‘Two to make peace’: Israeli professor and Palestinian activist urge a two-state solution

An Israeli scholar and a Palestinian peace activist urged coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians through negotiations and diplomacy to achieve a two-state solution to end the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict at a Stanford Law School event on Wednesday. 

Sponsored by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, the discussion was organized in collaboration with the PeaceWorks OneVoice Movement, which seeks to move a critical mass of Israelis and Palestinians to “reject the status quo,” its website says.

Allen Weiner J.D. ’89, senior law lecturer and the center’s director, moderated the conversation between Masua Sagiv, an Israeli Jew and a visiting professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley Law School’s Helen Diller Institute, and Ezzeldeen Masri, a Palestinian American from Gaza and Chief Field Officer for the PeaceWorks Foundation. 

“There is a view of a future for the Israeli-Palestinian people that rejects the notion that the conflict is inevitable, that there is a better future for the two peoples in which they can realize their aspirations,” Weiner said. “Our speakers today, through their beliefs, but also through their actions, are committed to the view that a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians side by side in two states is possible, and indeed, is the only viable future for the region.”

The speakers, who have both lost relatives and friends to the conflict, came together to discuss an agreement to implement a two-state solution at a time when enduring destruction, hostility and distrust have prevented many members of the Israeli and Palestinian communities from engaging in constructive dialogue and peace-building. 

“You need two to make peace. You need the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Masri said. “We need to strengthen the peace camp in Israel. We need to have as much of a conversation like this in Israel, Palestine and abroad in support of ending this conflict.” 

Sagiv encouraged good-faith criticism of Israel that recognizes the legitimacy of the state and does not alienate Israelis.

“Good-faith criticism, as opposed to bad-faith criticism, tries to influence,” she said. “If we want to move something in the region, we have to have Israelis’ [support]. We have to strengthen agents of change among Israelis.” 

Masri said that the loss of members of his own family and others in his community — and the bombing and destruction of his home and neighborhood — has not changed his “strong commitment to peace and coexistence with Israel” since the “alternative is continued war.” 

Despite some skepticism, the majority of Palestinians in the occupied territories and the diaspora support a two-state solution within the 1967 borders in Gaza and the occupied West Bank with the establishment of a Palestinian state adjacent to Israel, as compared to a bi-national or one-state solution, according to Masri. 

However, the level of support for a two-state solution has reached an all-time low in Israel since the Second Intifada in 2002. Widespread fear of Hamas and the collective trauma generated in Israel since Oct. 7, 2023 has led Israeli liberals to increasingly reject the notion of a Palestinian state, Sagiv argued.

“A lot of what matters is how we frame an agreement,” she said. “If we frame it as negotiations for an agreement, rather than negotiations for a Palestinian state, there is a vast majority in Israel that supports it.” 

Both speakers emphasized the importance of modeling constructive discourse that engages both the Israeli and Palestinian perspective on the conflict on U.S. college campuses as mediation efforts to end the Israel-Gaza war have stalled. 

“The key is seeing the humanity in both Palestinians and Israelis, having empathy to discuss the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis, understanding that Israel faces a real dilemma,” said Sagiv, who criticized the fact that she is attacked because of her identity as a Zionist and is unable to express her support for Palestinian rights or self-determination in current protests. 

Israel is “fighting an asymmetric war with a terrorist organization that doesn’t care about civilians,” she said.

“On the one hand, [the government] is definitely obligated by the laws of war, and [it] has a responsibility to not harm civilians, and there are rules for that,” she added. “But on the other hand, the Israeli state also has legitimate objectives that are supposed to bring the hostages back, to remove the ongoing threat that Hamas poses.” 

Masri serves as the U.S. outreach director of the OneVoice Movement, a grassroots movement that supports peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through empowering moderate Israeli and Palestinian voices. In 2015, he founded OneVoice on Campus to educate American students on the conflict and reduce polarization. 

“Without the American administration’s involvement in the Israel-Palestine peace process, there will be no peace process,” Masri said. “Peace is possible between Israelis and Palestinians.” 

To engage both sides in constructive discourse, Masri called for peaceful displays of protest that do not isolate members of the Jewish Israeli community.

“I would have loved for slogans like ‘End the military occupation now,’ for example, calling on the U.S. administration to recognize the Palestinian state and the 1967 borders,” Masri said. “Choose slogans and objectives that are doable and don’t go in contradiction with the government here in the U.S.”

The media and actors on the ground have framed the conflict as a “zero-sum game” that fails to recognize the need for cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians to achieve a lasting peace, according to Sagiv.

“What each and every one of us can do is model for those on the ground in Israel and Palestine how this conversation should look like,” she said. “We can change the discourse in our society to hopefully also trickle into both societies in the future.” 

Matthew Wigler ’19 J.D. ’25 commended the event’s focus on inclusive dialogue in an effort to seek mutual understanding and embrace constructive solutions to a “complex and difficult issue,” rather than “perpetuating polarization that entrenches conflict.” 

“It was refreshing to hear Israeli and Palestinian perspectives that reaffirmed each other’s mutual humanity, permanence and right to a shared homeland,” Wigler said. “The event gave me hope that, as far off as it may seem today, a two-state solution that ensures Palestinians and Israelis alike self-determination and security remains possible — and with it a future of peace and prosperity.”

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