Stories and Maps

It is not easy to write a joint book. The two authors, who also are tour guides, are presenting their shared vision for the future along with their accounts and views of the past and the present. We become attracted to listening to the two voices, Aziz and Maoz, talking to us sincerely and passionately; acknowledging rather than burying their emotions, as they strive to use them for light and connection, rather than destruction or bitterness. The two voices are intertwined in a composition trying to create harmony in the text as well as in the pain-stricken reality which they inhabit, striving both to represent it and to mend it. To this end, “working for the same cause,” and building a “bridge to a shared future” while writing from the depth of their loss and pain, the authors are sharing their personal stories not only with Israelis and Palestinians, but also clearly and equally importantly with international audiences.
The two reviewers even found it difficult to agree on where to start this review; one wanted to begin at the beginning, with a story, and the other at the end, with a dream. In the beginning there is a story, a parable full of compassion about two brothers who were able to maintain each their well-being by choosing empathy as the core of their mutual relationship. This parable is shared by many cultures and among them Palestinian and Jewish traditions.
The book, “The Future is Peace” — which makes an unequivocal optimistic assertion by the “is” in the title (as opposed to “will be” or “can be” for instance) ends with a deeply moving dream depiction of life in the region as it could and should be in a state of peace, with equality, justice, recognition and security — for all, symbolized by a “map with rail lines crisscrossing the entire Middle East” where travelers can move freely with open borders and “no fences, no watch towers, no checkpoints.” Such a vision should be enough to convince anyone of the need to work towards it and find a way to “break the cycle of bloodshed and violence,” which the two authors state as their mission.
The personal perspective underlying the project is deepened by emphasizing the “history of cultural collaboration.” The book itself is proof of the power of human warmth and friendship, of their belief that “love is stronger than death,” as both have suffered close personal losses and, in the case of Maoz, his loss was still very raw and recent when the book was written.
Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother to the Israeli crackdown of the first Intifada, Maoz Yinon his parents to the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023. They are familiarly acquainted with the actual as well as potential violence and cruelty resulting from the continuous mutual rejection of the rights of two nations to call one land their own. Even before the parable, the authors expose the territorial layout and shifts in the form of maps that display the relationship between populations and areas from 1920 to this day.

One might argue that a hundred years is a too short period in the history of a land called holy by three monotheistic religions to enable us to encompass the full perspective and depth of the entanglements between Palestinians and Israelis. The authors’ choice of limiting the “visually” demonstrated period reflects their preference to write a book that will have a concrete influence on what happens to their communities in the concrete future. For this purpose, it makes sense to focus the readers’ attention to the period when the nexus between land and nationhood became relevant for each people.
Representing the need for a peaceful solution by two victims believing in reconciliation and a future peace is a powerful act of courage and hope that our societies absolutely need to hear. They make it clear that they are not falling into the trap of “normalization” (getting together across the divide as if there were no occupation) but that they are getting together as a form of “co-resistance.” What is more, the authors do not remain on the page, they are touring the world, from the UN to the Pope to open hearts to their mission and convince central actors on the global scene to support their effort.
This book is structured as a travelogue, recounting the stories of a shared journey. Therein lies its central meaning and rhetorical strength. They go about this by presenting a beautifully written and choreographed dual narrative centred around an eight-day journey through Israel and the occupied West Bank while bringing in their respective accounts of various aspects of the history, with also a “general” introduction to each location at the beginning, and sometimes the end of the chapters. However, these “general introductions” do not always seem as balanced as the two personal accounts, which are showing how “behind the headlines lies a place of innovation, creativity, and deeply rooted community.”
Where the subjective views are clearly shown, we as readers are invited to feel empathy for the suffering and the loss that has been inflicted on individuals and collectives by the struggle for a livable situation in Palestine and Israel.
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it….” Their quote from Kafka indicates how they are engaging not only for themselves, but how they are aiming to create a movement that will become strong enough to make their dream real.
That this dream is far away is clear from the set of maps at the beginning of the book and in many of the detailed stories they tell about the past hundred years. And we are reminded of the fact that individual friendships across an actively hostile occupation, are not the same as a movement, and the imbalance, the vast asymmetry in every kind of power between the Israelis and the Palestinians make friendship as the way to peace seem less convincing.

Indeed, the book gives explanations about the occupation and about the structural as well as the physical violence that is perpetrated daily, and it gives these quite clearly, but also delicately, perhaps so that they do not jar too much on the reader who is unfamiliar with such extreme levels of abuse.
In fact, the book comes in a tradition of books designed to give hope in the face of the (mis)understanding that there has to be irreconcilable hatred between Palestinians and Israelis, such as Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (1986) by the former New York Times foreign correspondent David K. Shipler, and especially The Best of Enemies: Memoirs of Bassam Abu-Sharif and Uzi Mahnaimi (1995) which is a double memoir co-authored by Palestinian Bassam Abu-Sharif and Israeli Uzi Mahnaimi. These books are important reading for those, mostly those who do not live here, who are not aware of the many, and often very strong, individual friendships, (and these sometimes include marriage), and who are looking for hope on both individual and collective levels.
While they write movingly of the Holocaust and the Nakba and of the need to “break the mirror,” the “mirror” is perhaps not an accurate image for this aspect of the conflict as not only is the Nakba still ongoing, as the authors point out, but it is being perpetrated by the Israelis. But taking both into account signals a sincere mutual effort to engage in deconstructing some of the most difficult barriers between the people inhabiting the land between the river and the sea. As a motivator for political action aiming at changing the conditions of injustice and violence this book may well have a productive effect. Ultimately, for the future to be peace, we need to start humanising each other.
The attractive trip into the dream future at the book’s conclusion is unhampered by obstacles such as checkpoints, permits or even passport controls. It is when the text veers into the unrealistic description of a meeting with the deceased relatives who are resurrected, that one may ask oneself about the reality that the two authors envision. Any future that is peace, as the title of the book states, surely has to include an ability to endure the finality of loss and the persistence of pain.