What if Mamdani actually wanted to be a bridge builder between Israelis and Palestinians, a role for which he has the unique capacity and talent? If he did, he would declare his intention that on the day Bibi arrives in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly, he would convene a seminar at his office and invite Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Jewish experts to discuss the only just and stable solution: how to forge two separate states for two peoples living in that area between the river and the sea.
He would invite Saudi representatives to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative, which was launched in this column in 2002 by the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. He would invite Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W. Bush to each talk about their respective plans for two states for two peoples. He’d invite Palestinian leaders like Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian Authority prime minister, who did so much in his tenure to build Palestinian institutions for a Palestinian state next to Israel, to discuss how they would revive that effort today.
Most important, he would invite representatives of Jewish-Arab organizations trying to forge two states for two peoples, like the Abraham Initiatives. Not to be confused with the Abraham Accords, this is an organization in Israel that works on reconciliation between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. (I have donated money to the group.) He would invite representatives of EcoPeace Middle East, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian organization dedicated to driving reconciliation through shared environmental projects. (I’ve also donated money to it.) And he’d invite the new Israeli party A Place for Us All, established ahead of the upcoming election with a combined list of Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews, led by Rula Daoud and Alon-Lee Green.
In an essay published in Haaretz, Green explained that the new party is “not a Jewish party (with a symbolic Arab representation) and not an Arab party (with a symbolic Jewish representation), but a joint Arab-Jewish party.” It proposes to build “a peace that will bring both an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, side by side with the State of Israel.”
Last, to add a little star power, he could invite the actress Natalie Portman. I was so impressed by the speech she delivered to a recent online fund-raiser for A Place for Us All. According to a report in Haaretz, Portman “emphasized her identity as a Jewish woman and Israeli citizen, noting that her father was born and raised in Israel and that she has ‘deep love, as many of you also do, for the people of this region — all people of this region — and for the land, and for the future.’”
