‘There are more of us’: The Palestinians risking everything to build a future with Israelis and Jews

The story of this conflict is too often shaped by those least interested in ending it: armed groups, polarising politicians, and activists rewarded for outrage instead of nuance.

Amid the grief and fear of the past two years, many assume Palestinians who advocate coexistence with Israelis are rare – isolated voices, or worse, traitors. War has only hardened the binary: for or against, resistance or surrender, survival or silence.

But away from the noise, a quieter movement persists. Palestinians who have lived through trauma, authoritarianism and exile are rejected a future dictated by extremists. They argue the real betrayal is ceding the next generation to hate.

Jewish News spoke with three such voices working with Realign for Palestine– men who have risked reputations, safety and community to say the conflict must end differently. Their experiences vary, but their message is identical: Palestinians and Israelis are here to stay – and must build a future where both can live.

Here are their stories.

Jaser Abu Mousa

Civil engineer and Yale Peace Fellow

Before the war, Jaser had what he calls “an almost perfect life” in Gaza City: secure income, a loving marriage, and children with “big dreams”. His eldest son had just graduated school with 98.9 percent and was set to study mechanical engineering in Germany. His wife, Heba, a novelist and university lecturer, had published her first book.

“I was proud every day,” he says. “We were building something.”

As senior programme manager for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, he worked on major infrastructure projects – including a €30m community-led reconstruction scheme supporting local solar power and desalination plants. Earlier, with the UN Department of Safety and Security, he monitored political developments during the 2014 war.

He saw warning signs long before 7 October. “Everything indicated something was coming,” he says. “But none of us imagined that scale.”

His family paid the price. His wife and two sons were killed in an airstrike in the early months of the war. His surviving children were badly injured. On 22 July 2025, another strike killed his mother, sister and her children. “Across two years, my whole world disappeared,” he says quietly.

Evacuated to Abu Dhabi for medical care, he tried to rebuild – but employers rejected him once they learnt he lacked residency rights. A former colleague urged him to apply for a peace fellowship at Yale University. Today, he lives in Massachusetts with his surviving children.

There, he had his first real conversations with Israelis. On a hiking trail in Connecticut, the revelation came: “We talked like human beings,” he says. “They shared their hidden fears. I shared mine. We have the same fear for our children.”

They are not monsters – Israelis have their own fears too

That discovery reshaped his mission. He now works with Israeli academics to design a reconstruction plan rooted in what Gazans actually want – safety, schools, work, and dignity.

“Being a victim does not give me the whole truth,” he says. “Israelis need security as much as we do. Coexistence becomes a shared survival strategy.”

He is uncompromising in his opposition to Hamas: “The attack on 7 October was a crime. It destroyed Palestinian morality and brought hell upon us.” But he adds: ‘Hamas is a symptom of occupation and despair – not the cause.”

He warns that a peace plan ignoring ordinary Palestinians will fail: “Everyone talks about Gaza’s future except Gazans. If people cannot shape their own lives, extremists fill the vacuum.”

Jaser longs to return home: “I will go back, when Gaza is a place where children sleep without fear. The message of my family’s memory is this: we must build something better – together.”

Adnan Jaber

Lecturer at UCLA and member of the OpenAI Forum

Adnan Jaber grew up in East Jerusalem seeing Israelis daily on buses and in markets – but never speaking to them. “There were walls in our minds,” he says. “Sharing space is not sharing a life.”

He dreamt of joining the region’s thriving tech sector, but job interviews with Jewish managers were tense and stilted. “They were afraid, I was afraid – no one said it, but fear controlled the room.”

Everything changed when he joined Tech2Peace – a programme mixing Palestinians and Israelis for AI training and deep dialogue. “I only went because I needed work,” he smiles. “But those two weeks in the desert changed my life.”

Adnan says: “In dialogue we practised empathetic listening, we learnt to listen rather than respond.”

