The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 202. Maoz and Aziz

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

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Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestis politics.com. If ever there was a situation that called for the Restis Politics motto of disagree-agreeably, it is surely the Middle East. Mao's Inon is Israeli. Aziz Abu-Sara is Palestinian. They come from two sides of one of the bloodiest and seemingly. most intractable issues of our time. Mowers lost his parents in the massacre of October 7, 2023, Aziz lost his brother after years of torture in Israeli jails. If ever two men had caused to have their hearts filled with hatred for the other side, it's these two.

But instead, they have come together in their pain and their grief and they now work together for peace and reconciliation. They have built a brotherhood across the divide and are urging their peoples and their leaders to do the same. This episode is presented by IG. It's August. Parliament's in recess. Fund managers are on the beach or doing whatever fund managers do. But those of us who follow the news closely know the world doesn't stop shifting just because it's summer.

As Alistar often reminds me when I emerge from our summer retreat, geopolitics, central bank decisions, the markets, and goodness knows what else is going on all the time. And while August may definitely catch investors off guard, having. their portfolios spread across multiple apps and accounts makes it even harder to stay on top of things. And that's where IG comes in. IG brings all your investing, trading and funding together in one connected app. So you can move money, manage positions and acts on opportunities without even switching platforms. Plus, IG charges no annual fees and zero commission on stocks, shares and ETFs. In essence, it's a more efficient platform that also costs you less.

Download the IG app and get stuff. IG. Trade, invest, progress. Capital at risk, other fees may apply. Welcome to the rest of politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alastair Campbell, and absolutely delighted to have an Israeli and a Palestinian who have both suffered terrible loss as a cause of this horrible conflict that's gone on for so long, but now work together and have written this wonderful book called The Future is Peace. I want to start. if I may, guys, right at the end of your book, where you write this, some of this book you write just disease and sometimes it's just Mao's, but occasionally you come and you write together.

And the epilogue of this book starts as follows. Our journey comes to an end many years into the future. We are older and greyer, but our people have finally achieved the lasting peace. Instead of interminable warfare, we now live in a land of freedom and equality. There is no grasping for more as everyone has enough. There is no yearning for home for all the exiles have returned. There are no fences, no watchtowers, no checkpoints. Everyone has the same rights, the same privileges. The battlegrounds are reverted to fields and pastures. Instead of raising memorials and monuments to the dead, we have gardens and parks and playgrounds for the living. A generation of Palestinian and Israeli children have grown up, never having known the misery of

war or hunger or insecurity. And it's incredibly moving, but it feels just so distant. It feels almost like after the stories that you've told, it feels like a kind of fantasy. And I just wonder, given what you've both been through, how do you keep that vision and that sense of hope in your hearts? Yeah, I wanted to just start saying by first, thank you so much for having us. and if you don't know where you're going, you can never get there. If you can't imagine what the future looks like, how can you bring it into existence? So what Maoz and I wanted to do in the future's peace and what we are doing every day in our life is not let today dictate what the future can look like. And imagine what looks to so many people impossible.

Imagine it, tell it to people, give people the ability to dream in our community. in our world, that the future is much, much better than what today is. I'm speaking to two people who lived in the United Kingdom, and both of you worked in Northern Ireland, and you know that before the agreement in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday, also people didn't know what the future could look like. Also people could have. In 1990, I bet you people would have been in the same place Ma'os and I are today, looking at the future and saying, we just can't imagine it. It's just impossible.

So much death is around us. So this is what inspires us, knowing that every conflict, every war, every atrocity, everything eventually comes on end, and there's always a better path than the one we are on. Yes, totally.

And then, Wollett, first, it's really great to be with you, Rory and Elister. We've been waiting for it for a long, long time. I have no words to share my excitement. What I learned and we learned together in the last three weeks we've been walking together and formed and forge our brotherhood is that the most important field for humanity is the field of dreams. Like it says in the Bible where there is no vision people perish.

So this is exactly why we titled the book, The Future is Peace with a bold and courageous and brave title. And this is why we are telling everyone, if it's Israeli, Palestinians, policymakers, and people in the streets, and of course, journalists and media, the first step in reaching the end of the war's lasting peace, the first step is to be courage and brave enough to dream about it. And this is exactly the work we are doing. Do you think that for some people in the conflict, their priority is not peace?

Maybe some people feel that they're fighting for justice, or they feel that they're fighting for their rights or they feel that they're fighting for vengeance. Are there other human values which compete with peace and which are driving the continuation of the conflict? Yes. And the second step in reaching our future and fulfilling our vision is to decide what are the values we will base our dream upon. And this is exactly what brings us together.

It's not we are very good looking, at least as is and very funny. It's that we are sharing the same values. equality and dignity, shared acknowledgement and recognition, reconciliation and healing, security and safety, for all people, for both people. And there are others, extremists, Israelis, Palestinians from the international community that have different values, revenge, hate, fear, trauma. And what we are saying, that what is, if you must divide us, please don't divide us by Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews and Christian, if you must divide us,

it should be by those of us believing in equality, dignity, justice and peace, and those who don't yet. I guess some of the people who are fighting on both sides, if you ask them why they were fighting, would not say that they're fighting for vengeance or cruelty. They would say that they're fighting for things which sound better. We're fighting for justice or we're fighting for our rights or we're fighting for history, or we're fighting for our parents or our grandparents, or we're fighting to prevent a return for some horrible thing that happened in the past. So you can understand why people are

fighting and how they would think about why they're fighting. And the two of us talk a lot about this, that it's not that we don't understand how we got to where we are. It's not that we don't understand even revenge and fear and trauma and pain. We absolutely do. We both had that in our lives. We both lost our loved ones in this madness. So we totally understand it. And from a personal background, I also wanted revenge. I also wanted, I was angry after after I lost my brother on the hand of Israeli soldiers torture. So I definitely get it. But I think there's a bit of a difference between justice and between revenge. Most of us might say we fight for justice, but that line is very thin. We might convince ourselves that this is what we're doing when in reality

justice becomes vengeance. And so it's us also being able to discern what am I willing to do. One of the most powerful meetings I've had in Northern Ireland was with a man named Alan McRoyd and Alan's wife was killed in a in a bombing by the IRA. And when I met him, I asked him why he campaigned for the yes campaign, knowing that it will release the person who killed his wife. And he said, I looked at my daughter and I said, this is not the future I want for her. And so focusing sometimes saying, yes, we will never get perfection. We will never be able to bring Maoz's parents to life.

