Open and Productive Dialogue for Peace between Palestine and Israel

My father's latest speech on the current conflict and how to resolve it

In an effort to foster a balanced dialogue on the subject that has most divided my friends and community, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I’m posting my father's latest speech. I hope this post and speech can bring my extended family together in deep, heartfelt and thoughtful conversation instead of the often superficial hatred I see regularly on both sides.

I share most of my father's views and echo his call for peace and a two-state solution.

First and foremost, the indiscriminate suffering inflicted on Palestinians and Israelis must stop.

The pervasive hate and extremism, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-Palestinian sentiments, particularly among the youth, must end. Such bigotry, often exacerbated by social media algorithms, detracts from the core issues and inhibits constructive engagement.

20 years ago, my self-designed Archetypal Mythology major at the University of Toronto included courses on the Quran and the Christian and Jewish bibles and complimented my major in international relations. It taught me the extent both religions can be manipulated by radical leaders, like political ideologues before and after, and in ways that are not inherent, to justify wars. It also taught how me how as children of Abraham, we are very similar people with similar histories and intertwined religions.

The policies and actions of Israel's government and leader have not only fueled domestic unrest but have also contributed to the international conflict we witness today. Hamas’ horrific massacre on October 7th, has solidified the notion that peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians are deeply intertwined. The way forward lies in a steadfast commitment to a two-state solution—a sentiment echoed by leaders and peacemakers worldwide.

For a lasting peace, both sides, including of my community, must exercise restraint, engage in dialogue, and work towards a future where two states for two peoples is not just a possibility but a reality.

I am excited to engage in productive conversation with those who agree and disagree with me. I ask only that you read my father’s peace first to demonstrate your willingness to engage deeply and openly in this subject.

Let us move beyond polarizing rhetoric to connect with each other around the nuanced complexities of this enduring conflict, with the hope that reason and empathy will guide us towards a peaceful resolution as it has in Ireland, South Africa, the former Yugoslavia and so many other divided and war torn corners of our planet before.

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This lecture was delivered for the Foundation for Palestinian Studies Fund at the University of Waterloo, Nov. 23, 2023

In 1989 Francis Fukuyama pronounced the end of history and he came to regret it. About 8 weeks ago Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser, said at an Atlantic Monthly conference: “the Middle East is quieter than it has been in decades”

To be fair to Jake, he was talking about Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. But what a horrifying difference a couple of months make.

I want to be fully transparent with you before I start. I’m a Jew. My wife is the child of Holocaust survivors. I have a sister, nieces, and nephews who live on a kibbutz in Israel not far from the Lebanese border and Hezbollah and Hamas rockets. Second, I have been opposed to the Israeli settlement project, the Occupation and the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank since long before I became Ambassador to Israel. I continue to believe in and advocate for a two-state solution as a means of ending the conflict.

I am emotionally torn as I hold in my heart my feelings of sympathy for thousands of innocent Palestinians, on the one hand, and for the families of the dead Israelis and injured Israelis, on the other. Understanding and dissecting this war may be complicated but recognizing the death and destruction that it has produced on both sides is not.

Finally, I’m also distressed by the hate and extremism and rampant anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and Arab racism that has been generated by so many people, especially young people, who refuse to understand that this a complex and longstanding conflict and that there is plenty of blame to lay on both sides.

But, before talking about the current conflict, I think it is important to  go back to the results of the Nov. 2022 election in Israel that turned the country from a complicated and imperfect but fully functioning democracy into a polarized nation that was showing signs of falling apart at the seams. It’s worth a quick review because some of the policies, actions and personalities of the government that was elected last Nov. contributed directly or indirectly to the Oct. 7 attacks and the war that we have been witnessing. Some of those actors continue to polarize the country, advocate for a continuation of the conflict and ignite violence in the West Bank.

 I’ll then turn to massacre on Oct. 7, and I’ll conclude by briefly explaining why I continue to believe that two states for two peoples remains the only solution for these two traumatized peoples if they are ever to live in peace and security going forward.

Prior to the Oct. 7 attacks, as you all know, Israel was already in crisis. The country had just experienced 39 weeks of massive protests against its far-right wing government. For the first time in Israel’s history army reservists were refusing to serve; sitting judges were on the streets in their robes protesting; and Israelis from the right, the left and the centre, both secular and some religious, hi-tech CEOs, and union members, all were demanding an end to the government’s proposals on judicial and religious reforms.

In the West Bank, settlements were expanding faster than ever before, and new illegal outposts were being constructed. Settler violence against Palestinians was rampant, including what people on both sides of the Green Line called a pogrom in the Palestinian town of Hawara. Over 100 Palestinians had been killed by a combination of IDF soldiers and settlers since the beginning of 2023 while over 30 Israelis were murdered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and in parts of the West Bank in terrorist incidents.

