Israeli Peace Activist Maoz Inon Lost His Parents on October 7. He’s Calling for an End to War & Occupation. | Democracy Now!

"Today is the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel, when Hamas’s military wing broke out of Israeli-constructed barrier fencing in the Gaza Strip. In the ensuing firefight, an estimated 1,200 people died. About 250 people were taken hostage and brought back to Gaza in a bid to pressure Israel to release some of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners it holds in Israeli custody. While more than half of the hostages were exchanged this way through subsequent deals, Israel’s primary response to the incursion was the launch of a full-scale assault on the already-besieged Gaza Strip. Conservative estimates place the number of Palestinians killed at over 41,000. More recent projections suggest that this number may have reached the hundreds of thousands.

Meanwhile, in Israel, many families of remaining hostages continue to deride Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to accept a ceasefire deal that would return their family members, contending that Netanyahu is exploiting their loved ones and putting them in danger in order to manufacture a regional war. “Those who believe in war, they are naive, because they have been failing again and again and again,” says Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, who has been advocating for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories for the past year. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi, were among those killed on October 7.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza over the weekend. In Lebanon, Israel launched its heaviest bombardment to date on Beirut and the city’s southern suburbs. In Gaza, Israel ordered more than 300,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee ahead of a new Israeli offensive as the official death toll in Gaza nears 42,000 — the numbers are expected to be actually much higher.

Israel’s latest mass evacuation order came on the one-year anniversary of the start of its brutal war on Gaza following Hamas’s attack on October 7th. Almost 1,200 people died in that October 7th attack, and about 250 people were taken hostage, of which some 100 remain in Gaza, though many of them are believed to have died in captivity. Vigils are being held across Israel today with many calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

On Sunday, I reached the Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon. He lost both of his parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, in the October 7th Hamas attack. His parents lived on a kibbutz, a farming collective just north of the Gaza border. They were 78 and 76 years old.

Maoz Inon has spent much of the past year calling for peace. He recently wrote online, quote, “True security will only be achieved when the other side also enjoys security and stability. Morally, we cannot justify the killing of innocent people as part of the fight against terrorism. The harm to hundreds of innocent civilians is neither reasonable nor acceptable. These efforts should bring an end to the war in Gaza, return the hostages, end the occupation, and achieve a political-security agreement alongside reconciliation.”

Maoz has spent the last year working side by side with Palestinian activists. He recently met with the pope. And he also had a side meeting when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress. He and our guest coming up, Aziz Abu Sarah, addressed Democratic congressmembers who refused to attend Netanyahu’s joint congressional address.

We spoke to Maoz Inon just after he addressed one of the largest gatherings yesterday in Tel Avivi.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, thank you for joining us. Our condolences on this first anniversary of the death of your parents last October 7th. Can you share your reflections, as you did on the stage in Tel Aviv that you’ve just come off of, on this painful day?

MAOZ INON: We must move from thoughts, from prayers, from crossing our fingers for the Israelis and Palestinians to we must move to action, because everything I’ve seen coming happened, and even worse. And if we won’t start act now, we’re going to miss. We’re going to miss this year, which was the most bloodiest year in hundred years of conflict. But it can go — can be so much worse, and the numbers of casualties, the amount of suffering, of destruction can reach to a place we cannot imagine, like we could not imagine October 7th the day before.

So, we must move to action, and we must do it now. And we must stop debating who’s right and who’s wrong, if I’m pro-Palestinian or pro-Israelis. If you want the conflict to end, you must support the peacemakers. You must force an immediate ceasefire. You must force a dialogue to release the hostages and Palestinian prisoners. And we must — the world must force a dialogue between Israel to Palestine to Lebanon and the region.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, can you tell us about your parents, how as a result of their deaths a year ago, you became one of the most prominent Israeli peace activists today?

MAOZ INON: My parents were loving parents. They were just supporting and caring for me and my four siblings and for their 11 grandchildren. And in October — now we are in October, and it’s the season my father would sow wheat in the fields. For 60 years, my father was a farmer. For 60 years, he was sowing wheat in the fields of Israel. And it doesn’t matter how devastating the year before was, if it was through floods or a drought. He would always sow again. And I would keep asking him, “Daddy, what are you doing? Why don’t you give up? How come you don’t do something else?” And he would keep telling me, “[inaudible], Maoz, my son, next year will be better. Next year will be better. And I have the agency to make it better.” So, we all have the agency to make the future better.

