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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guests today have each paid a profound price on opposite sides of a conflict that has lasted more than a century with no signs of stopping.
Chapter 2: What personal losses did the guests experience in the conflict?
One is Israeli. The other is Palestinian. They call themselves brothers. And what brought them together is grief and a decision each of them made about what to do with it. Ma'u Zinan's parents were murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023, among the 1,200 Israelis killed that day and the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust.
In the war that followed, more than 75,000 Palestinians were killed. The U.S. helped arm and funded, and the violence has now spread into Lebanon and Iran. But within days of his parents' murder, Mahouz spoke. His family was not seeking revenge. Instead, they were seeking peace. Those words reached Palestinian peacemaker Aziz Abu Sarra.
Years before, when Aziz was only nine, his own brother had been arrested and tortured in an Israeli military prison for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers. He later died from his injuries, and Aziz says he recognized Mahouz's grief and decided to write him. What grew between them has become a brotherhood, a TED Talk seen by millions, and eventually a journey.
Ten months into the war, the two of them got in a van together and drove for eight days across Israel and Palestine through checkpoints, holy cities, refugee camps, and separation walls. They wrote everything down in a book called The Future is Peace, A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land. Mahouz Inan and Aziz Abu Sarra. Welcome to Fresh Air.
Hi, Tanya. It's great to be here with you. Thank you for having us.
I first want to offer my condolences, Mahouz, on the death of your parents and Aziz, the loss of your brother. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us and sharing your pain. Thank you. Thank you.
For us, sharing the pain is part of our personal healing process. And it's still been going on for Aziz for a few decades and for me nearly three years. And here we are today.
Well, let's spend a moment on what led you to each other. The overwhelming response on October 7th has been rage and retaliation. Israeli cabinet members called for the total destruction of Gaza. And so, Meos, the world would have accepted your rage. You'd lost your parents, and instead you called for peace. Why did you decide to send that as your first message out to the world?
Yes. First, it wasn't just my message. It was a family message agreed between my three sisters, my young brother and myself. And we took it only two days after losing my parents. Every morning of the Shiva, the Shiva is the seven day Jewish morning of the death of a loved one. And on the second morning, it was Monday morning, we were sitting, the five of us, early in the morning.
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Chapter 3: How did Mahouz and Aziz's paths cross after their losses?
We could not see flowers or sand, only blood. And then as we cried and cried, our tears start washing the blood away, purifying the land. And then I've seen a beautiful path on the beautiful land. I could see the path of peace and reconciliation. And I realized that in order to heal myself, and save myself from drowning in an ocean of sorrow and pain. It's not a metaphor.
I was literally drowning in an ocean of sorrow and pain after receiving the horrible news that my boss' parents were burned alive. And I made a decision that in order to heal myself, I must... Take this path.
Chapter 4: What journey did Mahouz and Aziz undertake together?
And a few hours after, I received a message from Aziz. And I immediately realized that I'm not the only one on this path. And now I can say I lost my parents and I lost many of my childhood friends and people I knew my entire life on October 7th. But I also want Aziz. I also want Aziz as a brother.
Mahouz, I mean, we can't overstate the loss that you experienced. And Aziz, I mean, grief has a language that doesn't even need translation. You had been living with the death of your big brother, Tassir, for many years by this moment. He was taken by soldiers in the middle of the night for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers. Can you tell us what happened to him?
Yes, it was Ramadan. We just got up to do the pre-fast meal, and a group of soldiers pounded on our doors, came into my room, which I shared with my brother. Him and I actually shared a bed. Taser is nine years older than me. I'm the youngest, and he's the one just older than me. And they took him for questioning with the allegation that he threw rocks. We didn't know where he was, what
prison with any information about him for quite a while until eventually we figured out that he was being interrogated and eventually confessed to the charges that were assigned to him. He refused to confess in the beginning, and so he was tortured for quite a bit, and it caused significant damage to his health.
When he was released from a prison, 10 months later, soon after, we ended up taking him to a hospital, and he ended up dying from his injuries in the hospital. And it's, like you said, there are no words that can describe it. Important to say, like Mao said, my brother isn't the only person I know who was killed.
Our next-door neighbor just died in being killed, who was Taysir's best friend just soon Before that, my dad's cousin who was killed by settlers a few years after that and other friends and other family members as well. And this is what we know. We tell people all the time, look, you might think this hasn't happened to me. So I didn't have to go through this experience.
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Chapter 5: What themes of grief and healing are explored in their conversation?
I don't feel like you feel. And we say, you think it's never going to happen to you until it does. Don't wait until something horrible happens to someone in your family to wake up and realize none of us are immune. And so it's very important that people realize every day we wait endangers all of us.
You two have turned all of this understanding of grief into this journey, this book that chronicles eight days traveling across the land that made you both who you are. There is this moment in the book where you all visit the gravesite of your grandmother, Ma'uz. Is that right? And Aziz, you place a stone there. That's a Jewish tradition of remembrance.
For a Palestinian to do that, from my understanding, on that land in the middle of this war is kind of astounding. And I want to know what was moving through you in that moment.
I didn't think it was astounding for me. I thought it was the normal thing to do. I think you build this brotherhood and you get to know each other. And that's what Maoz and I did together. and you recognize each other.
And when you start recognizing and caring for each other, this kind of action becomes normal because I think one of the most things we lack today, this is true in America, this is true in Israel and Palestine, is a bit more empathy, is a bit more recognition, is a bit more kindness, is a bit more, I want to show you and I want to respect you. I want to show you some respect. And that's what I did.
His grandmother It is the right thing to use the Jewish tradition in me, you know, honoring my friend and his family. It didn't feel that I was, to me at least in the moment, it didn't feel that I was doing something incredible or something astounding. It felt that I was doing what was right.
I think a lot of people listening will want to believe what you two represent is possible. But then there's probably also a thought, are you two just exceptional people with an extraordinary capacity for forgiveness? Are you all the exception and not the rule? What do you say to that?
We have been trapped in a century-long conflict. We are now the fourth generation that are traumatized, that are in pain, that suffer in loss. And unfortunately, we are led by naive politicians that... falsely lying to us that walls will bring us, will defend us, that war will bring security and bombs will bring quiet.
But this story proves again and again all the time throughout human civilization that it never works. The only way to achieve security and safety is through dialogue, through negotiation, by building trust, by working together. But there are many like us, Israelis and Palestinians.
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