If Israelis and Palestinians ever enter into negotiations, East Jerusalemite Palestinian Samer Sanijlawi intends to be part of the talks.
Charismatic, articulate and persuasive, with plenty of political experience and street-cred, Sanijlawi, 59, would make a formidable—and constructive—negotiator.
When I speak with Sanijlawi in the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, he refers to himself as a “pragmatic optimist” and presents what he regards as definitive solutions to the war in Gaza and to the conflict with the Palestinians: Dialogue with Israelis, reconciliation as a precondition to political arrangements, and regional alliances as a foundation for the mutual dependency that will generate, he believes, mutual trust. Like many in his generation, he is a sharp and relentless critic of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Sanijlawi is a businessman and current president of the Jerusalem Development Fund (JDF), a nonprofit organization committed to improving life for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He is part of a generation of Palestinians who honed their political savvy in the era following the signing of the Oslo Accords. Born in Jerusalem’s Old City to a middle-class family, Sanijlawi attended prestigious private schools. He took swimming lessons in East Jerusalem and studied piano and shopped in West Jerusalem. He says he thought little about Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem until the First Intifada broke out. “Suddenly, I understood that I am a Palestinian. I had an identity.” He joined many of his friends, throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. “I was 14, and I thought I was throwing stones to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea,” he recalls, with a bit of self-irony. For throwing those stones, he was arrested and sentenced by a military court—he spent five years in prison.
“As Palestinians, our national goal should not be to defeat the Israelis, but to defeat the fear inside of them.”
He does not elaborate on his time in prison, and when asked, says only that “the interrogations were tough. Some things were painful, like hanging me from my hands, but the emotional torture was worse. I was in isolation for 34 days. And I lost my chance for a scholarship to finish high school. I never finished my education.”
After his release, and inspired by Yasser Arafat, then-head of the Fatah political and armed movement who signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, Sanijlawi rose from grassroots activism to the position of head of International Relations in the Supreme Fatah committee, and became part of what was known as the “Fatah Young Guard.” Talking about this period, he sighs. “Those were different times, and I made a choice, like Arafat, to understand Israelis and commit myself to peace. We arranged meetings with Israeli activists, including members of the Likud. We were hopeful.”
Hiba, 56, was also part of that group of activists and, like Sanijlawi, sighs when talking about that time. Today she owns a business in the West Bank, and speaks with me on condition that she not be identified by her last name..
“There was so much positive energy then,” she recalls. “But it’s all gone now. Israel jailed or exiled most of the Fatah Young Guard, the corrupt Palestinian Authority will not let anyone move into positions of new leadership and Hamas only offers brutal revenge and death with no hope. We have no voice, and most of us have moved abroad, are in jail, or are just burned out and trying to live our lives, under the occupation.”
“I really admire Samer,” Hiba continues. “He still has the energy to try to change Palestinian society. Abbas will never bring peace.”
Nivine Sandouka, 42, says that she was too young during the era of the Oslo Accords to understand politics, but remembers the atmosphere of hope. An East Jerusalemite feminist peace activist, Sandouka is Regional Chief of Staff with the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), an umbrella organization of Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations. “Abbas cut down the Fatah Young Guard and my generation never even had a chance to mature politically. Maybe people from that First Intifada generation, like Samer, who are both ideological and pragmatic, can reenergize a creative, democratic Palestinian society that could make peace–but of course, only if the Israelis were willing to put an end to the occupation.”
Sanijlawi says he would accept “any solution that provides me, as a Palestinian, with individual and collective equality. At this point, a two-state solution seems the most likely, but Palestine and Israel cannot be rigidly separated and there must be cooperation between them. I am sure that a solution can even be found for the settlements, something, maybe, like the way that Jordan leased land to Israel.”
But first, he insists, Abbas and his government must be replaced. “This guy [Abbas] was elected for a four-year term—19 years ago. Even after the violence on October 7 and the months of death and destruction in Gaza, he hasn’t addressed his own people once. If he cannot even offer his own people hope, what hope can he offer the Israelis?”
He continues, forcefully. “Abbas rules through authoritarianism, totalitarianism and corruption. For peace to happen, we need to replace these politics of oppression with freedom and hope.”
Sanijlawi “would close useless Palestinian embassies throughout the world and open Palestinian consulates in Israeli neighborhoods. I would talk to the Israelis by listening to them.”
He is angry at the American government, too. “Abbas is still standing only because Israeli intelligence and the CIA think he protects the security mechanism in the West Bank that the Israelis need. Americans think they are gods whose wishes must be obeyed by all. Biden publicly objects to the democratically elected government in Israel yet continues to support a 90-year-old president who re-elects himself and is hated by all the Palestinians.”
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The next step, he says, would be to achieve reconciliation with Israelis, even before reaching a political settlement. Reconciliation, he explains, means that Palestinians and Israelis would develop the ability to speak with and understand each other, even if they do not agree. “As Palestinians, our national goal should not be to defeat the Israelis, but to defeat the fear inside of them. Once we understand each other’s pains and fears, we can think about the concessions that we must make in order to move forward. A successful Palestinian state will become the best ally for Israel—so the best potential partner for peace in Israel is the Israeli people.”
If he had been in power, on October 7, 2023, Sanijlawi says, “At 7:30 am, I would have disregarded protocol and knocked on the Israeli Prime Minister’s door, offered my condolences, and condemned Hamas. Then I would have said, ‘Let’s build an international coalition to get rid of Hamas and to provide the Israelis with what they now need for their security and to build their sense of safety and to provide the Palestinians with a secure, democratic state.”
That, he says, is what King Hussein of Jordan did in 1997, when he flew his own plane to the gritty working-class town of Beit Shemesh, and humbly asked for the families’ forgiveness after a Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of school girls, killing seven and injuring five, all of them aged 13-14.
