‘Once the fighting gets intense, it's almost impossible to do peacebuilding’

Monday marks one year since the Hamas-led series of attacks on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza, which has unfolded along with a rise in settler attacks in the occupied West Bank. The spiralling violence has spurred renewed calls for a two-state solution. FRANCE 24 spoke to John Marks, the founder of Search for Common Ground, an organisation that has worked on peacebuilding in the region for decades, to find out how future efforts might unfold.

Search for Common Ground began working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1991. It brought together former officials from Israel, Arab countries, Iran and Turkey for a series of meetings in Rome which led to discussions between Israeli and Jordanian ex-generals in the months before Israel and Jordan signed a 1994 peace agreement

Marks is the author of three books and a former State Department employee who left his post after the US invaded Cambodia in 1970.

FRANCE 24 spoke to John Marks about his work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and elsewhere, and what he thinks it will take to make progress towards peace in the future.

FRANCE 24: Why is that the strategy you chose?


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