Recognizing Our Common Humanity: An Interview With Sari Nusseibeh

“Palestinians cannot hope to get a fair deal in negotiations with Israelis,” claims philosopher Sari Nusseibeh in response to Israel’s desire to become an Empire in the Middle East. The former President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, Nusseibeh is well-known for having had a major role in the Arab-Israeli peace process. Considered a Palestinian moderate, Nusseibeh was deeply invested in some of the organizing during the first intifada, and he was also the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) representative in Jerusalem from 2001-2002. Some of Nusseibeh’s positions, however, were unpopular with the Palestinian populace. For example, his suggestion for Palestinians to drop the demand for a full right of return drew so much outrage that Al-Awda network petitioned for Yasser Arafat to relieve Nusseibeh of his position as the PLO’s representative in Jerusalem. In addition to his peace efforts, Nusseibeh has published widely, especially on topics such as Islamic philosophy and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Together, these factors contributed to Nusseibeh previously being recognized as one of the world’s most influential intellectuals. Recently, I had the chance to interview Nusseibeh. While understandably pessimistic due to both perpetual Israeli escalation across the Middle East and the current genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Nusseibeh nevertheless delivers indispensable insight on topics such as student advocacy, the two-state solution, and the peace process. To eventually achieve peace, Nusseibeh claims, we must recognize our common humanity.

Richard McDaniel (RM): In What is a Palestinian State Worth? (2011), you wrote that you “dread[ed] what an increasingly radicalized future may bring.” In a 2023 interview conducted with you after October 7th, you stated that “the future seems even darker than the present.” In recent months, Israel has dramatically escalated the conflict, especially with the recent assassination of Hassan Nasrallah by an Israeli airstrike. Have your feelings changed at all? What do you think the future holds?

Sari Nusseibeh (SN): I feel the situation is much worse today than it has ever been, Israel seeking to achieve the status of an Empire in the region, thereby enfolding the Palestinian issue in a larger war that has now taken precedence. In these circumstances Palestinians cannot hope to get a fair deal in negotiations with Israelis, and their basic or national grievances will continue to fester unaddressed.

RM: You advocated for a two-state solution for much of your adult life. However, because of Israeli settlements on the land where a Palestinian state could have been established, you have given up on the two-state solution. In What is a Palestinian State Worth? (2011), you argued that Israelis and Palestinians must at least consider a binational Jewish state, in which Israel would annex the occupied territories and Palestinians would be given full civil (though not political) rights of citizenship. At the time, you wrote that this proposition is better than either occupation or a non-contiguous Palestinian state. Do you still believe that this proposal should be considered by Israelis and Palestinians? If not, are there any realistic solutions to the conflict right now?

SN: I don’t see a prospect for a realistic solution in the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is less likely today than I felt it was 15 years ago. I suggested then that, in the absence of such a solution, and the proven failure of a make-believe process ostensibly leading to such a solution, a less-perfect approach may be to exchange basic individual human rights for national rights and to provide Palestinians with all such rights, less those that are political. An arrangement such as this could be regarded as an interim one, pending a time in the future when politics can be negotiated, either for two states or some form of a single entity. This provides Israel with the upper hand in the meantime, but it ensures for the Palestinians a safe level-base that preserves for them future political options. Given that Israel has the upper hand in the occupied territories, it is an arrangement that Israel can one-sidedly enact, and bypassses therefore the need for a fake or prolonged negotiation.

RM: In What is a Palestinian State Worth? (2011), you wrote that you saw “the student population as the best agency for political change.” What do you think about the U.S. student divestment protests, which occurred primarily during the last academic semester? Have their efforts made a difference?

SN: I do not feel competent to judge the student movement in the US. Nor is the dynamic of the student situation in the occupied territories constant. When I referred to this it was primarily in the context of the days leading up to, and including the first intifada. The scene has now changed, first as a result of the growing militarization of the confrontation with the occupation, which deprived civil disobedience from its natural agents; but second since and because of the assumption by the Palestinian Authority of power in the occupied territories and the assimilation of student activists into the PA’s different security organs. I feel that the independent ‘student power’ that existed in the past has now dissipated. Yet, the underlying philosophy of my statement with regard to students in general still stands, as they in general constitute a front-line in any street action against authoritarian government. It is their wholesome education as beacons of human values that keeps the hope aglow for standing up against injustice and drawing the rest of society behind them, especially where – as in our case – the demographic pyramid in the population is bottom-heavy.

