A Drop of Optimism in the Sea of Pessimism
I have been the host of Hebrew-language’s oldest podcast devoted to the Middle East. My goal has always been to reach a broad audience of experts, policymakers, and curious listeners — Israelis, Arabs, and anyone who cares about this region. But in practice, I constantly struggle to find Arab and Palestinian guests who speak Hebrew and are willing to appear on an Israeli podcast.
The interview you see below is one of the most important conversations I have ever published. Despite my deep skepticism and pessimism — and despite the very limited hope I usually feel — my guest, Samer Sinijlawy, made me experience something unusual: a moment of optimism.
Paraphrasing Samer:
“We Need Imagination, Not Just Information”
(Translated and edited very ligtly for clarity, staying as close as possible to the original Hebrew transcript)
Part I: On the Imperative of Peace
Boris Gorelik: Alright, let’s begin. This Week in the Middle East — hello everyone, I’m Boris. We continue our series of conversations devoted to peace. Personally, I’m exhausted from war. People tell me it’s not yet the time for peace, but still — we talk, and maybe the universe will somehow align with us.
Today we say hello — for the second time — to Samer Sinijlawy, a political activist in the Palestinian Authority. Hello, Samer.
Samer Sinijlawy: Hello and welcome, Boris.
Boris: First of all, thank you. Our listeners don’t know, but this is our fourth attempt to record this episode. Finally it worked. For those who didn’t hear the previous conversation — I’ll summarize, and Samer, correct me if I’m wrong. In general, your position is as follows:
You’re a Palestinian activist. You are not part of Israeli Arab politics, so when people ask me why MKs behave this or that way, I tell them you’re not responsible for that.
And your argument in our previous conversation, about six months ago, was that peace is far more urgent for Palestinians than for Israelis. Israel has had a state for 70-plus years; Palestinians, without a state, suffer more and more as time passes, and the dream becomes more distant. Another claim I understood from you was that in order for this to happen, the top Palestinian interest is that Israeli Jews feel secure and unafraid.
Did I summarize correctly?
Samer: First, I am part of Palestinian politics. I was born in the Old City of Jerusalem, I live in Jerusalem, and I am a Fatah member. I joined at fifteen and spent five years in prison as a Fatah activist. So I belong to Palestinian politics.
And I think, Boris, that we Palestinians are always one Israeli election away from peace. Always. The only way we can move forward toward compromise and a political solution is when 51 percent of Israeli voters, in some election, vote for a party that supports this direction. Nothing else will help us.
There will be an Israeli election next year — maybe early, maybe on time. If Israelis vote for a political path that supports a political solution, we’ll have one. If not, we won’t.
So we Palestinians must always ask how we rebuild trust with the Israeli public, how we convince them.
Part II: War, Leadership, and Missed Chances
Boris: I’ll challenge that. In the 1992 election, when Rabin won, there was an Israeli majority for Oslo. But only months later that majority was gone. Israelis felt the other side didn’t actually support the process. There were terror attacks; there was Jewish terrorism too — but the “tango,” as people call it, failed.
So is it really true that the future of peace depends only on Israelis? Doesn’t something also need to change on the Palestinian side?
Samer: You’re right, and I said this in our previous talk: it begins with us. We Palestinians are also just one leader away from a breakthrough. We lack our own Ben-Gurion — someone who knows how to build the institutions of a Palestinian state, who understands when force is necessary and when diplomacy is necessary.
Boris: Right — and earlier you mentioned Hamas’s attacks in the 1990s. Earlier you spoke about Hamas attacks in the 90s. But it’s not only a “Palestinian Ben-Gurion” we need. We also needed someone like Menachem Begin. Remember when the Altalena arrived? Begin’s people were shelled; they suffered. But Begin said: “We bow our heads. There will be no civil war. Now we have a state.” There is a monument in Tel Aviv with a song that says, “We sought brothers and received a shell,” and still — he prevented civil war.
Samer: Israel had both Ben-Gurion and Begin. And you had another stroke of luck: after the Yom Kippur War, during the years leading up to the peace with Egypt, you had Begin — a right-wing leader, devoted to the Land of Israel, the man who built settlements in Sinai — who then dismantled those same settlements for peace. He and Rabin both knew how to make the hard decisions.
Boris: Thank you.
Samer: Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, over the past century, we had only three leaders of consequence: Haj Amin al-Husseini, Yasser Arafat, and Mahmoud Abbas. None of them truly understood the conflict from the perspective of the other side.
Let’s go back to the 1990s. During Oslo, every week the IDF would withdraw from a different Palestinian city; there would be a ceremony; Palestinian police would take over; Arafat would arrive and give a speech. And at the same time, Hamas carried out attacks — in the morning in Tel Aviv, in the evening in Jerusalem.
