Strange Bedfellows

Can Israeli settlers and Israeli leftists find common ground and promote a solution that recognizes both Palestinian and Jewish national rights?

For the past several years, an organization of Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank has been meeting regularly to dialogue, promote nonviolence, and lay the foundations for reconciliation. The group – Roots/Judur/Shorashim – believes that human interaction based on respect, empathy, and recognizing the other side’s dignity and belonging to the entire land of Israel/Palestine can help break the political impasse.

But without a credible and defined political vision anchoring them, do such people-to-people efforts actually encourage a breakthrough? Or is true Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation impossible until political leaders reach an agreement that ends the occupation and the dominance of one side over the other?