We will never be able to bring my brother to life. Or the thousands and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who've been killed, during the last hundred years. But what we can do is guarantee a future where this reality doesn't exist. And it's hard. We can stick to the pains of the past or we can focus on what can the future

we are able to create. I read from the end of the book, if I go right to the very beginning, the dedication to our beloved Tazeer, that's your brother, you talk about Aziz, and Bilha and Yaakovi, that's your parents, Mao's.

Your lives and your loss have forged our Brotherhood and commitment to a shared future. This book is a testament to the piece you have inspired. Roy and I, when we do these interviews, we'd like to talk about people's childhood and their background, and it seems particularly relevant here because you're saying there, Mao, as you're saying that your parents inspired the peace for which you're now fighting. So just tell me a little bit about them and whether they were political in the way that Roy and I might define it. So my parents, the first generation, Israeli born in their family. Both my grandparents immigrate for Eastern Europe, Moldova of today to Palestine

under the British mandate in the late 30th of last century. And my grandparents established two kibbutz, kibbutzs in the Negev, the southern part of Israel. And they're literally the founders' nation, the nation founders of the state of Israel. And my both parents were born in those kibbutz. Hohama and Iram. And when they got married, they moved to live with my father, Kibbutz, a kilometer half away from the border in Gaza, where they raised my three sisters, my young brother and myself. At age of 14, we moved to Nativa Asara.

It's the nearest Israeli community to the Gaza border. They were there when we lost them on October 7th. And my father was a farmer, and my mom was an artist. And after October 7th, I started giving interviews. literally all over the world and all over the media. And at the beginning, I used to say that nothing can prepare you for losing both your parents, childhood friends, and people you knew my entire life.

You cannot be prepared. And then as the weeks went by, I realized that I was wrong. I realized that my parents prepared me and my siblings to the moment of their death. My father, who was the best farmer in Israel, and I have some proof for it. I'm not sure if we'll have the time today, maybe next episode will invite us. He was the best farmer in Israel. And I remember every dinner, we were eating dinner together at the kibbutz around in our home.

And he would share about the daily catastrophe in the field. If it's heat wave, cold wave, drought, incets, wildfire. And while he was sharing how devastating this situation is, he will always state, next year I'm going to sow it again in the Negev. Because next year is going to be better here and I have the agency to do it. I would learn for my mistakes. I will consult with other farmers. I will get the best seeds.

I will felt out the land. I will open it for the rainwater to come. And I will see next season, not praying, not believing. I will so knowing that next day will be better. And this is exactly the walk, Aziz and I and so many other Israelis and Palestinians from the peace movement are doing nowadays. We are living within the broken reality with the devastation of today. and each morning green more terrible news from Gaza, from Lebanon, from the West Bank,

but we know that we have the agency to change the future. And this is the way my parents raised me. And my parents, even though they were loving people, definitely for us, but for everyone, the pillars in their community. And they believed in peace, but they weren't actively pursuing peace. And unfortunately, yeah, they did. and walk out of. And Aziz, there's a parallel there with you

because your brother, who was some years older than you, but you shared a bed for most of your childhood, and you were obviously very, very close. But you write that there was something about the last time that you saw him when you were being bullied, or one of the last times you saw him, that you felt that he was preparing you to kind of be an adult, to stand up for yourself, to be on your own.

Just tell our listeners and viewers that story. Yeah, I'm nine years younger than 10. Tysir, I'm what you call the oops child that was not planned for. And so Tysir functioned pretty much as a parent. We were very, very close. And when I got in trouble, I always went to him for help. And at that particular day, he just got out of prison, was already very ill about to take him to the hospital.

And I went out to play marbles with my friends, and one of the kids stole all the marbles that I won in the game. and so I went to him crying and saying, one of the kids stole my marbles, and usually he would go and get them for me. That was the standard of how things worked, except in that day. He instead walked me back to the house of that kid

and then looked at me and said, you're going to walk in and you're going to get your own marbles. You need to learn how to stand up for yourself. And I wasn't happy about it, but I did it, and I got my marbles back. And to me, it felt like I wasn't being prepared for a world where I don't have my brother standing next to me and defending me, protecting me, helping me. And in many ways, that was the reality soon after. Most, it's a very, very painful subject, and I'm sorry to ask it, but could

you explain to the audience what happened to your parents on October the 7th? My parents' house, wooden house was literally 200 meters from the border, from the most invested barrier humanity ever built. The 20 meters wall was literally shadowing their home. I live in Biniamina. It's a small town between Tel Aviv and Haifa and for the last 20 years. And waking up around 7 a.m. Saturday morning, I opened my WhatsApp and saw that my father shared a message in the family group that a war was just started.

that they can hear the shooting, the shouting, the sirens, and they lock the house and they are in the safe room. Strang as it might sound, we get this message every few months, once a year. There is an escalation between Israel and Gaza. So I thought, okay, another one more day like we have had in the past. So I went down to make coffee for my wife and for myself. And as the coffee was boiling, I could see on social media that the wall has been fallen. That Hamas, Toyota trucks are in the road. The road is the main town of the area.

So immediately I call my father asking Daddy, what's going on? And he told me, Maoz, we are in the safe room. Yes, we can hear the shooting. It's not a regular escalation. something huge is happening and I could deal my mom in the background I told that okay I love you I'll get dressed

and I'll call you soon tell mom that I love her I was getting dressed and five minutes after I called my dad again and this time there was no answer it was quarter to eight Saturday morning I tried to call my mom

again no answer so I woke up my sisters my young brother that is based in London we tried to call them to reach someone from the community, from the neighbors, and no one picked the phone till four in the afternoon. In four in the afternoon, one of the neighbors answered us, and we told him, just tell us what's happening.