And I shared it also, so many places, that I had a dream. And in my dream, I saw the path to peace and reconciliation. I saw it in my dreams. And my mom was a very, very talented mandala painter. She painted thousands of mandalas. And from all the thousand mandalas she ever painted, she gave me only one, eight years ago. And there, she wrote, “We can fulfill all our dreams if we’ll have the courage to chase them.” My mom gave me the ability to dream. What, unfortunately, all the current global politicians lack, the ability to dream of a better future. They are just debating and fighting over the past and the present, but they are not building, shaping, envisioning us a better future. So, my mom gave me the possibility to dream and the courage, the courage to chase my dream. And this is what I’m doing. I’m continuing their legacy. This is how they raised me.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, early Sunday, an Israeli strike on a mosque in Gaza killed at least 19 people. Meanwhile, massive explosions have rocked Beirut, marking the most violent night of attacks since Israel started its military offensive against Lebanon late last month. Peace, many fear, is less attainable than ever. What do you think have been the biggest roadblocks to a ceasefire? What is needed now to end the bloodshed?

MAOZ INON: Amy, we are at the footsteps. We are at the footsteps not just of a regional war, of a global war, I’m afraid. But we can choose to hope over beyond this precipice to a better future. And we need to start dialogue, dialogue with our enemies, like the European nations, the founders of the EU, proved, between Italy and France, Germany and Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, only few years after the Second World War, where they were fighting among each other and killing 10 millions of each other. They realized that the only way to prevent the next war is making the enemies of the past into the partners of the future. This is humanity’s legacy. But I don’t know. Those who believe in war, they are naive, because they have been failing again and again and again. So we now must force our leaders, our politicians to give us concrete answers, what is what they are envisioning for the future and how they’re going to take us there. It’s cannot be by bombs.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re about to show clips of The Path Forward, a film that was made about you and your work with the Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah. You lost your parents a year ago. He lost his brother after he was imprisoned by Israel when he was a young man. The activism and work you’ve done together — he reached out to you right after your parents were killed — ultimately meeting with the pope, addressing congressmembers who refused to be there in the joint session of when Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress?

MAOZ INON: It means the world to me. It means the world to me, because we are modeling, Aziz and I, but so many other Israelis and Palestinians, so many others — we are modeling a radical reconciliation. We are modeling a radical better future. And we see how it’s being spread.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that President Biden continues to send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Israel, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

MAOZ INON: And he also said that he’s crossing his fingers for us, for the hostages. I’m not an American citizenship, so I cannot criticize your leaders. And it’s not about blue or red, Republican or Democrat. If the American people and Biden administration are such a good friend of Israel, how can they explain that Israel today is as weak as ever. We are as weak as ever. All our borders are breached. The society from the inside is falling apart. And the hostages are left to die in Gaza. So, if your actions are not effective, it’s not a reason to give up, and it’s definitely not a reason to keep doing the same thing. It’s a reason to change your action. And this what you must — President Biden, you must change your action. You must force a ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does ending the occupation fit into this?

MAOZ INON: That’s a must. Of course, that’s a must. There are two people between the river to the sea. There will be no security and safety to one without the other. There will be no shared — no recognition and acknowledgment to one if not to the other. If there will be no equality and dignity to both people, there will be to none. So, that’s a must. This is something that, again — so, we are waiting. Maybe at the last three months of his term, he will push for a U.N. council resolution to force the end of the occupation. So, now is the time to do it.

AMY GOODMAN: How many of the hostage families feel the way you do?

MAOZ INON: More and more. And again, I can give you numbers of hostages’ families. I can give you numbers of bereaved families from October 7 that keep approaching us and telling me, “Maoz, we are standing with. Maoz, you are right. You were right from the first time.” And the only way — now the discourse is changing to understand and acknowledge that the only way to bring the hostages back is to stop the war. That’s the only way. And we will stop the war, and then they will be able — Hamas will be able to give them oxygen and water and food, and then to start a negotiation. But military pressure is killing them.

AMY GOODMAN: What gives you the most hope as you stand after addressing this largest venue in Tel Aviv on this first anniversary of the death of your parents?

MAOZ INON: I think that we start shifting the discourse. And this is what’s needed, to shift the discourse from war to peace. And when I was — I was saying the same words, Amy, few days after my parents died, that we must stop the war, we must bring the hostages — that should be the first priority — and we must start a peace process. This is what I was saying from day one. But at the beginning, no one was willing to listen to me, in Israel and overseas. And now I have no time in my day and night to answer, to answer and get all those requests to speak, to be interviewed from Israelis and internationally. So we are shifting the discourse.

And we are working very hard. We are working very hard. But I won so many brothers and sisters in the last year. That started with losing my parents. But I won so many brothers and sisters, Palestinian, Israelis, from the international community. And my brothers and sisters, they are not giving me hope; we are making hope together.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, were killed in the October 7th Hamas attack one year ago today.

Coming up, we’ll speak to the man he travels the world with, Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah. Maoz and Aziz are featured in the new documentary The Path Forward. The film’s co-director, the Oscar-nominated Julie Cohen, will also join us. Stay with us."

Israeli Peace Activist Maoz Inon Lost His Parents on October 7. He’s Calling for an End to War & Occupation. | Democracy Now!