Ali Abu Awwad, 52, participated in the first intifada, he was 17, throwing stones at Israeli military. His mother was an active member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. In 1990, he was arrested, sentenced to 10 years in prison. His mother, imprisoned at the same time, and he wanted to meet while in prison. The request was not granted. They went on a hunger strike for 17 days which did lead to their meeting. Ali then realised that one could get things done through peaceful resistance. He was released after 4 years as part of the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993. In 2000, Ali was shot in the leg by an Jewish settler while changing a tire on his car. Shortly thereafter, Ali’s brother was shot without justification by an Israeli soldier at close range/point blank. A group of Israeli bereaved families from the Parents’ Circle came to Ali’s family home to share the sorrows of loosing a close family member. This is when Ali realised that Jews also cried. From then on Ali dedicated himself to building a Palestinian identity of non-violence. Ali was awarded the Indira Ghandi Peace Prize along with conductor and activist Daniel Barenboim and the Luxemburg Peace Prize.
You founded Taghyeer/Change in 2016. What are the goals of the organisation? What concrete work is it doing to reach them?
Taghyeer was founded as a Palestinian national non-violent movement. Its goal is to bring about an environment in which solutions are possible. This does not concern just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also internal Palestinian society. Palestinians are confused between an identity of resistance by any means to the Israeli occupation and an identity of practicing citizenship based on values of a healthy democratic society but without being citizens of a free state. Thus they have lost a clear direction and are failing to unite to achieving national freedom and peace with Israel. Taghyeer aims at a non-violent approach to the occupation, but more than that it aims to end the occupation. To end injustices or any system, you need to create alternatives, namely a democratic united society that will be clear about its aims.
Taghyeer provides leadership training in the West Bank to community leaders, women and youth to become change makers using non-violent means. The workshops deliberate on the Palestinian identity, are we revolutionaries or citizens of a state or something else still? How can we practice our identities without harming ourselves, others, but also our wish for freedom? Taghyeer also supports non-violence education, we have run non-violence workshops in schools and developed a curriculum in non-violence for teachers to address conflict. We will present this to the Palestinian Ministry of Education. We want to create the day when Palestinian children will visit Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center and Jewish children an arab village that no longer exists to learn about those who were expelled from it. Taghyeer runs a non-violence center in the West Bank. It produced a non-violence charter.
Can your organisation claim success for any of its work? Can you provide concrete examples?
Yes, Taghyeer organises large events bringing together a few thousand Palestinians that want to support non-violence, that is a success considering their daily struggles and strained environment. Introducing non-violence in schools is a success.
Has the work of Taghyeer changed since October 7th, 2023 and, if so, how?
The effects of the war are everywhere. Before the war, Palestinians did not have full freedom of movement, now some areas are completely shut off, the Israeli military control over entry and exists to areas have become extremely stringent. It is therefore almost impossible for Taghyeer to conduct activities. Three hundred thousand Palestinians are prevented from reaching their work places in Israel. At this time, communities are focused on surviving, rather than working toward a better future.
While the war in Gaza is going on, internationally illegal, exponential expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, i.e. Palestinian land, is taking place; over 1000 incidents of Jewish Israeli settler violence against Palestinians have been recorded, and according to OCHA, until mid-July 539 Palestinians have been killed there mostly by the Israeli army. How do these developments affect Palestinians in the West Bank?
For Israeli jews, the October 7th attack was like living a soft Holocaust. Palestinians in the West Bank are currently physically stuck where they are, with reduced basic services and rights. They are also struggling because of increased extreme activism and violence by settlers supported by the Israeli army, they are unable to reach their farms close to settlements. There is no uprising in the West Bank. Only a minority on both sides believes this war will lead to a solution. Most want this war to stop. Settlers’ greatest ennemy would be peace. Israel has made it clear that it does not want Gaza, but it also does not want a Palestinian state as the recent vote in the Knesset has shown. Israel wants Palestinians to be peaceful apatrides living without a state, without dignity and without rights. It is not going to happen. We need a two state solution, that allows people to live together if they so choose. I have no problem with jews living in a Palestinian state, as Palestinians are living in Israel. If Palestinians had freedom, a state, a democratic system of governance, 95% would support peace with Israel and reject war and extremist platforms. In Israel, the extreme right is using Jewish fears to lobby for the rejection of a Palestinian state.