Ironically though, it was eerily quiet in Gaza where the Netanyahu government was under the impression that by granting work permits to twenty thousand Gazans, and by allowing Qatar to deliver millions of dollars per month to Hamas, the Gaza strip and Hamas were under control.

Prior to the Nov. 22 election that brought Bibi Netanyahu and company back to power, Israel had a broad coalition government that included politicians from the right, the centre, the left and even Israeli Arabs. It was far from perfect, but it brought together disparate elements of Israeli society rather than exploit their divisions. Given its multi-party character, it avoided radical or controversial policy proposals. It passed a budget that provided much need funding for health, education, and the Arab Israeli sector. And it tentatively held out an olive branch to those Palestinians who were ready to talk peace.

In November 2022, Israelis elected a very different coalition, one that included Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud party and other parties which hoped to use a majority in the Knesset to pursue a radical right-wing nationalist and religious agenda. Bibi’s goal, as it has been since he was first indicted for three criminal charges, was to guarantee himself a “get out of jail” card. His coalition partners’ objective was to remove the major obstacle to their religious and expansionist intentions – the power of Israel’s Supreme Court.

So, what brought hundreds of thousands of Israeli protestors onto the streets of almost every city in Israel for 39 straight weeks?

First, there were the government’s own ministers and their policies.

Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security, had a history of criminal convictions for racism and terrorism. He has called repeatedly for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel.

Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance with added responsibilities for the West Bank is the leader of a far-right Religious Zionist party that advocates for full Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and a ban on Israeli Arab political parties. He opposes the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Aryeh Dery, the leader of an orthodox religious party called Shas and was appointed Minister of Health, Minister of Interior and Vice-Prime Minister, had been convicted three times for tax fraud.

And, of course, the Prime Minister was himself under indictment.

Second, the protestors opposed specific reforms that the coalition was trying to expedite through the Knesset. These included political control over appointments of judges to Israeli courts and a parliamentary override of Supreme Court decisions that would have left Israel as a tyranny of the majority.

Had these reforms passed, with a one seat majority vote there would have been no other institution in the country able to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community, Arab Israelis, workers, refugees, or any other minority group. Recall that Israel has no constitution, no Charter or Bill of rights and no bicameral legislature, i.e., no sober second chamber to review and possibly oppose legislation.

And the reforms didn’t stop with the Courts. The government wanted to equate the status and the salaries of orthodox religious students with those of soldiers and exempt the former from military service. These measures would have further polarized the country with secular Israelis sending their children to the army to defend the country, while they subsidized a growing orthodox community whose young men spend their lives studying Torah.

Some of the most extreme reforms were aimed directly at the Arab Israeli sector and included banning the Palestine flag within the Green Line, imposing the death penalty on Israeli Arabs convicted of terrorism, and deporting Israeli Arabs if convicted of the ill-defined crime of “disloyalty”. These provisions would not have applied to Jewish Israelis.

Missing, for the most part, from the protests ,however, was any attention to the treatment of Arab Israelis in Israel or of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. While I understand why this was the case - the organizers wanted to minimize the fissures between the various groups of protesters - Israel will be an imperfect democracy as long as it continues to discriminate against Arab Israeli citizens of Israel, and it continues to occupy the West Bank and Gaza.

The attack

So let me turn now to the events which began Saturday, Oct. 7.

The massacre by Hamas terrorists that day, and it was a horrific massacre, resulted in the largest number of Jewish civilians killed in one day since the Holocaust. I raise this fact not because Israeli blood is any different than Palestinian blood and I will come to the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians in Gaza in a moment. But it is key to understanding the almost universal support for a decisive and no holds barred response to the events of Oct. 7 that exists in Israel today. And it is in part why seemingly rationale arguments for a more cautious and strategic way forward were rejected. And why folks that I considered true peaceniks have taken a surprisingly hard line regarding the conflict.

Oct. 7 has been compared by the media to 9/11 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. There are of course similarities, but it was also different: it was the first attack on pre-1967 Israeli soil. It represented so massive an intelligence and military failure that it has shaken Israelis to the core, broken their contract with the state, the IDF and the Mossad, and made them question whether they can ever again be secure in the region, in their country and in their homes.

Israel’s stated war objectives, to eliminate the Hamas political and military leadership, also raise comparisons with the failed US efforts in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The difference, however, is that those wars didn’t take place on American soil. Israelis will tell you that they have nowhere else to go; for them, what took place on Oct. 7 is existential.