Tell us what's going on. We don't need you to come here. We don't need you to soften it for us. We want to know the truth. And he told us, it told us that my parents' house is burned to ashes and that there are two bodies inside. and immediately we have decided to start the Shiva, the Jewish 7th day of morning.

It was the first Shiva of the war. We started it on Sunday morning. And on the second day, we were sitting as the five siblings, oldenians, crying together. And my young brother told us, we must make a family decision. We must decide to reject revenge, that we don't want to avenge the deaths of our lives.

parents because avenging their death is not going to bring them life. It will only escalate the cycle of bloodshed we. Palestinian Israelis, we've been trapped within for a century, to continue our parents' legacy and to make their memory the way they wanted it to be. We, their children of Bila and Jacobin, must reject revenge. And this is the message. We've been telling Turin de Shiva and ever since to everyone and everyone. Every world we can spread this message. You, as I understand it, had met Aziz once before that, but one of the first points of contact that you subsequently had,

and Aziz, I'd love you to talk about the process that led to this because you clearly agonized about this. But on the basis of having met Mao's, you sent him a text. I doesn't want to talk through why that was such a difficult thing to do. And then, Mao, if you could tell us why you write in the book that it shone a light in the darkness. And in a way, it seems to me that's when this relationship, which you two are now, you know, a partnership, traveling the world, trying to get people to come together. So Aziz, just tell me what was going through your mind when you heard what had happened to Myers' parents

and how you felt you should engage. Yeah. And the morning of October 7th, I got a message, basically, that told me what was going on for my Israeli friends, and this is something important to mention. Being a peacemaker, I have many Israeli friends who some have been killed on October 7th. And so for the next few days, I was getting information about people I knew, people who are relatives of people. I knew who have been hurt, taken hostage or killed. In the same time, I knew what was about to come. I knew that Israel is about to bomb Gaza into oblivion and that thousands of people will be killed.

We didn't know how far the devastation is going to be, but we knew it was coming. And I think for many Palestinians, this made them paralyzed and in many ways unable to reach out to their Jewish and Israeli friends because they were living in this paralysis of saying, well, we are going to face something we've never seen in our life. time of pain and destruction. I felt differently.

I felt that in this time is exactly where you need to reach out, that this is a moment where you have to. Because in these moments is when empathy almost disappears among people and that those connections are broken. And so when I got a message from a friend of ours that told me about Moses' parents, I decided to reach out. The one big decision was, do I do it right away or do I wait?

And the fear was, if I do it right away, maybe he's not ready to hear from me. He's at the moment upset. He's angry. Is he going to want to hear from a Palestinian telling him, I feel your pain? And after wrestling with that decision, I decided that it is the right moment to do it, that it's important to show that there's somebody on the other side, that does care, and I did that. And what's incredible to me

is that Maoz's response very quickly, I mean, within a week he was on BBC speaking about how he's crying not only for his parents, but also for the children and the innocent people being killed in Gaza. And that level of reciprocity and empathy that we were showing each other was not common at that moment,

was not common at all. and it was showing, hopefully, the blueprint for our own people, even people within the peace movement, that we can't let our pain take a blind us and completely make us unable to see the humanity of the person standing again on the other side. Maas, it's the most extraordinary story, and very difficult, I think, to completely understand that you were able, or your brother was able and your family was able to respond in that way.

Was there a struggle? Was there a moment where you felt we do need to take a revenge with the moments of anger? I mean, how did you get to that place? And when you talk to other people, Israeli friends who don't feel like you, because you must have Israeli friends who did feel very angry, who did feel that the operations in Gaza are justified and necessary, what do you think is going on in how different people react, how you react it, how other people react? So we, the family reacted this way because we were prepared, first by our parents, and then me personally after walking and partnering with Palestinians, starting in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian community within Israel. Because like Aziz, I'm also coming from the travel industry. I knew many tour guides and attraction owners in Palestine, in Jordan. I already knew the situation in Gaza before October 7th. I knew what's happening in the West Bank queue of occupation and oppression and many of those who came to condolences us, if it's like by text like Aziz or physically were Palestinians. And I knew that the solution or the only way to heal from the trauma, from the pain, from the bloodshed is if we are offering a shared vision for Israelis and Palestinians.

This is the only way to overcome the pain, the fear, the ignorance. So for us it was mostly it was force of nature to act this way. We didn't really choose it, even though we've done a discussion between the siblings and it took us maybe two minutes to decide to reject revenge. And we were very public about it, very, very public about it. And I too personally wanted to take revenge. But it wasn't in the Hamas. It wasn't with Palestine. It was with the Israeli government.

that I'm still holding accountable for October 7th. It was Israeli cabinet member Smutrich that stated publicly that Hamas is a strategic asset to the states of Israel. It was Benjamin Netanyahu, a prime minister, who declared in 2021 that Israel erased and demolished all Hamas tunnels and say that Hamas is deterred and basically defeated.

And they promise us, that the wall will bring security and safety to our communities, to my parents. So I wanted to take revenge in them. But listening and learning from Aziz and from other Palestinian peace activists, I learned that as long as revenge is what motivating us, we are a slave to those who killed our loved ones. We are leaving the destiny they chose for us. And the only way to free ourselves from this destiny, to be healthy and, you know,

and productive people, parents, and a husband is by choosing forgiveness. And I choose forgiveness to forgive Hamas. I choose to forgive the Israeli government. And I'm focusing only in the future to create a just future for everyone. Aziz, I get the feeling that you, maybe because you were younger, you took a lot longer to get to that place of feeling that you could accept and forgive. And I've been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, and had a pretty profound effect on me. I get the feeling that that was a key moment for you, that up till that point, maybe you hadn't really thought about why Israel existed and why Jewish people felt so strongly that it should.

So just talking through a little bit. First of all, is that right that you took a long time to get to the place that Mao seemed to have been right from the day his parents were murdered? And secondly, the impact of that visit to the Holocaust Museum. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is why I was always amazed by Maoz and McGahn and the whole family being able to take this decision because I knew how hard it is for me. I was 10 years old when Thysir died to torture in Israeli prisons. but also I lived the experience of occupation and day to day.