RM: In What is a Palestinian State Worth? (2011), you wrote that people in the region “are encouraged to live in a two-state fantasy bubble, continuing to believe in what is marketed to us as the ‘peace process,’ even as the prospects for a two-state solution are fast dwindling before our eyes.” Politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, at certain points in their career, have advocated for a two-state settlement, even while they have simultaneously escalated the conflict through unrelenting Israeli support in arms. Is the two-state solution sometimes used by politicians as a form of propaganda in order to give the illusion that peace is ahead and that Israel desires peace?

SN: We must remember that the ‘two-state solution’ became popularized among Israelis and Palestinians and a buzz-word in international politics only in recent history, or after and as a result of the first intifada; but its prospects soon began to fade as negotiations grinded on without delivering their promise. In time, Palestinians came to look upon them as a distraction from a growing process of Israeli rule, Israelis to see them as a pointless pursuit, and world leaders to use them as convenient lip-service in lieu of tangible deeds. U.S. leaders may now think that a version of such a solution could be forced on Palestinians after Israel mops up all resistance to it in the region. I am not sure that this venue for reaching an genuine Israeli-Palestinian understanding will be successful, and it will leave the real issue of whose land this is and how it can be justly shared unresolved.

RM: In What is a Palestinian State Worth? (2011), you beautifully wrote that “respect for and preservation of human life, rather than violation of life in the name of any cause, should be what guides both Israelis and Palestinians in their pursuit of a just peace.” You maintained that Israelis and Palestinians must acknowledge the humanness of individuals from the other side, rather than associate individuals from the other side with what you called “meta-biological entities,” or national movements, political parties, and so on. Considering the current conflict, are there any realistic steps that should be taken in order for Israelis and Palestinians to collectively cultivate common human values? Or has your thinking regarding a path to peace changed?

SN: I don’t believe a sustainable human coexistence is possible in the absence of a recognition of our common humanity. This does not mean to underrate our contingent cultural and other differences. But these, in the form of ideologies or religions or societal and national norms, should not blind us as groups and individuals to what essentially binds us. When we are so blinded, it becomes imperative that we work to remind ourselves who we are. That is why peace-building as a positive pursuit rather than simply as an emergency post-procedure or a fire-fighting operation is important. In our deformed Israeli-Palestinian situation this can be expressed in many ways, down to how a chance interaction between two individuals is carried out between them. But it can also be expressed in how each side represents the other to itself, or represents itself to its own side through education. It can also be pursued by building institutional and societal bridges between the two sides, even when no such bridges exist at the formal levels. Care here must be taken that such efforts not be misused by one side or the other as a sign of co-option, thus emptying them of their purpose. But significant steps can also be taken at the formal levels: at one stage in the 90s there was an effort on the part of some Israelis to get Shimon Peres to address the Palestinian Legislative Council on the nakba and refugee question–essentially to express a recognition of Palestinian grief. Assuming that today’s war stops then much will need to be done in order to deflate its scarring psychological impact on the people on both sides.

RM: In a 2014 Haaretz article, you wrote that you could “easily imagine” Israel disintegrating from within in the future. In a 2020 article for Tablet Magazine, you wrote that you could “foresee a deconstruction of [the Israeli] body-politic at least beginning to make itself felt within the next 30 years.” Has the current war strengthened your belief that Israel’s destruction is on the horizon? Do you hope for it?

SN: As it is evolving, Zionism’s trajectory carries its own self-destructive seeds within it. But this future for it is not inevitable, and its avoidance can be ensured through a just settlement with the Palestinians. I would personally be quite content with such a settlement, though my philosophical inclination is for a secular democracy for all concerned. I realize though this is not what the majorities on both sides want or are ready for, and that positing it therefore as a political strategy is not only unrealistic but it can also undercut other viable options. Even so, I believe religions and ethnicities – as I said earlier – should be the spiritual rather than the political homes of people, even if some form of two-state or separation deal is reached between Israelis and Palestinians.

Richard McDaniel is an undergraduate political science student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. A stern libertarian with a passion for defending free speech and understanding international relations, Richard is most invested in researching why a two-state settlement was never reached in the Israel-Palestine conflict.