How to prevent another Israeli-Palestinian war

“War isn’t healthy for children and other living things.” These simple words were first etched in 1965 by Jewish artist Lorraine Schneider in response to the Vietnam War. It’s a statement I’ve always believed. Now a whole country knows just how true this is.

Of all the interviews about the devastation of war I have seen since 7 October 2023, none has moved me more than the conversation between Eli Sharabi and Ilana Dayan on Uvda, where Eli shares horrific details about his starvation, physical, and emotional torture. He also reflects on a moment after he was first taken into the tunnels where he met Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, and Almog Sarusi for the first time.

“Hersh told us a sentence that stayed with us, gave us strength, and didn’t allow us to lose hope. I knew him for two days, and he gave me a sentence that stayed with me. He said, “When there’s a why, one can always find the how.”

Inspired by Viktor Frankl, I know so many people for whom this mantra is the fuel that energises each waking day.

In Jerusalem, I work as an education director for an interfaith youth movement for Israeli and Palestinian children and as a journalist for an Australian newspaper. In both my jobs, I have heard hundreds of stories about how this war has destroyed innocent lives. I have friends whose children were kidnapped from the Nova party and murdered in dark tunnels, and colleagues whose extended families were annihilated in devastating airstrikes on Gaza. As a result, my “why”, my “purpose to live”, and the mission that takes up most of my waking hours is to do all I can to ensure this is the last war on this sacred land.

The question of “how” to ensure Israelis and Palestinians never endure such horror again consumes me daily. While I have no political power, or the ear of anyone who does, what I can offer to this situation is my insight from experiencing and facilitating thousands of hours of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. These encounters have taught me that of all the factors that make peace impossible, perhaps the greatest is dehumanisation. This process of depriving individuals or groups of their human qualities is something I see all around me, and it breaks my heart.

As a result of dehumanisation, the vast majority of us believe that the “other side” not only doesn’t want peace but largely wants “our” side dead. We tend to think that the “other side” are all liars unless they are proposing views that reflect our deepest fears and stereotypes of them.

Consuming immense amounts of polarising information on social media causes many to suffer from a fundamental attribution error: we assume that our radicals are exceptional, while the other side’s radicals are definitive. On the flip side, in the cases where Palestinian and Israeli civilians or leaders express calls for peace or empathy, they are branded as liars or traitors who aren’t speaking the truth about their future dreams. Therefore, a key element for change is adopting a new way of thinking.

For us to share this land, we both must believe that when the day comes that we choose to stop inflicting violence, the other will respond by ending their campaigns of violence against us. Nurturing and spreading this belief was key to ending the troubles in Northern Ireland, and it’s a belief we will also need to adopt here.

For Jewish Israelis, this could mean returning to the approach of Rabbi Hillel from the Talmud, who taught, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour.” For Palestinian Muslims and Christians, this could involve re-embracing the Hadith of the prophet Muhammad, “None of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself”, or the words of Jesus, “In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

It will mean having more women in leadership positions who can bring a wider array of perspectives and creative solutions for conflict to the negotiating table, leading to structural changes that provide security for all.

To stop the violence, we need to believe that there are partners for peace on the other side, by embracing shared learning opportunities and building more social, religious, and political institutions based on the principles of justice and equality. Without increasing lived experiences of coexistence, we will always go back to the memories of fear and hatred that have plagued this land for so many years.

In 2025, there are few places – whether in Israel or the diaspora – where individuals with deeply entrenched pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian views can coexist. Yet one such place exists: Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Every day, thousands of patients arrive from diverse neighbourhoods, from Silwan and Isawiya to Geula and the Katamonim. They include East Jerusalemites without citizenship, haredim, secular Israelis, the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) community, and people across the political spectrum.

Within the hospital’s walls, they may lie in beds beside one another, share meals as patients, or even care for one another as medical professionals. One of the reasons this space remains free of violence is the principle of equal treatment – every person is cared for without distinction. To me, equality is the foundation of peace. The more places we can create, from Eilat to Kiryat Shmona, where Israelis and Palestinians are truly equal – where both have the same rights to travel, work, study, and pursue national self-determination – the greater the chance for lasting peace.

The reason I believe this to be true is that when I researched similar conflicts to ours across the globe, almost every one of them that was resolved peacefully ended with a political agreement that removed key political obstacles to fairness and equality. Yet for this to happen here, there are many beliefs we need to shed and adopt.

For Palestinians, it would mean believing that Jews in Israel aren’t colonisers, that they have a deep historical connection to this land, and that their security fears are real and not just made up in response to the Holocaust. For Jews, it means believing that Palestinians are a genuine nation with deep roots in this land, with the undeniable right to self-determination and freedom in their only homeland.

While I may not have the means to convince the majority of people of these truths today, I firmly believe that if we set our sights on making these beliefs mainstream within the next 10 years, it will be the most effective way to prevent the next war and eventually share this land with peace and dignity for all.

• This is an adapted extract from Ittay Flescher’s upcoming book, The Holy and the Broken: A cry for peace from a land that must be shared. For more information, visit the author’s website: ittay.au
• Flescher will be visiting South Africa as a guest of Limmud SA in August.