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What if your family lived in Gaza or Tel Aviv? What if your parents are both Palestinian and Israeli? These are not abstract questions – they reflect the lived reality of many who are caught in the tragic entanglement of Israel and Palestine. The human losses of this decades-long struggle is immense, and groups of people are all too often reduced to political symbols or stereotypes. Personal experiences and academic insights alternated during the 'Palestine Futures' meeting on April 7, 2024.

The meeting, organized by the theme 'Institutions for Open Societies', gave space to voices from different disciplines and backgrounds around the question: what is a possible future for Israel and Palestine? There was (of course) no simple answer. During the evening, several people emphasized that imagining a better future must start with recognizing that all people are equal. That violations of human rights and cruelty to living beings must be fought anywhere in the world and that institutions have a role to play in this. With our interdisciplinary research we research several societal changes in this light. And, as Sobhi Khatib put it beautifully, "a future without justice is no future at all."

A crisis of imagination and hope

"How can we imagine a future when we envy the dead?" This paraphrased quote from a panelist captured the deep desperation that permeated the discussion. Another told how green spaces in Gaza had been turned into rubble and how people are imprisoned for ideas. A story of a father who once believed in peace, attended the Madrid Conference in 1991 with hope, but died in depression, underlined the generational erosion of faith. But in the midst of this despair, the panel was not devoid of hope — instead, it framed hope as something that was attacked, shaped, and constrained by the circumstances it seeks to transcend.

One speaker turned the search inward, seeing the ongoing war as a "fundamental moment" for rethinking Western moral codes — especially since these codes go back to the memory of the Holocaust and postcolonial guilt. When did colonizers voluntarily give up their privileges? Justice requires (collective) action. Another speaker criticized the one-sided European focus on the wrongdoings against Jews during the Holocaust, claiming with clear words for equality for all people: "never again, not in my name".

We cannot rewrite the past, but the past does not determine the future either. Yet to transcend this stalemate we need to look beyond the current dominant narratives, propaganda and stereotyping. What systems can we address if we want to imagine transformation and hope?

Looking for Futures: Stories, Ethics and Beautiful People

From the vulnerability and pain, panel members and participants suggested different paths for the future, from recalibrating the ethical compass, collective therapy to the courage to talk to each other. One of the suggestions was to move beyond monolithic frameworks – whether Zionism, nationalism or resistance – and embrace humanitarian values, power structures and the underlying dynamics of the situation. A historian of Jewish political movements emphasized how multiple and even contradictory these movements are, and suggested that attention to internal diversity can help to create new (political) narratives.

Another panelist shared stories of "beautiful people" -- individuals who are symbols of transformation and hope: a Palestinian Jew who gives refugee children self-respect and confidence; an Israeli academic who denounces Israel's occupation and propaganda; and a man who grew up in Zionism and was committed to protecting a Palestinian community in the West Bank. The question then arose: where do we find (new) human symbols of transformation?

Disputing the frame

Critical questions were also asked. Who are the 'we' who imagine the future? What is the "here" from which we start? For some, 'here' meant the internal moral reckoning of Europe; for others, it meant the colonial structure of Israel-Palestine. There were also question marks about why the meeting was not about the role of Utrecht University as an institution. Others questioned the academic mode itself – the detachment, the structure, the tone. Can we theorize a genocide? Is an academic form of engagement the main direction to discuss justice?

Social Justice

However, there is no turning back. Justice can't wait for the perfect moment with the perfect group. If we want to move forward, we have to remain critical and to keep asking each other uncomfortable questions, and to be accountable. As engaged citizens and academics, we want to hold out hope that a future is possible in which everyone can live in dignity and openness, not only here but also in Israel and Palestine. This meeting was, in our view, a first step. It marked hope to do something themselves and not let the future be written exclusively by those in power. Everyone has a role to play in the pursuit of social justice. You just need to find yours.