Authors and peace activists recount personal loss and call for grassroots pressure to shift policy away from weapons and toward reconciliation

Moson and Aziz Abasar, authors and organizers, spoke to a packed community forum, recounting personal losses from the October 7 attacks and laying out a five‑part roadmap aimed at promoting reconciliation and political pressure for policy change.

Moson opened by saying he grew up near Gaza, described the day his parents’ house was burned and said his family decided deliberately, shortly after the attack, to reject revenge and instead pursue dialogue and shared work. "We decided to reject revenge," he said, describing seven days of shiva and the decision his family took to break cycles of violence.

Aziz Abasar described his childhood in the West Bank and his brother’s arrest and death, and said those experiences shaped his approach to peacemaking. He told the audience the book The Future Is Peace does not shy from trauma but uses personal stories as a pathway to empathy and joint action.

The speakers presented a five‑chapter road map they said guides their organizing: (1) define a shared vision; (2) amplify peacemaking voices; (3) build coalitions; (4) pursue policy change that redirects investment from weapons to reconciliation programs; and (5) create political will through sustained civic pressure. "We must invest in reconciliation," Aziz said, urging audiences to press international decisionmakers to reduce arms flows and increase funding for civil‑society programs.

They described concrete examples of past work — a guest house in Nazareth that hosted cross‑community events, and plans for an olive‑harvest campaign to bring volunteers to support Palestinian farmers — as tactics that can build daily contact and weaken hardline mobilization. They also cited their meeting with Pope Francis and said language from that meeting later appeared in G7 communications; the speakers told the audience the G7 subsequently set up a small multilateral fund (cited in the discussion as about $3 million across several countries) to support reconciliation projects.

The presentation emphasized nonviolence, long‑term organizing and the need for people in diaspora and civic groups to show up locally. "Hope is an action," a speaker said, urging attendees to convert empathy into repeated, organized acts of solidarity. The session closed with a brief overview of upcoming media (a planned LTV broadcast) and distribution of information via QR codes.