I was shot at first time when I was seven or eight years old. I had to go through checkpoints to school every day. I had to carry an onion with me because of tear gas. And I've had other family members who were killed during the years. So it's something that stays with you and still today. I mean, my family today living literally in fear of everything that's happening in the West Bank. family in Hepron, I have family in Romola, I have family in East Jerusalem. So this is something that affects you on literally and daily basis.

So after Thetius' death, I felt if somebody kills your brother, then the only thing you can do. The only normal response is revenge, is to be angry, and that if you're not, you're actually betraying your brother, you're actually betraying your loved ones. I was 10 years old, so this is the only thing I could think about. And for the next eight years, this was the feeling and the emotions that I had. This changed when I was 18 years old when I went to study Hebrew in an Ulpan, which is where Jewish immigrants learn Hebrew. And it was the first time I met an Israeli Jewish person who treated me like a human being.

And it was my Israeli teacher who smiled at me, who talked to me, like a person who recognized my story and recognized my both personal and national narrative. And that's something I had not have encountered before. And she's the one who explained to me about the Holocaust. Growing up, I knew nothing about the Holocaust. I mean, I remember walking to classroom and hearing the siren, which is the Holocaust Memorial Day,

and everyone stands still for a minute or two. and I'm walking by and I see this and I freaked out. I didn't know what was happening. I literally thought there was like alien attack and it was controlling people's minds. This is how little I understood what was going on. And I lived in Jerusalem. It's not like I lived in a different event city. That's when my Hebrew teacher told me to visit the Holocaust Memorial.

I didn't know anybody who is a Palestinian who has been there. This is in the late 90s, and I decided to go. And honestly, I've considered turning back a dozen times. When I got there, I saw a group of soldiers with guns standing outside, and I'm like, I'm not coming in. I thought everybody was judging me. Everybody was thinking, why is this Palestinian coming here? But then as I walked in and I started reading and hearing and watching the videos in Yad Vashem,

that all changed. Because again, that power of empathy, of understanding the pain, of suddenly when you see somebody suffering, I think you can't continue to think of them with labels. Oh, they're Jewish, they're Israeli, so it's okay. You can't do that. Suddenly humanity kicks in.

And that's what happened to me. And understanding the history definitely makes a huge difference. It's a big part of Fat Mao Zand-I-do is say, let's not let history dictate. what the future look like, but it's very important for Palestinians to understand what happened in the Holocaust. And it's very important for Israelis to understand Palestinian history and what happened in Nakba in 1948. Without understanding each other history, we don't have that empathy. How have people responded to you? I mean, you're a relatively small number of people.

In fact, the peace movement feels smaller today than it was 30 years ago. So how do Palestinian friends or Israeli friends respond to you. Are you criticized by people? Do they think that you're making a mistake? Do they think you're naive? Are people supportive? What are the range of reactions you get

when you talk in this kind of way? For us, naive are those who believe that war can defend, that bombs can bring quiet, and war can bring security. They are naive and fooled because they failed all through human civilization. It never works.

Not in Israel, Palestine, not with Hezbollah, with Hamas, with PLO, with Egypt, but not for international power. We can see now in Ormuz Strait, we can see before in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Vietnam, everywhere we look. So we are the voice of reason and we are the voice of logic. And the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement has been matured since October 7th. It's been growing, gaining momentum, and is much more synchronized and structured. than it has ever been. We don't see it yet in the political spectrum or sphere,

but on the ground, there are daily peace activities between the river to the sea in the West Bank, in Israel, and even in Gaza nowadays. And we can see the demand. The future is peace is a new old time bestseller. It will be published by a big mainstream publisher in Israel. And soon after in Arabic, It's becoming an international book, already been published in France, soon in Germany, then Italy, Spain and the Latin world, Portugal.

So we are part of a global movement. And modestly, I would say, we are leading it by offering a very bold and courageous vision. And minority and majority, you know better than us. It's very flexible. The settlers, the extremists that are controlling the land nowadays, they are also a minority, but they got into power. So the question is not just being how big or small we are, is how we are in power, how we are creating the political will to solve the century-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And we have a roadmap, we have a plan, we have a structure, how to achieve it by 2030. So in less than four years from now, they should and must be a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I'll give you maybe a couple of important examples right now. And I think one thing that peace movement learned since October 7th is not,

peace isn't only about dialogue. Dialogue is the starting point. You start in dialogue. But you also have to create facts underground. We also have to confront injustices. And that's what the peace movement has been doing. And one of the projects that's happening today for October is around the olive harvest, where we see increased violence, significantly increased violence by settlers.

And the response to it is not the peace movement only talking about, well, we should love each other and kumbaya, but actually be there with the Palestinian community in area C, and be there with the farmers in the olive harvest. And so we, dozens of organizations have come together and said, we will be in the harvest. We're calling the whole initiative, protect the harvest. Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals between mid-October to mid-November, we will have a group of people there at every given time, and anyone can come to that.

Any British, any American, any European, any Israeli, any Palestinian can come to that. And the more we convince people, not just to talk about peace, not just to believe in peace, but to start act. Because peace and home is not the sentiment. It's an action. And the moment we get more and more people acting on that sentiment, acting on the belief and the values that they believe in, that's how you create facts underground. And today, there isn't a one situation almost happening in the West Bank where there aren't Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers involved. So I have the settlers on one side, you know, supported by the state and by the Israeli military, but you also have peacemakers, people who believe in justice, people who believe in equality there at the same time,

because peace, equality, and justice are not opposite sides. They are on the same side. Okay, Aziz and Maoz and Alistair, quick break, and then back for more. This is the rest is politics. Can we turn to, if you like, politics with a capital P maybe? because of course, your work I'm imagining is not made easier by the reality of some of the politicians that are very, very high profile in this whole process. So I'd like to ask you both really, your sense of Netanyahu, your sense of Trump, who, as I understand it, is pretty popular in Israel still, and also your sense of the politicians in Palestinian Authority.

