‘What matters is non-violent action and solidarity with living people’

The international jury of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, 2023, has made a splendid choice: Daniel Barenboim, a consummate musician and a man devoted heart and soul to Palestinian–Israeli peace making; and Ali Abu Awwad, who has given himself entirely to non-violent action, in the Gandhian mode, for the sake of peace. That such people still exist in our world is the most promising basis we have for continuing to hope.

Let me tell you a little about Ali. Like most Palestinians, he has had a life scarred by terrible losses. His brother was murdered, on a whim, by an Israeli soldier. In 2000, at the outbreak of the second Intifada, Ali was shot in the leg by an Israeli settler.

He has spent years in Israeli prisons, where he first read the works of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela. There he underwent a profound spiritual transformation rooted in a recognition that non-violent resistance was the only way to a possible future.

He has founded the Taghyeer grass-roots organisation for non-violent action and resistance in the occupied West Bank. Ali is one of the many Palestinian Gandhian figures I have known, a born leader, articulate, lucid and fearless.

I first met Ali some years ago, on International Peace Day, when I was among a group of human-rights activists trying to reach the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. The army had (typically) closed off all access routes to the village, which has had a long and tormented history of struggle with Israeli settlers and soldiers. Several busloads of Palestinian peace activists from all over the West Bank were turned back at the blockades.

Then Ali appeared. He led us, mostly crawling on hands and knees, in total silence, through the olive groves just beneath the soldiers’ roadblocks. Miraculously, thanks to Ali, we reached the village safely and joined the ceremonies.

Ali himself spoke eloquently that day of the peace he envisions and of how we can achieve it; he thanked the Israeli activists who had taken the risk and come there in the cause of peace. He has said: “I think non-violence is the celebration of my existence. I used to wake up and wish that I was not born. Today I wake up and I celebrate this.”

We might wonder if perfect pitch and a gift for infinite subtlety—the most powerful force in nature—might predispose a truly great musician to join the struggle for peace. Daniel Barenboim is a courageous man.

When he received the prestigious Wolf Prize in 2004, in a ceremony held in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), he spoke out against the policies of the Israeli government vis-à-vis Palestinians: “Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence?”

Not surprisingly, extremists and bigots on both sides of the conflict have attacked him—surely a good sign of his satyagraha and integrity. Given the current horrors of war in Gaza, one can only dream of the concert he conducted in Gaza City in 2011, where he spoke truth to all who could hear him: “Violence can only weaken the righteousness of the Palestinian cause.”

It is important to mention here the West-Eastern Diwan, an orchestra composed of Israelis, Palestinians, and classical musicians from other Arab countries, founded by Barenboim together with Edward Said.

The Diwan has performed in many sites throughout the world. It is not enough for good-hearted people simply to speak and write about peace and rapprochement, or to think benevolent thoughts (welcome as they may be); what really matters is non-violent action and solidarity with living people on the ground. Barenboim embodies this cardinal principle.

Despite the current state of black despair in Israel and Palestine, indeed in the wider world as well, despite the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and the vast suffering in Gaza and elsewhere, despite the loss of so many precious lives, there is reason to believe that a day will come when the two embittered peoples of Israel and Palestine will find a way to embrace one another and to live together as brothers and sisters.

I have seen it happen, many times, in the micro-realities of the villages in the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.

It will happen, if we are lucky, largely through political coercion, from outside and inside, but also because Palestinians and Israelis share a common humanity that becomes evident in simple everyday interactions, on many levels, if not on the battlefields.

If you find it hard to believe this, visit any Israeli hospital and watch Palestinian doctors, nurses and orderlies working naturally, at ease, alongside their Israeli counterparts. Or go to hear a concert of the West-Eastern Diwan.

Ali Abu Awwad and Daniel Barenboim have shown, for many years, each in his own way, how acts of friendship, empathy, imagination and courage can sometimes change the world.

(David Shulman is professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a longtime activist in Ta’ayush, ‘Arab–Jewish Partnership’)