But instead of noble gestures like Hussein’s, he continues, the Palestinians pursue a “whiney, broken strategy. Abbas is trying to push Israel into a corner on the international stage, but what’s the point of scoring votes in the UN General Assembly? Why do I need to travel 10,000 kilometers to Washington, when I have the Israelis 10 kilometers from here?! The breakthrough for us will never be via Washington, but via Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I would close useless Palestinian embassies throughout the world and open Palestinian consulates in Israeli neighborhoods. I would talk to the Israelis by listening to them.”
In this regard, he comments on pro-Palestinian activism abroad. “I appreciate the solidarity that people abroad are showing the Palestinians, but many of them are misguided. Tearing down the pictures of the hostages, praising what happened on October 7th, calling for the eradication of Israel–that is not pro-Palestinian. It is not pro-Palestinian to deny the humanity of the Israelis. That makes us inhuman. I don’t want a state founded on the murder of more than 1,200 innocent Israelis.”
Regional alliances, which he believes would protect the Palestinians from attack and oblige the Palestinians to protect other countries, are a crucial component of his program. Because of regional alliances, he explains, Jordan protected Israel during Iran’s recent attacks. “The Jordanians know Israel will be there for them if they are attacked. These regional dynamics guarantee stability and create a positive mutual dependency.”
Sanijlawi devotes much of his time to meeting with Israelis of all political and religious persuasions.
“I sometimes joke with Jewish Israelis that I know them better than they know themselves,” he quips. “I’ll meet with anyone – right, left, or center – but they [Jewish Israelis] don’t talk to each other. And in jail, I learned to speak Hebrew fluently, so I am also better connected to Israelis than many American Jews are.”
As part of his efforts at reconciliation, in February, 2024, Sanijlawi visited Kfar Aza, one of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on October 7.
“I went to Kfar Aza because, as a Palestinian, I must apologize to the Israelis. If I don’t condemn what is done in my name, then I am supporting it. There is no justification for what Hamas did on October 7. We can’t blame the occupation—we, too, have had opportunities and we have made terrible choices..
“In Kfar Aza, I could see Gaza burning, and I could hear the bombings. But what is happening in Gaza is the Israelis’ responsibility; what happened on October 7 is the Palestinians’ responsibility. Killing a child in Kfar Aza or in Gaza—forget the comparisons and numbers! We cannot justify the killing of even one child by blaming the other side.”
To move forward towards any solution, he says, the Israeli army must immediately withdraw from Gaza and the hostages must be released. Then, he repeats, Abbas must be removed, based on consultation with all Palestinian forces, including those who oppose Fatah.
“The new, democratic Palestinian leadership will invest time and resources in rebuilding trust and confidence with Israeli political elites in a speedy top-down process to develop new security arrangements, including an Arab transitional force to secure Gaza’s borders and control those who wish to threaten either Palestinians or Israelis.”
It would also have to employ experts from all over the world to find solutions for the more than two million Gazans, who have no drinking water, food or housing. He estimates reconstruction will cost $70-$80 billion, almost all of it to be donated by foreign governments.
Some of his ideas come across as less than fully pragmatic. For instance, he hopes that Hamas will transform into a new, demilitarized political party that adopts the two-state solution. And how to prevent the “old” Hamas from making a comeback? “We jumpstart the reconstruction because that will bring employment and stability. When Gazans see that something new is replacing the destruction that Hamas brought about, their thinking will shift from seeking revenge to using their talents for something constructive for themselves and the future.”
If Hamas doesn’t resign, he contends, Palestinians must form a new political body in Gaza, charged with appointing a temporary president and government, which would have to be recognized by the international community, donor countries, and Israel.
Readily, Sanijlawi makes several suggestions regarding alternative leaders, among them Mohamad Dahlan, Nasser al-Qidwa and imprisoned Marwan Barghouti who, he maintains, could revitalize Fatah or create a new, liberal democratic party. Dahlan is considered an influential political leader who has declared support for democratic reforms in Palestine and negotiations with Israel; Abbas had him expelled from Fatah in 2011. Al-Qidwa, nephew of former Palestinian Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat and a former PA diplomat now living in the U.S., was also ousted from Fatah. Barghouti, with whom Sanijlawi is personally and politically allied, could unify both Fatah and Hamas, and is widely considered the most popular candidate to succeed Abbas. But it is unlikely that Israel will agree to his release at any time in the near future, since he is serving five life-term prison sentences for murder of Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
Would Sanijlawi run for office? “Of course,” he answers firmly. “I am a political activist and I certainly have political aspirations.”
With a political resume that includes time in prison, grassroots recognition, and high-ranking alliances, Sanijlawi might indeed be a credible candidate.
But how credible and popular are his positions? A survey released in June by the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research shows that even after the long months of bloodshed and destruction, a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and the October 7 massacre.
Sanijlawi says that “polls are bullshit” and public opinion can change quickly. He presents his own ideological and political change as proof. He was in jail when Arafat announced the Palestinian Declaration of Independence to establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, on 22% of the land. “All of the prisoners turned away immediately away from the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ and embraced the ‘two-state solution’ because we had a leader who presented the people with a concrete plan and with hope.”
Sandouka, the peace activist, says that in the absence of a political horizon, Palestinian positions are unlikely to change. “Humanizing each other is important, of course. But without momentum towards ending the occupation and a political solution, it is meaningless.”
Yet she concludes, “Palestinians yearn for hope and true leadership. If there were a charismatic Palestinian leader who could capture that sense of commitment and pragmatism that Samer talks about — then yes, Palestinian public opinion would change. But that’s a really big ‘if.’”
Top photo: Samer Sanijawi. Photo credit: Reza Green.