I get the feeling that you feel, maybe start with you on this Aziz. that you feel that the reason, one of the reasons that Hamas is the force that it's become is actually because the Palestinian mainstream politicians are so weak and old and corrupt. Yeah, absolutely. I think we are plagued. One of my friends used to say that Palestinian causes a just cause with terrible lawyers. And the Palestinian Authority has been in many ways that. We have a president who has been a president.

now for 21 years with no re-election. We don't have a parliament at the moment. We keep being told there's an election coming, but God knows when that's going to happen. And there is no constitutional even court. So the president can make all decisions on his own, and people can see corruption. Our president has less than 20% approval rating.

I don't know any other president in the world, regardless how unpopular you are, getting less than 20%. At some points, it was single digits. And one of the things I remember him saying is, I'm going to walk and march into Gaza to support the people in Gaza. And I thought, this is incredible. Finally, he's showing leadership. We're still waiting for him to do that. There isn't anything in the ground. People being attacked by settlers. I haven't seen him to any of the villages in the West Bank where people being attacked by settlers. You don't see him outside his fancy office. And when people don't,

feel their leaders, supposed leaders, politicians with them on the ground, they look elsewhere. And that's where Hamas shows up. Hamas shows up and builds clinics. Hamas showed up and helped people build schools. Hamas showed up when people were in need. And so we can, there's a lot of problems with Hamas and their ideology, but they showed up just like the settlers in Israel, do the same thing. And so it is no surprise that Hamas became who they are and how popular they are because in in times of corruption that's where you go so that's one issue we have i'm also a u.s citizen and sadly i would say the u.s and the international community has been tremendous force in in the wrong direction and we can blame trump it's not only trump Biden was not much much better

than trump in the sense he said sometimes the right things but when it came to action when it came to pressure. It really baffles me why the United States is not able to use its weight to push for the right direction. I mean, Biden invited Netanyahu multiple times. He gave him cover. Again, we can criticize Netanyahu a lot, but without Biden, Nathaniajo would not have survived. So American politics is important. I would go even beyond. Today, the United States does not allow visa for Palestinian peacemakers to come into the U.S. This is how far off the United States and the international community have gone, not allowing peacemakers.

My life has changed since Trump come in. When I travel from and out of the U.S. back, I get stopped for hours. I get interrogated for being a peacemaker. Because to them being a peacemaker to the current administration is anti-American, is anti-patriotic, which I believe is an absurdity. I think being a peacemaker is being patriotic, whether you're Israeli, whether you're a Palestinian, whether you're an American. So yes, when it comes to politicians, they're not on our side.

But that has always been the case in war zones. Politicians are the last usually to show up, and that's where our focus is to get people to push those politicians, to change the sentiment. When Maoz and I went to Congress in 2024 to talk about sanctions on stopping sending bombs to Israel, members of Congress, democratic members of Congress, looked at us and said,

if you mentioned that, you'll be kicked out of every office in Congress. That's what we were told in 2024. You fast forward to today, that is completely changed within the democratic community and the democratic lawmakers. And it changed not because they suddenly grew a conscience. It changed because people who vote for them told them this is not acceptable anymore. And that's where the work of Maoz and I is important,

is to work with the people so we can push the politicians to get to where we need to be. Mao's, can I bring you in on the question then of the plan? So you've told us about the long-term vision of peace. you've talked about your own personal experience, you've talked about the psychology of it, but what is the political roadmap? How do you get to where you want to be in 2030? Yes. So we are offering only a five-step journey and then a five-chapter roadmap. The five-step journey is the journey to fulfill our dreams. It can be to end poverty, like the TED talk you gave back in

2004, we were in the audience it was a brilliant talk and it can be a lasting peace in Israel and Palestine. We must have a dream. We must agree on our shared values that will base our dream upon equality and dignity match both our dreams.

We must build a coalition because we cannot fulfill a big dreams on our own. We must have a roadmap and we must implement the roadmap. Those are the five steps to fulfill our dream and vision. And now we do have a roadmap for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The first chapter is going back to the basic to offer a vision. And this is what Aziz and I are doing. And this is what was being done by the extremist, by Hamas and the Israeli government, a vision of one people in one land, ethnicity, ethnic, ethnic supremacy, religious supremacy. and for too long, maybe three generations. I'm speaking from the Israeli point of view. Since the assassination of Itzhak Rabim, no Israeli politicians offer the vision.

And so while our politicians are still not there yet, this is where we are as civil society leaders offering this vision. The second chapter is to amplify the vision. We must amplify to share it if it's in a best-selling book, if it's speaking all over the world, but we do many public speaking and private speaking

also here in Israel and Palestine. And we are not along. There are many, many that do the same work. The third chapter is to legitimate peace. And this is why for us being interviewed in your prestigious podcast, this is exactly how we are legitimized because the episode before us,

the episode after us, of course, you had a beautiful episode with a count of, been faced, but you also have presidents and policymakers from all over the world. So this is how you're legitimating us as we are speaking now. The force is to change policies, as he starts touching on it. Maybe later we can also talk about what role the UK can play. We believe the UK can play a major role in creating a lasting peace. And the fifth chapter is to create a political will.

The political will, not necessarily the political power. because many times, unfortunately, those who signed the peace treaties, the peace agreement the day before, they were war criminals. And even if we go to Israel history, Begian and Sadat, 1977,

Israel's prime minister Menachem Begian, who was a wanted terrorist by the British mandate till 1948. He's becoming the prime minister, all through his political career only advocating for wars and bludgeon

between Israel and our Arab neighbors, and Anwar Sadat, who only four years before, waged a war of surprise against Israel, and then he is arriving to Israel. There was a poll two weeks before Sadat visit, and the majority of Israelis, fast majority, more than 70% was against negotiation, not against peace, not against let's work,

against negotiation, Moshe Dayan, Israel, warrior said it's better to have Sinan Peninsula without peace than peace without Sinan Peninsula and Golda Meir said for the Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur said there will be no peace in our lifetime

no peace in our lifetime and only two weeks after President Sadat is arriving and the children of Israel the children of Israel are waiting for him in Tel Aviv, in Beersheva in Haifa and Jerusalem and I'm meeting them now when I do my Pavik speaking

we meet them those children And they tell us we waved with two flags, the flag of Israel and the flag of Israel biggest enemy. And the discourse completely flipped. And this is how two war heroes or criminals you can decide for yourself. They become peacemakers. And Rabin and Arafat, it's the same. Rabin was the Israeli security minister, defense minister, who ordered to break the arms and legs of the Palestinian protesters. Exactly the time as his brother was arrested and tortured in prison to death.

