Sari & Oz: Rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians

A committed writer, Amos Oz has always worked for a rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians.Oz is the founder of Peace Now and he has remained an unwavering advocate of a two-state solution.


Six decades since the birth of Israel and the demise of Palestine! Palestine has been partitioned among Israel, Egypt (remained in occupation of the Gaza Strip), and Transjordan (which had taken the old city of Jerusalem and the territory west of the Jordan River).


No more a Palestinian Arab state and 700,000people had become refugees. A permanent mass exodus, as villagers abondoned their ancestral soil and city dwellers left behind their homes and businesses. The refugees live in makeshift camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip. The camps became permanent! The absorption of Palestinian land and property into the Israeli economy made is next to impossible for Israel to consider the repatriation of the Palestinians (Cleveland, 2009).


In the refugee camps, concrete block dwellings have replaced the tents and they remain the home of thousands of Palestinian refugees. The people are deprived of work, freedom, and no future. They live with the sweeping political choices made by prime minister and presidents.


Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosophy professor and Al-Quds University President, offers drastically different views of Israel/Palestine and of Jerusalem where both Oz and Sari grew up.

Sari Nusseibeh was struck that Oz had excised Palestinian Arabs from his childhood memories in his book.

The Ta'ayush, the Palestinian-Israeli group that has taken up the most difficult and dangerous hands-on work of peacemaking by bringing convoys of medecine and food into the West Bank and helps Palestinian farmers harvest their wheat and olives, should be mentioned in the writings of Sari and Oz!!These courageous people often are placing themselves physically between groups of wild eyed guntoting settlers and Palestinian peasants simply trying to sow their fields. 

Now, Sari and Oz, please get together and try to find a two-state solution, please!

Once Upon a Country A Palestinian Life. By Sari Nusseibeh, with Anthony David. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

A Tale of Love and Darkness By Amos Oz.

Palestinian Walks Notes on a Vanishing Landscape. By Raja Shehadeh.

Dark Hope Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine. By David Shulman.