AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Two years of the Gaza conflict have left some 70,000 Palestinians and 2,000 Israelis dead. As the war was just starting, NPR got in touch with a mix of Jewish Israeli and Palestinian voices. These individuals were wrestling with how to maintain empathy and compassion for the other side. Well, reporter Ari Daniel reconnected with them to hear their outlook today.
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: I recently spoke again with Oded Adomi Leshem. He's a political psychologist who directs the International Hub for Hope Research at Hebrew University.
Oded, you think peace is possible between Israelis and Palestinians.
ODED ADOMI LESHEM: Of course, I think it's possible. But we don't need to ask if it's possible or impossible. We need to ask if it's desirable or not. And if it's desirable, then it becomes possible.
DANIEL: Leshem's group measures this perceived desirability for peace, which they say has been steadily decreasing among Jewish Israelis since 2019. It's fluctuated for Palestinians over the same interval. But Leshem says that on average, both groups do want peace.
LESHEM: The majority of Israelis, also the majority of Palestinians, think peace is impossible, think it is problematic but still find it desirable.
DANIEL: One of those people who desire peace is Yousef Bashir. Two years ago, he told me that when he was a boy growing up in Gaza, his father taught him to look for the humanity in everyone, even the Israeli soldiers who had taken over and occupied their home.
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YOUSEF BASHIR: I saw my dad insisting that we should not allow them to turn us into hateful, vengeful people. And I think that is his greatest gift.
DANIEL: Bashir has lived in the U.S. since 2004. I spoke with him again recently, and I asked if over the last two years his father's words have continued to inform his views.
BASHIR: They have been definitely tested like never before, but they did not fade away.
DANIEL: Bashir's mother and brother still live in Gaza. They stayed there throughout the war, even as the bombs fell, even as their house was fired upon by tanks and artillery. Meanwhile, Bashir is now a father himself. His second child, a baby girl, was born in October.
BASHIR: (Vocalizing).
DANIEL: Here he is singing to his new daughter. Bashir's first child turns 4 in January.
BASHIR: It's been a very special experience to be a father, really touched me in so many ways.
DANIEL: Even as he raises his kids in Washington, D.C., the scenes of this most recent war in Gaza, they haunt him.
BASHIR: Most of the casualties have been children in Gaza. The last two years didn't just change me. I'm different today because I carry grief and purpose at the same time. And both feel permanent.
DANIEL: That purpose, he says, is to help create a better world for his fellow Palestinians, something he believes is achievable if people can find ways to understand one another. It's a philosophy he's already begun teaching his son.
BASHIR: I tell him, what language will you speak? And he says Arabic, English, Spanish. And I add Hebrew because it's important to understand the language and the culture of the people we are at conflict with.
DANIEL: That understanding, Bashir believes, may just be a path toward peace and of loving those who may never love you in return. It's a view that Dr. Lina Qasem Hassan finds hard to hold onto.
LINA QASEM HASSAN: Like, really, it's not easy in these days.
DANIEL: Qasem Hassan is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and chair of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, a group that advocates for the health of Jews and Palestinians alike. The first time I spoke with her, days after the war began, she'd traveled to a hotel near the Dead Sea to help treat Jewish evacuees who'd survived the Hamas attack. But shortly thereafter, Qasem Hassan told me recently, the war threw her into a deep depression.
QASEM HASSAN: I kept watching the news and crying over the horrible scenes coming from Gaza, especially as a mother. Seeing those children hungry, homeless, losing their families, injured and also dying, that felt to me too much.
DANIEL: The weight of those images, along with extended family members of hers killed in Gaza, crushed Qasem Hassan. Her 9-year-old daughter saw that her mom was in crisis and asked if they could go out somewhere, anywhere, to help ease Qasem Hassan's suffering. That small gesture by her daughter, it brought her back and gave her hope and the strength to act.
QASEM HASSAN: Like, it's impossible to stay silent in front of all the atrocities we are seeing. So I feel it's my duty to speak up.
DANIEL: To speak up within Israel and beyond about the crimes she believes Israel is committing against the Palestinian people. Sometimes her words have gotten her into trouble. Other times, she says, when speaking to patients or neighbors, they just fall on deaf ears.
QASEM HASSAN: It's a different language. Like, you can't even speak to them because they are so far away.
DANIEL: Qasem Hassan has lived in Israel her whole life. But today she feels on the outside of a society she once belonged to. Peace, to her, seems so very distant. The way Oded Adomi Leshem, the political psychologist, sees it, having empathy for those who are suffering is important. But he's not sure that's enough to achieve change on its own. Rather, what may be required, at least as a first step, he believes, is a collective imagining of how beautiful life would be without conflict.
LESHEM: Peace will bring the end, the end, the total end of violence and bloodshed.
DANIEL: Among those envisioning this alternative reality is Maoz Inon.
MAOZ INON: This is inevitable. It's going to happen. It's going to happen soon.
DANIEL: Inon's parents lived in the south of Israel near the border with Gaza until October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters entered their community and burned them and their home. When we first spoke shortly afterwards, Inon told me he was swimming through an ocean of grief.
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INON: When you're swimming in the ocean, you don't see the end, you don't see the bottom. That's how big it is, more than you can understand.
DANIEL: But when I spoke with him again recently, he told me he's been transformed, aided by two powerful visions - one of tears washing away the bloodshed on all sides and bringing healing, and another that infused him with a sense that peace is real and within reach, should we choose it.
INON: I went through an unbelievable spiritual growth, and I'm not the same person I was.
DANIEL: He discovered what he calls radical forgiveness.
INON: I forgive everyone. I forgive Hamas, who murdered my parents. I forgive the Israeli government for betraying the promise to keep them safe and secure.
DANIEL: Inon is still filled with pain, but he's channeling it into an unrelenting activism for peace.
INON: It's too late for my parents, but it's not too late for millions more. And maybe some of us won't be able to forgive. But we need to pay the price, the difficult price of reconciliation now in order that the next generation would live the life they deserve.
DANIEL: For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
(SOUNDBITE OF RENE AUBRY'S "WATER FALLS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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