And Arafat, for me growing up in Israel, Arafat was an archie terrorist. And they signed the host of agreement. And everywhere we go, around the world, we can see more and more a proof that war criminals can be transformed. And we need to make sure, we need to transform them. We cannot wait. We don't have the privilege to wait to the election, to that the meter. so many people are dying. There is a huge urgency, the level of dehumanization, the extrismism is rising.

So we must make peace now. And two weeks before peace or four weeks before peace embark, many times we don't see it coming. If it's the Berlin Wall, the end of the genocide in Rwanda, the apartheid in South Africa. So what I am stating is that we are always between two weeks to four weeks from peace. And what can we do now? What can we do today to make it happen and to prove once again that no one could have seen it coming? Afterwards, the historian will tell us,

of course, all the signs were already there. Okay. Mao, of course, you're right. These things will come. And the reason I said right at the start, it feels so distant, but of course it can come. But there's a couple of things you say that. I do want to come back to the point about Britain

because I think sometimes we, as Brits, underestimate our role in the history of this and therefore maybe also underestimate our role in what we can do to create this future that you're trying to create. But there's a point in the book where you say this, the Palestinian cause has been reduced to a talking point in speeches.

And I think that's a very fair point. And we're guilty of this as well. Roy and I will regularly say there's no other solution but a two-state solution. Am I right that you basically think that what we mean by the two-state solution as things stand has absolutely no chance at all. You're talking about a different outcome.

We don't talk much, Maas and I, about where the lines are going to go, because I think that's not the hardest part. We talk a lot more about the will and about steps that get us there. And so we feel a lot of times the talking points is kind of people argue about things outside their power instead of focusing on what is in our power.

For the United Kingdom, for years, We've been trying to get the UK to do simple stuff, like, for example, limit the amount of money coming through charities in the UK to support settlements. That should have been something easy back in the times, I don't know, Tony Blair or David Cameron or any of these leaders to do, only recently there have been minor steps in making that happen. And those minor steps are important because it shows it is possible.

So I think we got to start thinking, what is it that the United Kingdom, what is it that we all over the world can do to put that pressure, the UK can pressure both Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas significantly. There's a lot of political power that the United Kingdom has. There's a lot of political power on how things work, you know, even talking about Palestinian elections. The UK has a lot of political power and influence over the Palestinian Authority. and over the legitimacy of leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu.

And we want that kind of power to be used. It took until last year for the United Kingdom to recognize policy. I don't understand why it took 20 years, 30 years of us advocating and lobbying and so on for it to happen, for that to happen. It shouldn't take atrocities for this to get to where we are. And so our message to the UK, let's move faster. We don't have time to do these minor steps. We need bigger steps. And this is the time.

This is the time to make it happen. That's how we get to what Maos said, two to four weeks away from reaching an agreement. And we've seen it again happen in Northern Ireland. You know, Jerry Adams and David Trimble were not the most well-known peacemakers in the world. And yet, they were willing to get on board with a Good Friday Agreement. And if my memory right, you both know better than me, they didn't even shake hands. I think David Trumbull refused to shake Jerry Adams' hands until he died.

And yet they got on board. And pressure is what got us there. I get the sense that when you think about a peace process, you're not really thinking about mapping out obstacles, opportunities, steps in the way that maybe a diplomat normally does. I mean, normally when you have this conversation, I don't know, with someone who's worked on the Middle East peace process, they will lay out a roadmap and they will say, you know, the biggest obstacle is the Israeli government or the biggest obstacle is the Palestinian government and then the next stage is we need to work out A, B, and C and all this kind of something. But you seem to be doing,

something much more radical, which is saying that this is actually missing the point, that in a sense, an attitude of radical hope can shortcut a lot of these things that we see as obstacles, or am I misunderstanding? You are absolutely right. We were recently in a meeting with Liberian ambassadors to the United Nations, and he was one of the people who negotiated the peace agreement there, and he told us what the two of you are doing, is exactly what gets people eventually in the negotiation room and makes sure that that negotiation room will lead to peace. It's like many people will tell you,

focus on exactly where the lines are and how it's going to work. And yes, that's important at some point, but right now what's needed is exactly this work. And it is to push for the right people to be also in the room. So one of the things we keep talking about, right now, every negotiation that happened between, Israelis and Palestinians, has been a bunch of lawyers and generals, usually in the room.

And ex-politic, you say politicians? And politicians. Ex-politicians. Tony's always there. Tony's always there. Or ex-politicians. But one of the things that have worked really well for Liberia and worked really well for Northern Ireland is it was a much bigger mix of people. There were also the radicals there. There were also peacemakers there. There were, the Women Peace Coalition, for example, in Northern Ireland. We've never had a seat at the table as peacemakers. And so when we assemble that room that is going to negotiate, it cannot be only the generals and politicians and ex-politicians and lawyers.

It needs to be a bigger mix of people and including peacemakers, women, and other part of civil society and religious leaders, including some extremists in the room. And that's something Northern Ireland did. have. You know, the prisoners who many saw as terrorists actually had a room in that negotiations, and without them, an agreement would not have been reached. So it is rethinking how we pushing for peace, and yes, believing that it can happen, pushing for the radical hope and saying, if we will it, it will become a reality.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with a lot of that. I don't think the Northern Ireland thing would or could have happened without having the right political leaders at the right time in the United States with Clinton, Tony Blair in the UK, Bertie Ahern, and then, as you say, all these other groups that were around it and making an influence in different ways. Can I maybe ask you, Myers, to go back to this point about the role of the UK. I mean, Britain in a way, Britain and way was largely responsible for creating this landscape that we're still trying to make sense of. Do you feel that we do, we have historically taken enough responsibility? Aziz has mentioned some of the things that we could do.

