I had a heart attack last week while on my way to participate in an Israeli-Palestinian-European meeting in Warsaw. The heart attack came at 1:00 a.m., before the conference had even opened. I spent a week in a Polish public hospital where I received top-notch medical care, fully comparable to Israel’s best hospitals. I underwent a catheterization procedure and had a stent inserted into one of my arteries.
It was, without question, the worst week of my life. But now I am home.
The Israeli insurance company, PassportCard, handled everything professionally, and their medical team stayed with me throughout the entire ordeal.
During a long conversation with a young woman cardiology resident in the hospital, I tried to understand how and why I had reached the point of suffering a heart attack. True, I am no longer a young man – I actually celebrated my 70th birthday in the hospital. But until now, I considered myself relatively healthy.
I eat a classic Mediterranean diet. I do not smoke. I drink very little – a bit of wine on Shabbat. I exercise almost every day: 45 minutes on the treadmill, the length of a Netflix episode, walking six kilometers per hour on a 10-degree incline. I have more energy than my children, who are in their 30s.
Living under stress
As we discussed my life, the answer became painfully simple: stress.
How many people living between the river and the sea are not living under constant stress? Which of us – Israelis or Palestinians – has not experienced years of trauma, and now deep post-trauma? Of course, some have suffered far more than others. Gazans above all. Then Israelis living near Gaza and Lebanon and the Palestinians in the West Bank, and then the rest of us.
As for me, since October 7, I was deeply engaged behind the scenes in efforts to secure the release of Israeli hostages and to end the war. I was in constant contact with hostage families, with Gazans I have known for years, with Hamas leaders, with Israeli officials involved in negotiations, and later with the Americans, Egyptians, and Qataris engaged in mediation efforts.
For almost the entire duration of the Israel-Hamas War, I did not have a single truly restful night of sleep. I woke up constantly thinking about the hostages, about Gaza, about all of us.
I never thought of myself as someone living with trauma. My way of coping with extreme pressure has always been through action – by becoming more engaged, more determined, more relentless in trying to find solutions to the problem. Every new idea became another initiative to bring the hostages home and end the war.
Since the official end of the war, my energy has been focused on pushing all sides toward the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan. Those who know me know that once I commit to something, I do not let go.
Physically, I knew I had gained weight over the past three years, though unsuccessfully I tried to lose it. But I never felt stress in a physical sense, or perhaps I simply ignored it. I rarely got sick. I had no unusual pains beyond those that naturally accompany age. At no point did I truly recognize how much my health was deteriorating. Like too many of us, I ignored the flashing warning signs in my blood test results – and so, apparently, did my doctor.
What happened to me should not come as a surprise. We all absorb stress, trauma, and post-trauma differently. My body responded with a heart attack. For others, the damage is emotional, psychological, or behavioral. But I do not believe that any person living in this land is untouched by the physical and emotional consequences of the abnormal reality in which we live.
For years, we have spoken about two traumatized peoples trapped in a conflict fueled by competing victimhood. The need to claim exclusive ownership over suffering has prolonged this conflict far too long.
Perhaps the road to healing begins when we recognize not only our own pain but also the pain we have inflicted on others.
I have always believed that empathy and compassion are stronger forces than hatred and revenge. Hatred deepens trauma and feeds stress. Empathy strengthens the soul and creates the possibility of reconciliation.
I have lived through enough decades of this conflict. During all these years, I personally have lived in peace with my Palestinian neighbors. I am not blind to the violence or to the losses. I have lost too many people close to me because of this conflict. But I refuse to allow those losses to blind me to the suffering of people on the other side.
My life’s work has been helping both peoples understand the futility of endless war. It is painfully obvious that no one achieves victory through the killing of others.
Neither we nor the Palestinians will ever truly be free until both peoples are free and secure – each living peacefully in their own state beside the other.
And perhaps, eventually, even the language of “separation” will give way to the understanding that cooperation between two states and two peoples is the only sustainable future.
There is no other way. And I refuse to accept that our destiny is to live forever with this level of stress, trauma, and post-trauma.
The writer is the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization and the co-head of the Alliance for Two States.