To Not Only Love Peace, but to Pursue it

Israel has agreed to attend the negotiations, Hamas has not yet responded.

The Hostage Families Forum in Israel released a statement in response, saying in part "This recent statement re-affirms what we've long known: a deal is the only path to bring all hostages home."

Neither Israel nor Hamas has been a consistent good-faith negotiator throughout the last ten months, and Netanyahu hinting at "breakthroughs" in talks during his visit to the US, only to add more conditions to the terms of the agreement, left hostage families feeling pessimistic and let down.

Though the analysis of each proposal or statement from respective leaders is important, and with the level of information we can access today through social media, we can follow along more closely than ever, the bigger issue is how we view negotiations broadly, and what this means not just for the hostage negotiations, but for the entire region.

To achieve a desired outcome in negotiations with an adversary, there needs to be some give-and-take. There needs to be compromise, concessions, and tough calls. 

Israel has negotiated hard deals before, and it would be near-impossible to argue that concessions made to bring peace with Egypt and Jordan, for example, were not worth it.

In today's landscape, where we are increasingly siloed and can access only the information of our own echo chamber if we so choose, it becomes easier to engage in zero-sum thinking and to believe that there can be no compromise and no negotiation with the other side.

Questions of Israel's safety and security, and the deterrence of Hamas and other terror groups from being able to commit another October 7 must be taken seriously. Sovereign countries have the right and responsibility to protect their citizens. But to believe that this can only be done through absolutist methods of complete elimination is not merely misguided, it also serves to prolong the suffering of the hostages and the Palestinians in Gaza.

Compromises exist in the middle ground. A place where either side must have both international reassurances and a dose of faith to be able to make some tough concessions that will ultimately lead to the desired outcome.

This is also true of two-state negotiations and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The "status quo" is untenable, as October 7 and the ten months following have demonstrated. The only way forward is to resume negotiations for the establishment of Palestinian statehood.

This will absolutely mean tough concessions. It will absolutely mean a dose of faith, and hard decisions. But - much like a war of attrition and languishing hostages simply cannot be the outcome of this war with Hamas, nor can Israel's continued rule over three million Palestinians be the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly.

When it feels like we have lost so much, when there is so much pain and we are clinging to our stories, our peoplehood, so strongly, the idea of giving something up feels insurmountable. But we are not giving something up without getting anything in exchange. We are giving something up in order to gain something better as a result.

In Pirkei Avot we read "Hillel says: be the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace..."

We do not struggle with loving peace. Everyone longs for peace, for an end to the fighting, to the fear, to the insecurity and instability. To love peace as a theoretical concept is simple. What our Jewish texts teach us though, is not merely to love peace, but to pursue it.

To love peace is to acknowledge the desire to end the war. To pursue peace is to take the difficult and necessary steps to get there.

To love peace is to acknowledge the suffering of the hostages. To pursue peace is to take the difficult and necessary steps to get them home.

To love peace is to acknowledge that the only way to truly show that love is to pursue it. No matter how hard it may be.