Suffice it to say, the attack was extremely well planned. Some 2200 terrorists entered southern Israel and Hamas fired some 3000 rockets in one day. It took Hamas a month to fire that many rockets during the last Hamas Israeli conflict. Indeed, Hamas and Hezbollah rockets continue to hit Israel 7 months into the conflict.

The ease and success of the Hamas mission – killing 1200, wounding 3300 and taking some 240 hostages, seems to have gone beyond Hamas’ wildest dreams. 

So how did it happen?

I’m going to talk here about the proximate causes of the attack and not about the historical root causes which I will come back to, and which are more complicated but equally important.

First, as alluded to, let’s recall that the Hamas Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the elimination of Jews from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. It has controlled Gaza with an iron fist since 2007 when it violently ousted the Palestinian Authority from the territory.

If that isn’t clear enough, a senior Hamas leader told the New York Times three weeks ago that “Israel can expect a second, third and fourth attack until it is eliminated from the map. He added that “We must annihilate the country.”

There is much speculation about why Hamas attacked when it did. It was, for example, 50 years plus a day from the start of the Yom Kippur War and on a holiday when many soldiers spent the day with families and friends.

Contrary to previously agreed protocols between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians, certain Israeli coalition ministers had been praying on the grounds of the Al Aqsa Mosque - shades of Ariel Sharon’s provocation  in advance of the Second Intifada.

A key factor seems to have been the fact that the IDF and Israel’s intelligence agencies had taken their eyes off Gaza. Three military units were shifted to the West Bank to quell violence there – violence that was provoked by the coalition’s polices of settlement expansion and threats of annexation.

Indeed, southern Israel along the Gaza border was woefully unprepared and far too reliant on technological solution such as smart fences, sensors, drones, remote-controlled machine guns.

Then, there was the Israel/US/Saudi agreement that was being negotiated and that would have specifically targeted Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. And, as with the Abraham Accords before it, there was no guarantee that the agreement was going to provide much in the way of support for the Palestinian cause.

Indeed, Bibi Netanyahu appeared this year before the UN General Assembly and held up a map depicting an Israel that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Moreover, he frequently boasts that Israel can now gain recognition from key Arab states without addressing Palestinian demands for a state of its own. The agreement he entered into with his right-wing coalition partners actually calls for the annexation of the West Bank.

It's therefore not surprising that Hamas leaders have boasted since Oct. 7 that their actions have finally put the Palestinian question back on the front pages.

Finally, it’s also been said that the Netanyahu government contributed to the crisis more generally by polarizing the country and exposing its internal weaknesses to its enemies. The Minister of Defense told the Prime Minister as much months before the attack but Bibi ignored the warnings.

So where are we now?

After 8 weeks of war, 6 weeks of bombing and leveling approximately one half of the buildings of northern Gaza, the IDF has now encircled Gaza City and the tunnels where they believe Hamas military and political leaders were hiding. Some 14,000 Palestinians are believed to have been killed and some 35,000 injured. The vast majority are innocent civilians including upwards of four thousand children. Those that have survived have been largely starved of food, water, medicines, and fuel. Approximately 1.3 million Gazans have moved to the south creating a humanitarian crisis of its own.

I fully acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defence and sympathise with the trauma and suffering of the survivors, injured and the remaining hostages. I join those welcoming the release of the hostages grabbed on Oct. 7. It’s also clear that fighting inside Gaza, a densely populated built up urban area where Hamas intentionally uses the civilian population as human shields and does indeed use hospitals and schools as safe havens for its fighters, leaves Israel between a rock and a hard place.

You may have read that when the leader of Hamas in Gaza was asked by the New York Times why ordinary Gazans were not being protected in the tunnels, he replied: “The tunnels are for us. UNRWA is supposed to take care of the civilians.”

But whatever Israel’s rights and fears are, these do not, in my view, justify the siege and collective punishment that Israel initially imposed; nor the trickle of humanitarian supplies that it has permitted to enter Gaza up to now; nor the massive number of deaths and injuries of innocent Palestinian men, women and children.

Clearly, not unlike other militaries, Israel is choosing to minimize the casualties to its own forces, almost irrespective of the collateral damage its operations cause.

At a very minimum, a humanitarian pause should have been agreed to earlier on that would have allowed for the delivery of water, food, medicines, and other aid to those in need and to permit as many hostages and foreign nationals as possible to escape Gaza.

Israel can’t order 1.3 million Palestinians to move to the south of the Gaza Strip and continue to bomb there. It should realize that its actions will further radicalize Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and Muslims worldwide. It must realize that eliminating an ideology is far more difficult than killing Hamas’ leaders and destroying its infrastructure if that is possible.