But should we be reminded occasionally of that? And might that force us to do a little bit more? It feels to me right now that Trump is the only show in town when it comes to outside political forces. Our voice isn't as strong as it should be. Yeah. So again, I don't want to go into the blame game and to go back into history to the British mandate, to Palo Declaration, the patitation. Maybe Aziz does. Maybe Aziz does. I can do that. I want to go to nowadays. I want to go to summer, 2006. Boss Aziz and I have many friends in the UK. I have my brother, but we have many friends, Israelis, Palestinians.

And we're also aware, we are aware of the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. We witness and we see how you are importing the conflict to your streets, to your universities, to your communities, to your cities, to your national politics. It's the highest ever, if I'm not wrong, cases of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in a long, long time. And we believe that instead of importing the problem, we can all invest in the solution and invest in a lasting peace between Israel and Palestinian

and then you will be able to import the solution because if a Ziz and I can form a brotherhood and Rory and Aristotle, you can have a very popular podcast so does the Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK and they must partner they must work together

and to force and to demand from the UK government and policymaker to start investing in peace. And recently, last month, a peace fund was announced by the UK government. With Australia and Canada, each country is giving one million pound for three years. Three million. So it's a tool, it's a start. How long it will take us, the peacemaker, to see these funds? Probably, I don't know, we will have many more.

episodes you will have a new digit in your counting but it's a tool we must invest billions of pounds like was invested in North Ireland like the Marshall Plan in Europe it's the model I would like to to envision also for the Middle East not just for Israel for Lebanon for Syria for Jordan for Egypt for the greater region so it's change of policies investing in peace and tools of construction, not tools of destruction and sanctions. Those who choose violence, those who choose bloodshed, it doesn't matter if they are prime ministers, they are civilians, their generals in the IDF or wherever.

They must be sanctions and hard and strong and not to wait because we cannot wait because it's our life on stakes. It's not winning about winning an argument or winning a debate. It's about winning life. if we'll all work together to achieving this achievable lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinian, again, two to four weeks. That should be the time frame we should discuss. Aziz, final one from me, and thank you both so much for your generosity and your time. What is it that you find most frustrating when you have interviews?

What is it that you often feel that you wish you could say or explain that is sometimes quite difficult to get across when you're being interviewed? Wow. I'll use something my Oz loves to say. When we talk about reaching a peace agreement and we say, our goal is to get one by 2030, almost everywhere when we are interviewed, people go, wow, that is soon, how are you going to do it? That sounds naive, so on. Until recently, one journalist asked us and said, why the lack of faith? Why do you think it needs four years? And I think that's our hope is that this is how people respond, is why should it take that long? But before we finish, if you allow me, one of the things we like to do, we both love poetry, we both work in travel.

Ma'u started Fauzi Azar and Abraham Tours, and I started Mejdi Tours. And our tourism work is piecework. And so we came across this poem by Samih al-Qasem, who is a Palestinian Druze poet. And he wrote this poem about peace and travel

and we thought it fits really so much into what we do. And he said in it, The Dam killed, my killer rifling through my pockets will find travel tickets.

One to peace, one to the fields and the rain, and one to the conscience of a humankind. So I beg you, my dear killer, do not waste such a thing. Do not ignore.

these tickets, please I beg you to go traveling. And so much of what Ma'Oz and I are doing is exactly that, is saying we have those tickets to peace, to the fields and the rain, and to the conscience of a humankind. And wherever we go, we are begging people to use those tickets, not to be tribal, especially to the Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK. Your role shouldn't be defending everything, your people in Israel and Palestine are doing. Your role is to help push us toward the peace. And when Hamas did what it did, I didn't see it.

My people did it. I'm able to speak against it. When Israel's doing what it does in Gaza, Ma'Oz doesn't see it. My people are doing it. It is wrong and needs to stop. And we can defend atrocities. We should work together to stop atrocities,

because that will also protect us everywhere. So this is our message. My final question, guys, is it really goes to the very personal in that you've both, in a sense, decided on the back of your experience that you're going to dedicate yourselves to trying to build this piece in the future. And I get the feeling as he's reading your sections of the book that to some extent that has put pressure on you and at certain points also on your marriage and on your family. And I think, Roy and I can, well, I can certainly identify with that at various, various times in my political life.

And likewise with you, Mao, is you have a point at which you say, I'd like you to explain this because you see your son in uniform. Every Israeli has to do military service. And it really seems to hurt you that your son is in the IDF. I just want to understand that because what's going on in your mind there? because you knew when he was a child that was going to happen at some point. What did you want him to do? So maybe you go first and then Aziz come back on that as well. Yeah, wow, that's a huge topic to end with.

And we can really talk. I think we literally can talk hours just on that. Joining the IDF is a part, it's kind of gravity force. All Israelis know when they will be parents, they will raise their kids, and then when he, she will be 18, they will be drafted to the IDF. That's a force of nature. And the IDF didn't protect my parents.

They didn't. They had many units, combat units in the West Bank, oppressing, occupying Palestinians, but they weren't there when they was needed. So I don't trust the IDF to bring any security and safety. It didn't work to my parents. It's not going to work in the future. The only way to achieve security

safety, which is what Israelis and Jews needs the most, is only through dialogue, only through diplomacy and reconciliation process between Israel and Palestine. So our kids, they made their grown up, they are a free spirit individual, and they do whatever they want. We can advise, we can support, we can be there, we can tell them, well, we think they are doing wrong. And it's the same with my three kids. So my eldest son chose to join the IDF. And I told him, okay, I think it's a mistake, but it's your decision. And after six months in the service, he realized that it's not for him. So after six months, he basically withdrew,

week ended his service. And now he's doing a social service in an organic farm, while he's part of the staff and the employees are youth that are working in the farm. It's his decision. My second son is also not going to do. The IDF is not going to ever be listed. And the same with my third. But it's their decision. I can say now that more and more Jewish Israelis refuse to go to serve at the IDF.

