Activist Advocates Mideast Dialogue

Palestinian peace activist Dr. Izzeldin M. Abuelaish said yesterday that Israelis and Palestinians must communicate with each other to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace.

Abuelaish—a Harvard School of Public Health graduate and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominee—argued for the importance of open dialogue through the lens of his experiences as a doctor and peace activist in both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“Understanding and communicating with each other is the most important,” Abuelaish told the group of Muslim, Jewish, Arab, and Palestinian undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard Hillel. “Our problem is lack of communication. We must listen and deal with each other, and realize in the end that others are similar to you.”

He described his experiences as a peace activist, a doctor in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and a father who has lost three of his daughters to Israeli tank shells that shattered his home in Gaza in January.

Today’s youth, such as students at Harvard, bear the burden of finding the path toward peaceful co-existence, Abuelaish said. He added that students in America and abroad should make themselves knowledgeable about the current conflicts in the Middle East and take action in order to make a difference.

Abuelaish said that in honor of his three daughters, he believes it is time for women to take the lead in the path toward peace. He added that he is currently creating a foundation to provide access to education and healthcare to women and girls in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the Middle East.

“We have to speak with honesty, with openness, to put everything on the table,” Abuelaish said at the invitation-only event. “There is a window of opportunity here for us to be creative, to be honest, and to be human [so as to] find a way to live in collaboration—in peace—so that dignities of both [Palestinians and Israelis] are equal.”

Fathima F. Jahufar ’11, an Islamic Society officer, said that she found the talk to be thought-provoking.

“He brings up a lot of ideas that aren’t openly discussed—like very basic values such as common humanity that we learn but sort of forget over time,” she said.

Abuelaish received a masters in public health from Harvard in 2004. His visit to Harvard Hillel was sponsored by the Chicago-based Brit Tzedek v’Shalom—the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace.

—Staff writer Jessie J. Jiang can be reached at jiang9@fas.harvard.edu.