And Israel must make clear that suggestions by some Israeli ministers to rid Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza or to suggest that all Gazans were responsible for Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, are abhorrent and that those who mouth them should be held accountable.

There is, of course, much debate over whether a cease fire should be agreed to with many international institutions, including the UN, and most NGOs demanding it. If Israel is going to restart the war in order to further root out Hamas leadership, and it may do so once the majority of hostages are released, and possibly before, it is incumbent on it to significantly reduce the number of deaths and injuries it is causing going forward. It must adopt a far more surgical, targeted and strategic approach that minimizes the loss of innocent life.

The Occupation, the threats of annexation, and the failure of Israel for 15 years to even contemplate a horizon for peace don’t and cannot justify the horrific attacks of Oct 7. But they do help explain why Israel quickly loses the sympathy of so many countries, the media and the younger generation when their right to self-defence inevitably leads to the death and destruction we are witnessing today. The failure to address the Occupation, the covert support for Hamas aimed at dividing and conquering the Palestinians, and the day-to-day treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, especially under governments led by Bibi Netanyahu, mean that Israel does not come to the table with clean hands. Context and root causes cannot justify terror, but they, Israel’s bravado, and its insensitive advocacy, help to explain why sympathy and understanding for Israel's situation is often short lived. 

So, What next?

In Israel, I predict that Bibi Netanyahu will be ousted soon after the war ends. The 39 weeks of protests prior to the war combined with a majority view that he bears direct responsibility for this national trauma, should mean that he will be forced to resign, either by his Likud colleagues or by even more massive protests. He and his coalition partners are way down in the polls. His radical reform agenda is, I believe, now off the table. Whether a new Likud leader capable of holding the current coalition together can be found, or a new and better grouping will unite to lead the country or whether Israel will move to new elections remains unclear.

It is highly unlikely that Israel will want to re-occupy Gaza. Initially it will want to control the security situation in the Strip and be able to re-enter if there are signs of a resurgent Hamas. Hopefully, and over time, a new Israeli government will work with the US to install an interim, perhaps Gulf State led, force and eventually a Palestinian governance mechanism. Reconstruction and the delivery of humanitarian aid will be the first priorities.

For the West Bank, the best-case scenario would see the provision of aid and training leading eventually to free and fair elections followed over time with elections in Gaza. If Salam Fayyad, the best finance, and prime minister that the PA ever had, can be convinced to return, it would hasten the process. Hamas would not be allowed to participate in the elections. This all will take time and patience.

Perhaps the one glimmer of hope flowing from this horrific time for all concerned is that the push for a two-state solution is now back on the table. President Biden, Justin Trudeau, former Israeli PMs, Naftali Bennet, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert are all saying that now is the time to give this option a chance.

The key question in the medium term is whether Oct. 7 will move the country further right and, in my view, closer to the abyss, or whether Israelis will finally realize that a permanent separation from Palestinians is a far better solution than a continuing Occupation.

Four years after the Yom Kippur War, Anwar Sadat spoke in Israel’s parliament. The historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn took place after the first Intifada. No one believed that Apartheid would end in South Africa when it did. No one saw the Berlin Wall falling when it did. No one thought the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland could make peace after 400 years of fighting.

I continue to believe that two states for two peoples is the only solution for Israelis and Palestinians. The six final status issues to be resolved are well known and can be achieved with strong leadership backed by political will, with compromise from both sides and with the strength to withstand efforts by extremists on both sides to thwart peace. I hope that the horrific crisis that we are witnessing today may be the impetus for wiser men and women in Israel and Palestine to finally realize this.

To avoid these repeated cycles of violence, real efforts must be made to create a political horizon. The most important signal that Israel could send now would be to unequivocally stop settlement expansion and begin to dismantle the settlement outposts that its own Supreme Court has declared illegal. On the Palestinian side, Mahmoud Abbas should unequivocally denounce Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, reaffirm his support for a two-state solution, and pledge to move toward elections.

Thanks, I’ll stop there and I’m happy to take your questions.

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Jon Allen (LL.B., LL.M.) is a Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. He joined Canada’s Department of External Affairs in 1981 and has held numerous posts including Director General, North America Bureau (2001-2004) and Minister (Political Affairs) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington (2004-2006). As Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas (2010-2012), he managed Canada’s relations with North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. From 2006 to 2010, Allen was Canada’s Ambassador to Israel. From 2012 to 2016 he was Ambassador to Spain and Andorra. Allen is currently a Distinguished Fellow of the Canada International Council, the Chair of Project Rozana Canada, a not for profit whose objective is to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis via the health sector, and a Member of the Board of AmbCanada.

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