Palestinian Israeli peace activist tells Limmud: ‘Thank you for having me’

A Palestinian Israeli peace activist has paid tribute to Limmud for inviting him to speak at the festival and giving him “the most incredible experience I have had in a long time”.

Ibrahim Abu Ahmad, who is from the north of Israel, spoke to packed-out rooms eight times about how his dual identity – a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship - was “the key to solving the Palestinian problem” and of his vision for peace in the region.

Giving his final talk during the Limmud gala on Sunday night, he said: “Thank you for your love, passion and compassion. I was so grateful to be here and wish the world could see how beautiful this engagement can be.

“The only way we can move forward is by listening to each other and sharing our narratives…I hope that next time I am here, we’re not talking about how we can solve the conflict, but about how our future can be together.”

Speaking earlier in the festival at an event hosted by Yachad, he said: “I am from a very special community, which has been treated so long as a by-product of the conflict rather than as an integral part of the conflict or the solution.

“But my community has two layers. We are part of the Palestinian people and part of Israeli society since its origins of 1948. We speak both languages. We are a door to both people, their reality, pain and aspirations.”

His great-grandfather been killed in the 1948 war and his great-grandmother had tried to escape to Lebanon but had ended up living in Bethlehem in the West Bank, where his grandmother was born. The family later moved to an Arab city in the north of Israel.

“My mother raised me as a humanist. She tried to shield me from the reality and didn’t talk about the conflict.”

While Arab Israelis make up 21 per cent of the Israeli population, Ibrahim said that they lived “parallel lives” with the Jewish population. “We don’t meet each other as we go to separate schools, so the first time we encounter one another properly is after the age of 18. So you mostly meet the politics before the people.”

Ibrahim’s experience growing up had been vastly different as his cousins were from the only Arab family living in a Jewish community, so Ibrahim had got to know their Jewish friends. “I played with Jewish kids, learnt Hebrew and watched Israeli TV.”

During the second intifada, when he was nine years old, he recalled that three Arab Israelis living in his street had been shot and killed.

“I remember going to the shopping arcade and saw the fear and hatred in people’s eyes, and I asked my mum: ‘Why was I born Arab? Why was I born in a place where I am different?’”

When the terrorist attacks happened on October 7, he called both his Arab and Jewish friends. He found out that six of his friends had been killed at the Nova festival.

Living in Herzliya at the time, Ibrahim said: “The day after, I was afraid with my neighbour, and of my neighbour. I didn’t know if someone would look at me with a look of fear or hate. All of us [Palestinian Israelis] were saying: ‘We can’t stay here right now.’”

At the same time, he was “afraid for the peoplehood across the wall [in Gaza]. I was calling every embassy to try to get people out.”

October 7 and the ensuing war motivated him, together with fellow Palestinian Israeli Amira Mohammed to launch a podcast – Unapologetic – the Third Narrative. ”It’s about who we are and about our reality. We bring Israelis and Palestinians to the podcast and show the complexity and the nuance of the situation,” said Ibrahim, who also works with educational organisation Solutions Not Sides.

Hitting out at the “world, which has taken ownership of what it is to be Palestinian or Israeli”, he said: “This isn’t a football match. As Palestinians, we need to decide what our future looks like and not let the rest of the world decide for us.”

Asked what his feelings were about Hamas, he said: “There are people who cherish death, but there are so many of us who cherish life. We want to live, we want to travel; we want to see the world. Both people deserve to live in dignity and peace.”