Your home was raided recently, can you inform about that?
Yes, my home was raided twice, my family and I were not home, some damage was done. It was not security related, the Israeli army allegedly was looking for a man related to my wife who was accused of stealing a car. This may not be the entire story though. I reached out to relevant individuals and the army stopped.
The Palestinian state is recognised by 147 out of 193 countries of the United Nations where it has non-member Observer State status. In April 2024, Palestine submitted a request for full membership to the UN 15 member Security Council which voted 12 for, 2 abstentions and 1 veto from the United States. However, on July 17th , the Israeli Knesset voted 68 to 9 in favor of a resolution rejecting the creation of a Palestinian state. What do you think is next on this issue?
There were previous decisions by the UN for a two state solution. The world knows that Palestinians deserve their own state and are victims of the occupation and that Jewish people have the right to security and statehood. We need a Palestinian leadership to unite over a national rational plan to achieve statehood, but we do not have that yet. There has been a failure of leadership on both sides. Both sides now have responsibility for an October 7 never to happen again. Israelis never expected such extreme militancy, they were moving on with their relatively normal lives, forgetting the Palestinian nation. Discussing Israeli security without addressing Palestinian freedom is in no way fruitful. Two questions for the Israelis: are you occupying Palestine for your security or are you occupying land for ideological reasons? And I ask Palestinians: do we recognise the legitimate Jewish existence on this land or do we see them just as occupiers? The answers to these questions can provide a political solution.
How do you get people on both sides to get to think along the lines you just described?
I am working with a group including Jews and Palestinians that is devising a plan that will speak to everyone’s identities, needs and rights. With this plan, we will tell Jews, Palestinians and the world that enough is enough, and here is the alternative.
When there is dialogue that leads to transformation, Israelis go back to their own state, but Palestinians go back to occupation, for them it is more difficult to practice transformation. In addition to changing people’s minds and hearts, we need to change people’s life conditions. If we do that, we are creating an environment in which solutions are possible.
Non-violence is the biggest threat to the occupation because it is about targeting the principals of the occupation based on Jewish fear, blindness, zionist ideology that views Palestinians having no right to these lands. Israelis cannot view Palestinians only as terrorists or second class residents.
A change of perspective is possible, look at Ireland, Europe, India, South Africa.
Would you agree or disagree that Palestinians have not been politically astute in their rejection of the several political proposals put forward starting with the 1947 UN Resolution 181 on partition? Were they right in rejecting them because from the start the proposals were not fair and just toward the majority Arab/Palestinian population? By doing so, they seem to have gained little to date, rather the contrary.
When you see a stranger coming to take over your home, you will likely reject him. Jewish survivors of 2nd World War grasping at the possibility of a homeland, failed to consider those who were already living on that land. But lets not be stuck in the failures of the past. The fate of Palestinians and Israelis is not to kill eachother forever. Oslo was a big hope, Palestinians recognised an Israeli state, Israel recognised the PLO as a legal representtive, but not a Palestinian state. We know very well that a two state solution that will be just for everyone must be the outcome. The great majority of Palestinians and Jews would embrace it.
Can you say something about your relationship to Hamas?
Palestinians are all somehow connected, though I have no direct relation to Hamas. I disagree with both Hamas and Fatah, neither offer the alternative that is needed.
Can you identify current or potential Palestinian politicians who would get support from the majority of Palestinians to run the Palestinian territories, restrain extremists and corruption, negotiate a two state solution with Israel, develop an economically and democratically viable Palestinian state living in peace with its neighbour?
I focus on the „what“ rather than the „who“. What would we be voting for? Leaders with limited authority to run a society, or a government that would lead a state based on an agreed upon national plan? We have many good potential leaders, but they are not keen on working under the status quo.
Do you ever think you would like to leave Palestine to live a peaceful, ordinary life somewhere else?
My life has included refugee status, imprisonment, bullet wounds, living under a nasty occuption and loosing my brother. I have choices, but I feel I was born to do what I am doing, to see to it that both peoples live an ordinary, good life here in this land for all. I do not know where life will take me, but I know where I want to go with my life.