‘Bombs won’t bring quiet’: The antiwar Israeli whose parents died on October 7

Maoz Inon, 49, was a businessman for years. But everything changed on October 7, 2023, when his parents were killed during Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

Since then, Inon has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war on Gaza, founding several tourism initiatives focused on peace-building.

The Israeli entrepreneur and activist shared with Al Jazeera his views on the war, the Israeli government and the future of what he calls the Palestinian-Israeli peace movement. His account has been edited for length and clarity.

Al Jazeera: Can you talk about what a year with the Gaza war has been like as an Israeli?

Maoz Inon: I was among the first ones to call to stop the war even before we started. And I was crying publicly for all the life that was lost. What we see now, it’s not Judaism. It’s not Zionism. It’s a mutation. It’s a mutation that took over.

And it’s a mutation that is creating destruction within Judaism and Jewish people.

We don’t need your prayers. We don’t need your thoughts. We don’t even need you to cross our fingers for us, which is what [United States] President [Joe] Biden is doing.

We need your action. If the entire international community won’t take action now, we’re going to witness a re-creation of world war. We’re going to face one million casualties between the river and the sea.

So we must offer an alternative. And so that’s what we are doing together, the Palestinian-Israeli peace movement, to create an identity that is based on equality, shared acknowledgement, recognition, reconciliation, healing, security and safety. And it’s possible.

Al Jazeera: The mutation – can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Inon: Judaism is about caring for others. It’s the idea that you should love strangers because you are a stranger. That’s what Judaism means to me.

And now it’s become a mutation about Jewish supremacy. It’s about practising revenge, which is completely against Judaism.

And Zionism was about building a homeland for the Jewish people. It wasn’t about erasing the Palestinian people. It wasn’t about displacing the Palestinian people.

So they are doing exactly the opposite of Judaism and Zionism.

This is what I’m calling a mutation, and it’s killing our society from the inside. It’s like a cancer that’s going in, spreading all over the body. It will literally kill the state of Israel.

And it’s already killing us. It killed my parents. We cannot cure it by ourselves. We must have support.

If your best friend is drunk, you won’t give him the car. The international community and those who consider themselves best friends of Israel, that’s exactly what they are doing. They are bringing Israel to destruction.

Al Jazeera: You’ve been a very antiwar voice from the start. Has what you feared come true? 

Inon: No, my fear is that it’s only the beginning and we’re going to face a million casualties. And that’s where we are going. This is my worst nightmare.

And that’s what I’m telling the best friends of Israel, mostly Germany and the US. If you are such good friends of Israel and pro-Israel, you must realise that in order to achieve security and safety to the people of Israel, we must achieve security and safety for the people of Palestine.

It goes both ways.

There are two people on this land. Between the river to the sea, seven million Palestinians, seven million Israelis. No one is going anywhere. But we must learn to live together.

And if we cannot do it by ourselves, you must help us.

Inon says he has been against the Gaza war from the start [Courtesy of Maoz Inon]

Al Jazeera: How do you feel about the government that represents Israel, having seen what’s happened in Gaza?

Inon: The Israeli government is first accountable for the death of my parents. They betrayed my parents. They promised them security and safety, and they totally failed. And now they are waging a war of revenge.

But in order to create a future, we must forgive the past and the present. So I took a decision to forgive those who killed my parents. I have decided to forgive Hamas. I forgive the Israeli government for everything they are, what they have done and what they are doing now.

But I won’t forget.

Al Jazeera: Finally, it does seem that the ball is now in Israel’s court in terms of launching a limited operation into Lebanon, continuing with strikes on Gaza and whether they will retaliate with Iran. What do you want to say to the Israeli government, practically, that can end this? 

Inon: Those who believe that bombs will bring quiet, that walls will bring defence, and that war will bring security are naive because that has failed all throughout human history.

The only way to achieve security and safety is through dialogue, conflict resolution and peace.

But the Israeli government doesn’t care about this. They care about Jewish supremacy between the river to the sea.

They are not listening to God. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about Palestinians.

They don’t care about anything but themselves. So there is no point in speaking to them.

But there is a point in building an alternative. We don’t need your advice. We don’t need your prayers. We need your action. And now it’s time to act before it’s going to be too late for at least one million people. If we act, we can make this war the last war.