputed leader of the Arab world, joins the Abraham accords, Israel will no longer live in a jungle, but in a stable environment.
With all due respect to Egypt and Turkey, both know that Saudi Arabia is the leader of Sunni Muslims and Arabs. Once Israel is at peace with Saudi Arabia, it will be at peace forever with Arabs and Sunni Muslims. This would launch a new Middle East dynamic, allowing for a collective approach to the Iranian issue and forging a regional order built on collaboration and collective interest.
This step would open massive economic and political horizons for Israel. If I were Israeli, I would no longer celebrate independence on 15 May, but on the day peace is signed with Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians. That would be Israel’s real independence – fully integrated into the region. One day, Israelis won’t dream of Parisian vacations. They’ll lunch in Beirut, dine in Damascus, and spend weekends in Riyadh. This is no utopia. It’s a vision waiting for courage.
And courage might just come from the most unexpected place.
Donald Trump, for all his flaws, has changed the equation. Take January’s hostage deal: Joe Biden introduced it in May 2024. The former US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visited the region 10 times to finalise it. He failed. Trump secured it with a single tweet. No trip to the Middle East. No photo ops. Just blunt leverage and pressure.
Trump is a man no one dares to challenge or contradict—and he knows it. He understands he is the most powerful individual on earth, leading the world’s greatest power. He doesn’t care about the “rules-based international order”; the only thing that matters to him is American interests. Every decision is made with that priority in mind.
But that’s not necessarily bad for the Middle East. In fact, it could be positive. American self-interest can align with peace in our region. A stable Middle East, integrated with global markets and insulated from extremist threats, serves everyone. And so we must think carefully about how to maximise the coming years to bring peace and positive change. If Trump, Emmanuel Macron, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman push for a deal, we – Palestinians and Israelis – must be ready to meet them there.
Because this doesn’t end thanks to summits or handshakes alone. It ends because of conversations – in homes, classrooms, streets – where ordinary Palestinians and Israelis reach out, and choose something better.
There was a time when hate didn’t define us. When Palestinians and Israelis could sit across the table and exchange not vitriol, but ideas and dreams. When leaders weren’t defined by how loud they could yell, but by how deeply they could listen.
That spirit still lives – and it must be revived. The cynics who say “there’s no one to talk to” are wrong. Most Palestinians and most Israelis still believe in living side by side. Not divided by walls, but connected by a shared future. Peace hasn’t disappeared. It’s waiting for us to stop yelling and start hearing each other out.
A new generation of Israeli and Palestinian leaders is rising. They think differently. They lead differently. And they’re done waiting. In June, just after Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, these leaders gathered in Paris. Not for another round of tired negotiations but to remind the world that dialogue is resistance. Resistance to despair. Resistance to extremism. Resistance to the idea that we must forever be at war.
I have spent the past three decades as a political activist, building bridges between the two sides of the conflict. Aged 14, during the first intifada, I joined the Palestinian Fatah movement and a year later was sentenced by Israel to five years in prison for violence committed during the uprising. Like many Palestinian politicians, I learned Hebrew during this time in an Israeli jail.
After my release, I became the international secretary of the Fatah youth movement, bringing me into contact with representatives of Israeli youth movements. Initially, I met with youth from the left-wing Labor party in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then later with right-wing Likud youth, who did not come to Ramallah; instead, we held joint meetings in Tel Aviv, Cyprus and the United States.
But more importantly, I have been holding private one-on-one meetings with high-ranking Knesset members from the ruling coalition and the opposition, including party leaders, including figures one would not normally expect to sit down with a Palestinian representative. I have succeeded in meeting 90 percent of the people that I asked to meet. Most of the Israelis are willing to talk to a Palestinian who knocks on their door.
The first meeting is always tense, short and cold. But the second meeting starts becoming more flexible. At the third meeting, you start seeing some type of personal relationship, and it opens doors. I sometimes joke with the Israelis that I know them better than they know themselves, because I talk to everybody, left, centre and right. They don’t talk to each other.
This war will end. And when it does, we will still be here, together. Israelis and Palestinians: breathing the same air; walking the same streets; burying our dead in the same soil.
We already share the land. The question now is whether we can share a future.
Most Israelis and Palestinians are capable of understanding the two sides of this conflict, of seeing things through the eyes of the other. The vast majority of both peoples are reasonable and humane. They don’t buy into binary thinking, tribalism, or identity politics. They have the empathy and moral intelligence to appreciate suffering and pain and anxiety – whoever is feeling it.
We’ve lost so many lives fighting over who belongs more. Maybe it’s time to ask: how do we both belong?
Coexistence isn’t a fantasy. Denying it is.
Samer Sinijlawi is a Palestinian political activist and the founding chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund
