We are publishing this opinion piece as a contribution to the debate on possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
People often introduce me as a peace activist. I accept the description—but I reject the definition most people attach to it.
Peace is not the absence of war.
That definition is too thin, too passive, too late.
Peace is not what remains after violence ends. It is what prevents violence from becoming inevitable.
Peace is the active creation of order through trust, empathy and voluntary cooperation. War also seeks order—but it imposes it through coercion, violence and fear.
Both aim for stability. Only one preserves humanity.
Seen this way, peace is not an abstract ideal reserved for diplomats. It is the invisible system that makes ordinary life possible.
Every conversation is a negotiation.
Every friendship, every marriage, every workplace and every marketplace depends on the same human abilities: listening, curiosity, honesty, respect and the willingness to recognize another person’s humanity.
Trade is perhaps the clearest expression of peace. Goods, services and ideas circulate because people negotiate rather than conquer. Value is discovered through dialogue rather than imposed by force.
This is the path I believe in.
But what happens when negotiation breaks down?
When scarcity is met with indifference, when humiliation replaces dignity and grievances accumulate without hope of resolution, frustration gradually transforms into a profound sense of injustice. Violence begins to appear as the only language still capable of being heard.
And injustice immediately raises another question.
Who decides?
The moment we feel wronged, we begin searching for a judge.
A parent.A king.
A government.A court.God.
Someone whose authority both sides recognize.
Here lies the paradox.
Justice itself cannot exist without peace.
A court functions only because people first agree to recognize the court.A judge has authority only because society agrees on the law.Law itself rests upon a prior agreement about legitimacy.
Justice is not the beginning of peace.
It is one of peace’s greatest achievements.
This is why conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian one become so tragically difficult.
There is no universally accepted authority.No common legal framework.No judge recognized by everyone.
Each community experiences its own suffering as undeniable truth while doubting the legitimacy of the other’s claims.
In such circumstances, justice itself becomes another battlefield.
Words like freedom and genocide carry immense moral weight. Yet prolonged conflict has transformed them from instruments of understanding into banners of identity. They are no longer invitations to dialogue but rallying cries for opposing camps.
Social media has become humanity’s largest courtroom—a place where accusations spread instantly, verdicts are delivered emotionally, and sentences are enforced not by law but by governments, armies, terrorist organizations, online crowds and public outrage.
Perhaps this is where peace activism has lost its way.
Perhaps our task is not to win the courtroom before peace exists, but to create the conditions in which justice can one day become possible.
This does not mean ignoring injustice.
Quite the opposite.
Every victim deserves dignity.Every wound deserves healing.Every loss deserves recognition.
But where no common judge exists, demanding a final verdict before beginning reconciliation may condemn both peoples to endless conflict.
This is why I believe mediation—and the principles behind Alternative Dispute Resolution—offer an overlooked model for international conflicts.
Courts determine who is right.
Mediation asks how people can live together afterward.
That is a profoundly different question.
I often think of the principle of no-fault insurance.
After an accident, compensation does not always wait until every disagreement over responsibility has been resolved. Society understands that healing is too important to postpone indefinitely.
Perhaps humanity needs a similar principle.
History may continue arguing over blame for generations.
Children cannot wait that long.
Families cannot wait that long.
Peace cannot wait that long.
Who, then, becomes the insurer?
Ultimately, all of us.
Just as no nation can confront climate change alone, no people can repair the human consequences of war alone. International cooperation is not an act of charity; it is an acknowledgment of our shared responsibility for the fragile world we inhabit. That was one of the founding aspirations of the United Nations. Despite its failures, the answer is not to abandon that aspiration, but to strengthen it.
Peace does not begin when humanity finally agrees on history.
Peace begins when we agree on how to handle disagreement without turning every grievance into another battlefield.
Justice is indispensable.
But justice itself requires peace.
That is the peace I choose to advocate.
Achinoam Nini, Gil Dor