Based now in Los Angeles, he taught ‘Design Entrepreneurship for Peace & Impact’ at UCLA – teaching students to build tech solutions while also developing the skills of dialogue. The course produced apps, custom GPT models and early-stage start-ups, alongside emotional conversations about identity and fear.

Education is a human right – no one should be banned from dialoguing and learning

“When Israelis and Palestinians build together in tech, they build a tiny piece of a shared future,” he says.

His leadership extends beyond the classroom. Jaber has helped scale Tech2Peace into a multi-million-dollar initiative and founded the PeaceTech Affinity Group, bringing CEOs of peace-NGOs together under the Alliance for Middle East Peace to avoid duplication and “strengthen each other’s work”.

He is also an awardee of Billions Acts of Peace and a Beerman Foundation fellow, having presented a Youth AI Policy at the Global Nobel Peace Summit. His start-up, Voicey, uses AI voice calls to survey people who are rarely heard – from displaced families to rural communities in the West Bank and Gaza.

“Every meaningful peace begins with listening to the people living the conflict,” he says. “Now we can listen at scale.”

He is realistic about the risks: “Peace activists get attacked from all sides. It’s scary. But silence fuels extremism.”

His message to British Jews: “Invest in Palestinian peacebuilders. They are the bottleneck – and the key.”

He rejects the claim that coexistence is naïve. “Dialogue is preparation,” he says. “When political leaders are ready, relationships must already exist. This is the work that makes peace possible.”

Hamza Abu Howidy

Writer, activist and Realign for Palestine contributor

Hamza Abu Howidy grew up secular in Gaza City but attended a Hamas-run-school – where ideology was part of every subject. He remembers the group’s violent 2007 takeover unfolding outside his home. “I was a child watching a militia throw people from rooftops,” he says. “It shapes you.”

At the Islamic University of Gaza – long considered a Hamas stronghold – he refused to join, despite intense pressure and economic hardship. Many of his friends did.

“Plenty of people I know joined Hamas just to survive. They hated the ideology. But if you want a salary, health care, a future – Hamas is often the only option.”

The lowest Hamas ranks earn more than a doctor, he explains. “They give you housing, a car, even pay for your wedding.” Remaining outside the group meant accepting unemployment – or worse.

By 2019, he had joined the “We Want to Live” protests calling for elections and a Palestinian-led government free from militias. He was arrested and tortured. He tried to keep his head down – until 2023, when he protested again. This time, it was worse.

“They told me: ‘You are either with Hamas or against Palestine.’ They make it the same thing.”

After his release, he fled. He crossed Rafah to Egypt, then boarded a smuggler’s boat to Greece. “It was a death boat,” he says. “If you fall, no one saves you.”

Now in Germany, awaiting asylum, he lives in a refugee shelter – safe, but not settled.

Safety has not quietened him. He writes about Gaza’s realities for Newsweek and USA Today, challenging both Israel’s policies and internal repression. As a contributor to Realign for Palestine, he pushes for Palestinian agency in rebuilding Gaza.

“Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Hamas since the war. People don’t hear that. The biggest enemy of Hamas is inside Gaza.”

“We can’t fight forever. We must choose to flourish instead of burn”

He rejects the idea that coexistence voices are fringe. “There are many like me in Gaza. They just can’t speak. I speak for them until they can.”

He is clear-eyed about coexistence: “Israelis aren’t going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. We can fight forever or start to live.”

His hope now is not for exile but return: “I want to rebuild Gaza after Hamas – a Gaza where people can breathe, speak, and dream.”

Even through depression and fear, he keeps going. “I’m angry. But I want my anger to build – not destroy.”

A future worth fighting for

Jaser, Adnan and Hamza do not agree on every detail. Their lives are different. But their message – to Israelis, to Palestinians, and to the world – is unified and urgent:

Peace is not made by governments first. It is made by people brave enough to say the future can be different.

They are building that future now – in classrooms, in policy forums, on mountain trails and in exile.

They are betting their safety, careers, friendships and reputations that coexistence is still possible.

“We are more than headlines,” Hamza says. “There are more of us – you just haven’t heard us yet.’