Boris: It wasn’t only Hamas. Arafat himself spoke about a “million martyrs marching to Jerusalem.” Tanzim was also deeply involved in violence. It wasn’t only Hamas — that’s my point.
Samer: Yes. Our leadership always used a strategy of pressure — violence, confrontation. They believed pressure would lead to concessions. But pressure doesn’t work with Israelis. The only path forward is persuasion: building trust, speaking to Israelis, reaching their hearts.
We made many mistakes. One of the biggest was missing the offer from Ehud Olmert in 2008 — almost a complete Palestinian state.
Boris: Why did Abbas reject it? People give different explanations: fear of assassination, internal politics, or that Palestinians never truly wanted a state alongside Israel but wanted Israel gone. Others say Olmert was on his way out anyway, so it wasn’t credible.
What is your view?
Samer: Two main reasons. First, Olmert was facing legal troubles, and the Americans — especially Condoleezza Rice — thought Tzipi Livni would win the next election. They told Abbas: “Don’t rush, wait for Livni.”
Second, Abbas prefers a legacy of not giving up anything, rather than a legacy of achieving 90 percent of national goals. The refugee issue was especially hard for him.
He wanted to leave the world with a legacy of “I didn’t sign,” not “I solved most of the problem.”
Boris: And he stayed in power for twenty years.
Part III: Hamas, Gaza, and the Consequences of Leadership
Samer: Yes. He cost us a whole generation. He made disastrous mistakes with Hamas. He allowed Haniyeh to form security forces in Gaza, enabling the takeover. Then he ordered 50,000 PA employees to stay home — which gave Hamas instant control of the institutions. A functioning system would have forced him to resign.
There was always confusion in our leadership. They didn’t know what we needed to do with the Israeli side. And the strategy was always pressure. Using violence was seen as a kind of pressure. They thought pressure would lead to achievement. I can tell you, Boris, I know Israelis well: pressure does not work on Israelis. The only way is convincing them. We need to speak to them, reach their hearts and minds.
We made many mistakes. We missed many opportunities. The biggest one was the peace proposal that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented to Mahmoud Abbas in 2008. It offered almost everything, including a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Abbas did not clearly say “yes,” and the chance was lost.
Boris: Let me ask you: why did Abbas refuse? There are several explanations — fear of assassination, pressure from others, or that Palestinians care more about eliminating Israel than building their own state. What do you think truly happened?
Samer: Two things. First, Olmert had legal issues and elections were coming. The Americans — especially Condoleezza Rice — believed Tzipi Livni would win, and they told Abbas: “Don’t rush. Wait. Livni will sign the same deal.” Second, it’s something in Abbas’s personality. He prefers that his legacy be “I did not give anything up,” rather than “I achieved 90 percent of the national goals.” The most sensitive issue for him was the Right of Return. He did not want to put his signature on any compromise. So he preferred to leave things without a solution.
Boris: He became Arafat’s choice for compromise near the end of Arafat’s life. And after that, Abbas got stuck there.
Samer: Stuck for you, but even more stuck for us. He stole twenty years from our lives. A whole generation. Look at what happened with Hamas. In 2006–2007, he made terrible decisions. He agreed that Ismail Haniyeh, as prime minister, would create an internal security force in Gaza. That was a strategic disaster. When Hamas carried out the coup, Abbas made another terrible mistake: he told the 50,000 Palestinian Authority civil servants in Gaza to stay home and not go to work. That emptied the government institutions and allowed Hamas to immediately take control. They became the rulers overnight.
Someone who does that should resign. But he didn’t. And he is still there at age 90.
Boris: Politics being politics — even at ninety, no one says “I failed,” and walks away.
Samer: True. But for us it means a generation lost.
Part IV: Is There a Palestinian Peace Camp?
Boris: My listeners asked several questions. Many say: how can we take Palestinian peace activism seriously when many human-rights groups have ties to terror groups? And also: you are the only Palestinian peace activist Israelis ever hear about. Are there really others?
Samer: There is a movement. It has two goals: internal Palestinian reform and democracy, and also Palestinian-Israeli dialogue. But most activists have no platform. I live in Jerusalem, so the PA cannot silence me. I also speak Hebrew, so Israelis can understand me directly. That makes a big difference.
But I represent my generation — a generation born under Israeli rule, who look at Israel not as a monster but as a successful model we want to learn from. If you ask me what I want a future Palestinian political system to look like, I’ll say: like the Israeli system — three branches of government, each with power and limits, checks and balances, a liberal democracy, and a market economy.
