Who Maoz's Parents Were

Maoz Inon lost his parents on October 7th. They were in their safe room, 200 meters from the Gaza border wall, when Hamas came. Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother — the person who raised him — after he was tortured in an Israeli prison during the First Intifada. Two days after October 7th, Aziz wrote Maoz a letter. Maoz wrote back. That exchange became a friendship, a journey across the Holy Land, and now a New York Times bestselling book: "The Future Is Peace."

This is not a polemic. It is not a policy paper. It is an invitation — to sit with grief that belongs to both sides, to doubt the narratives handed to you, and to imagine that the conflict will end. Because, as Maoz says, it will. The only question is when and how many more lives are lost before it does.

Yonit and Jonathan talk with them about Hamas, religious extremism, on what peace would actually look like, on whether Israelis have any reason to trust again. 

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/0nJ3q4kvVPs

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Intro — who are Aziz and Maoz?

[00:47] Maoz: the last phone call with his parents on October 7th

[02:57] Aziz: losing a brother who was his parent

[04:34] The kind of people Maoz's parents were

[08:12] Aziz reaches out — what the letter said

[09:47] Why Aziz wanted to learn Hebrew

[14:23] Are they the minority? How do you make peace mainstream?

[16:36] What would peace actually look like?

[20:18] Yonit pushes: what about Hamas, what about religion?

[24:44] The travelogue — hospitals, holy sites, and shared grief

[26:38] Do Israelis and Palestinians have to give up their narratives?

[33:27] What do Aziz and Maoz still disagree on?

[38:48] Closing — the book, the journey, the invitation

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