Johannes C. van Nieuwkerk
2 min readFeb 5, 2024

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One cannot reliably measure public opinion during war or escalation of a conflict, any deviant opinion makes you a traitor. A vast majority did not support Hamas on the 6th of October see: https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/what-palestinians-really-think-of-hamas-2023-10-26-08-4941.pdf

However, by now there is likely no two-state solution possible any longer, because rebuilding Gaza will take 7-10 years and there is no other place to (temporarily) go to for Gazans than Israel (nobody, including the Gazan population is waiting for a Palestinian exodus) and with the seeded hatred a two-state solution would (without interaction) also not normalize relationships (or alternatively should Israel kick out 700.000 settlers from the West Bank?)...

So either there is a scenario, which I do not hope it will occur, that the IDF opens up the Egyptian border and drives the Palestinians into the Sinai..... with 1,5 million hungry people in Rafah and the complete ignorance of the world, it is not that unthinkable..... the other is to find a way to co-exist....

This starts with a political truce, but then peacebuilding must happen. It means non-violent interaction as equals, this leads to mutual understanding and empathy. It is the only way to replace fear and hatred by trust and solidarity. This is a process starting from the middle between moderate civilians and will make the radical politicians speechless.

See: my (for now utopic) www.canaan.community confederation of communities approach.

There is hope, look at what is currently happening in Ireland.... nobody would ever have thought this to be possible in the past...

www.pax.ngo

www.convergence.ngo

www.canaan.community

https://refival.medium.com/

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