The Israeli public was in the streets in early 2023 defending liberal democracy. I want that same thing for Palestinians.
This is not naïve peace activism. It is a national interest. And many Palestinians support this.
Part V: The Younger Generation
Boris: I agree that young people are different. In Israel too, the future belongs to people under thirty. But we — people in our fifties — are harvesting the fruit of mistakes made long ago.
Samer: Let me tell you something. I’m a father of nine children — ages one and a half to twenty-seven — and I see their world. Young Palestinians are not ideological the way we were. They live through social media. They have personal goals. When I was fifteen, I was willing to take a bullet in the head just to hang an Arafat poster. But today, many young Palestinians don’t even know the names of their leaders. They don’t care. Those leaders don’t shape their lives.
Boris: Is that good or bad?
Samer: It helps peace. If we get leadership that gives hope — if every morning Palestinians wake up feeling that today is slightly better than yesterday — everything will change.
Part VI: Disarmament, De-radicalization and Changing Narratives
We talk about demilitarizing Gaza. But collecting weapons means nothing if we don’t treat the desire to use them. That means de-radicalization.
Boris: Exactly.
Samer: It starts with narrative. With language. With how each side thinks about the other.
Both societies must make hard decisions now. For Israelis, the choice is separation or annexation. For Palestinians, the choice is two states or maximal Right of Return. You cannot have both.
We must also acknowledge the Jewish historical connection to this land — it is even in the Qur’an. And Israelis must acknowledge the Palestinian connection. The question is not “who belongs?” but “how do we belong here together?”
Part VII: Two States and Jewish Communities in Palestine
Boris: I recently interviewed Yinon Dan Khatib, who says the land belongs to both sides. His idea is: Jews can stay, Palestinians can stay, and two states might not even be necessary if rights are respected. Could Palestinians accept one state with equal individual rights?
Samer: Do Israelis really want another five and a half million Palestinians voting for the Knesset? If you give us full rights — you lose the Jewish democratic state. If you don’t give us rights — you create apartheid. Neither option works.
Look — I live in East Jerusalem. I pay the highest municipal taxes in the country but live in a garbage dump. Why shouldn’t I vote for my municipality? That’s our mistake. We should vote.
If we are not inside the system, why should anyone care about our needs?
And look at Israeli politics: even Israeli Jews who are not part of the coalition don’t get what they deserve. Now add Palestinians on top — impossible.
Boris: Yes.
Samer: You Israelis invest billions in the West Bank — new roads, new infrastructure. Many Israelis have never visited the West Bank. They don’t know what happens there.
A two-state agreement is the only workable path. One state means either losing your identity or denying ours.
Part VIII: Reconciliation — The Hardest Part
Boris Gorelik: You describe reconciliation as the hardest step. Why?
Samer Sinijlawy: Because reconciliation requires something very few leaders or societies are willing to say: we were wrong. Both sides made terrible mistakes. In this conflict, no one was Mother Teresa. There is deep pain on both sides, and the emotional destruction is worse than the physical one.
I myself visited the shiva of the Bibas family. I asked, on behalf of my people, for forgiveness for the killing of their children. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But real reconciliation requires this kind of courage.
We Palestinians and Israelis are now neighbors in trauma. We must clear this trauma from our hearts and use the emotional energy not for revenge, but for building hope.
Gorelik: In October 2023, many Israelis felt blindsided. But you say the information was already there.
Sinijlawy: Exactly. The problem wasn’t lack of information — Hamas was clear about its plans. The problem was lack of imagination. We could not imagine they would actually do it.
Now, in October 2025, we again have strong information — this time pointing to regional normalization. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the UAE — all indicate they want to integrate Israel into the region. Even during the war, trade with the Emirates increased dramatically. Your natural strategic neighborhood is the Middle East, not Europe.
But again, the question is imagination. Can Israelis imagine being part of the Middle East? Can Palestinians imagine a shared future with Israelis?
Gorelik: People here struggle to imagine things like Israeli teams playing football in Cairo.
Sinijlawy: I understand. But imagination is the beginning of political reality.
Part IX: The Last Word
Gorelik: When I speak with you, I become more optimistic. On most days, I’m quite pessimistic and skeptical. But you make me feel that maybe there is something real to hope for.
Sinijlawy: Peace is not a favor to the other side. It is a responsibility to your own people. And it starts with imagination.
Gorelik: Thank you again, Samer. And to our listeners — thank you for your questions and for staying with us. May we all find a way to speak about peace, even when peace feels far away.
Sinijlawy: Thank you, Boris. Always honored to join you.