You won't see any numbers. It's all hash-hash. and of course the IDF Israeli government will never give any details or statistics about it definitely many are not going to the reserve but I can there is no numbers

I can just share you between my community and between my friends and colleagues more and more refuse to go to survey the IDF and Aziz there's a big human toll and trauma that we all

go through and one of the hardest parts I've written in the book, I wanted to be in the future's piece honest about that price. And I think growing up, seeing so much injustices and being unable to do anything about it since I was a kid had a tremendous influence on who I am, and I did not deal with it. Even becoming a peacemaker,

it in some ways sometimes exasperated it. instead of helping because I found my way of escapism and instead of dealing with my issues and the person who had to suffer the most out of that is my wife where our relationship was going through a very, very problematic reality. I was there but I was never there where I would get angry very quickly.

I'm very good outside. You won't see me being angry when I'm doing my piecework, but at home I wasn't. And eventually I had to come to an understanding of that and seek help and seek therapy. And I remember we went to a couple's therapy, and after a few minutes, literally, the therapist goes, I think we just need to talk to you for a couple of sessions.

I'm like, why are you saying? I'm the problem. It's like, no, it's just a couple of sessions. Anyway, a few months later, I was still talking only to me. And I'm very grateful for that, because that is what saved our relationship. If I didn't get that help, and it is important to say for most Palestinians, they don't have access to that, access to therapy, access. We don't have enough even therapists if people go to seek therapy.

People can't afford it. I think of people in Gaza, it's 2 million people with severe trauma who don't have access to safety, but also don't have access to that therapy. And the children who are growing up in this reality, it's something I think about every day. This is much worse reality than the one I grew up in. And there's so much need of healing and so much need of support that this is why we don't have four, five years to do this. We need to get peace soon, so we are able to go to these places and offer healing because the alternative is, I can't even imagine how terrible it is.

Yeah. Well, listen, thanks for talking to us and thanks for the book as well. Actually, to that point, Aziz, the thing that really comes strongly in the book to me is just the absolute buggeration of life for Palestinians day after day after day. And I think, you know, anything that keeps the spot like that and is a good thing to do. And I hope you two carry on without the need for couples therapy. I mean, that sounds like you've got a good partnership there. But thanks very, very much for your time. Thank you both very much.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. And so I think the first thing we need to begin with is a thank you to Fiona. Yes. She met them and was very, very keen to make this happen. And I'm really pleased it did happen. And the thing I took away from it most is this idea of hope, radical hope, existential hope. I don't know how you get round it.

That amazing Seamus Heaney poem about hope. I mean, in a sense, when he's trying to reflect on what happens with peace and all nand, he comes back almost the idea of a miracle, the sense that you can't quite in advance ever believe that with all the problems and resentments and politics that everything is ever going to end up right. So anyway, that's what I took from it. Over do you. Well, if you remember the event I did at Davos in Goals House last year, was all about how hope is an action.

Hope is not just the kind of feeling. It's what you do to bring it about. And I mean, I do think, especially when you understand the horror of their story. And it's interesting how they don't want to dwell on it. I guess you said to them, what do you not like about these interviews? Maybe it's the fact they have to tell the same stories again and again and again. linger on that. But when you've been through what they've been through, and then you turn that into trying to bring about the change that you believe in, and you keep telling yourself,

this could happen in two weeks. Right. Now, they've been doing that for quite a lot of fortnights, okay? And yet they still say, this can happen in the next two weeks. No, I think, I think they're both extraordinarily impressive. And it's a great book because it just sort of, that, that sense of Hope does run through it. And they're a team as well. You can see they're a good team. Isn't there something strange about hope? Because it's very difficult to see.

I mean, I think as humans, our brains are set up to think that the way things have been in the past or the way they will be in the future. And we're very good explaining why things are where they are. But if you'd thought about the world in that way, you would have probably searched yourself, well, why would, I don't know, white people in the United States ever give rights to African-Americans? Why would men ever allow women to vote? I mean, don't be ridiculous. Why would Turkey's vote for Christmas?

Why would wealthy people ever pay income tax? And yet those changes happened. And they didn't always happen because of pure force. I think slavery, civil rights, universal suffrage, a lot of it was driven by idealism. A lot of it was driven by hope. It wasn't actually in some strange ways, always that somehow it happened because, I don't know, that women made it unbearable and left men was. no choice. It was because women and men together decided this was the right thing to do.

There's a lot of Irish poetry in this book. And you know, you quoted Seamusini there. And I think I get the feeling that Aziz in particular is really driven and motivated by what he studied in the Northern Ireland peace process. And just on that, I wrote a book about the piece about Northern Ireland. And I think I was in the introduction. I said that if you asked me to explain how this finally all came together, I can tell you what happened at a particular moment in time, but I can't actually still, I still can't actually explain how it all came together at the time that it did. And so they're absolutely right. He said 1990, he'd never have said in 1990 that by 1997-8 would have had the Good Friday Agreement. But you wouldn't frankly have said it the day before.

So I think this idea that they've got of saying this can happen really quickly if we, if we all try to make it happen quickly. I think that's a really powerful way of thinking about this. And it's also why they they resist, I think, being. treated like politicians who are expected to do what you were saying, you know, well, what's the roadmap here and what if this and what if that? They're basically just saying, we can make this happen if we, the totality of we, come together with enough force and decide it's going to. So all power to their elbow. It's a great book. I strongly recommend it to our listeners and viewers and good luck to them. Here's my final pretentious moment. You can't get by without

protectionism moment from it. Go on. So from the prophet Jeremiah. So he says, the prophet who preceded you and me in ancient times prophesied war, disaster, plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as the true prophet. And it's a very, very strange statement because he's basically saying all these people in the past, they were accurate when they talked about famine and war and pestilence, but in some sense they were false prophets, whereas the one who prophesies peace is a real true prophet. there we are. Well, I don't find that at all precentress. I think it's utterly in keeping with

the spirit both of their book and the interview. So I think it's a very good place to end. Thank you, Alston. And thank you to piano. See you soon. Bye.