Can trust ever be built between Israelis and Palestinians

It is hard to talk about building trust between Israelis and Palestinians after October 7^th. The wounds are fresh and the pain is intolerable. Yet because we know those two people have to find a way to live together, we should look for new ways to build trust and create a different reality.

Trust is the rarest currency between Israelis and Palestinians and in a more devastating way inside each community as well. In the discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we usually emphasize words like Justice and Peace. The Palestinians talk about the need to correct the injustice done to them in 1948. The Israelis on the other hand demand peace and talk about the need to stop what seems like the 100 years of war against them.

This conversation cannot even start because unlike other conflicts none of the parties involved were defeated. They won and lost battles but they did not lose the war. That is why the logic that dominates their relationship is controlled by fear of defeat and does not allow for building trust.

Fear and trust are important in the Palestinian-Israeli context because of their geography. This is one of the smallest territories in the world that someone attempted to divide between two people. Israel including the West Bank and Gaza is one-fourth of Panama, a country you can barely see on the Americas map.

To make things more complicated this territory is heavily populated. Around 14 million Arabs and Jews live between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Israeli and Palestinian cities are spread from north to south in two parallel lines that share the same metro area.

The small geography and the large demography make it impossible to create any shared living without building trust. I always give people an example of the difference between the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The first agreement was three pages long the second one was almost 300 pages and it was only an interim agreement.

Perhaps this territory needs to be divided symbolically but it has to continue to function as a connected space with an integrated society. This is why trust became a precondition to any political change. The problem is that the Israeli and Palestinian societies are deeply divided from within so it is challenging to have trust in other people when you do not have trust in your own home.

In a way, the Israelis and the Palestinians are a mirror image of each other. Societies that are more federations of tribes with totally different visions. The conflict between the two peoples is complicated because each tribe imagines a different future. These differences create an internal competition in each nation on who is more nationalistic, meaning more hawkish.

This setting is a major challenge for making progress in the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians, however, it is a great opportunity as well. The diversity of the two nations makes it difficult to dehumanize the other side. Those trying to build trust between the two societies can find groups on the other side to work with.

An important part of building trust is getting to know the other side. That means developing different agendas for cooperation in civil society and economy and not just limiting the interaction for “coexistence dialogue”.

Diplomacy too can play an important part in building the needed trust. Israeli diplomats experienced in developing projects in other countries should be more involved in creating cooperation between the two people. In the past, hundreds of Palestinian professionals were trained in Israel. Many of these programs were led by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. This is an important channel for direct relations and trust building.

Trust is what allows human beings to build communities and civilizations. We in the Middle East should remember that more than others because it was here that humans transformed from roaming hunter-gatherers to settled agricultural communities. We should start this process cautiously and sensitively but believe that rebuilding the trust is our only way for the future.