Aziz and Maoz, possible peace between Israelis and Palestinians

Going against the tide. Overcoming loss. And the desire for revenge. Peace that begins with each one of us. From the attitude with which we place ourselves in front of each other, of those different from us. In this case the enemy. The enemies in this story are a Palestinian and an Israeli.

Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother during the first intifada. The Israeli is a young man, Maoz Inon, who lost both parents on 7 October in the Hamas attack on Israel. The two embraced and spoke on live TV in the US, in a double interview hosted on Christiane Amanpour's show and conducted by Bianna Golodryga for CNN. The words of Aziz Abu Sarah Aziz: "We must not wait for the war to end to try to build peace. Our politicians, and I cannot call them leaders, they are no more, they have lost their political imagination, and it is at this moment that our task is even more important: we have to do it instead of them'. Maoz Inon's words: 'The murder of my parents must not be avenged with the death of innocent civilians.

The two, both social entrepreneurs and peace activists, seek to build bridges and strive together for a future of reconciliation, hoping for the peace that former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin called 'inevitable'.

Their journey together began after 7 October, when Aziz sought out Maoz to offer his condolences: 'We had met maybe once before, because we work for the same company, and it seemed natural to seek him out to tell him that I can understand his pain, that he is not alone. I didn't expect anything, but to my surprise he answered me, and since then we have been trying to talk to our people here in the United States and to all those who want to listen to us. And from that first dialogue I always remember the moment when Maoz told me that he mourns not only his parents but also the children who died in Gaza'.

Loud and clear comes Inon's response: 'We are not alone, and we are not an exception. We are Israelis and Palestinians together, and we claim that anyone can show similar empathy, and our own ability to perceive the pain of others, we want to be a model of relationships, and believe in a future where this will be increasingly possible'.