Help me supercharge my work for peace and reconciliation

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is organizing this fundraiser.

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What started with a few simple tweets following October 7th grew into a large online platform that has offered hope and nuanced new perspectives about the war in Gaza. I am asking for your support to grow my efforts and build on my success over the past nine months since the tragic attack on October 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza. I’ve been pushing to establish for a third way, a third narrative, one that humanizes both Palestinians and Israelis, recognizing their intertwined and intricately linked futures. Operating outside the entrenched pro-Palestine and pro-Israel narratives is immensely difficult and not something that most people can or are willing to do. Having grown up in Gaza and experienced the conflict up close, I am motivated to pursue pragmatic and realistic solutions that are empathetic, humane, and mutually beneficial. I’ve been on a one-man mission to challenge Hamas and its terrorism, which has harmed the Palestinian people the most, while also confronting the injustices of the Israeli military occupation and violence against Palestinians. I have to decide within a month to either return to my regular/day job or find a way to sustain my advocacy and activism. I want to take my work to the next level, move to Washington, DC, and leverage my unique positioning as someone from Gaza, with unusual backgrounds and lived and professional experiences, to offer a unifying, balanced voice for reason, healing, reconciliation, peace, and coexistence.

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The responses to the October 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza by segments of the Palestinian community and diaspora, as well as their supporters/allies in the West, represent an alarming embrace and endorsement of Hamas and an armed resistance narrative. This is exacerbating the divisiveness and allowing dangerous hatred, ignorance, and dehumanization to proliferate. To counter the rising extremism we are witnessing, there is a dire need for a nuanced approach where we can articulate what is fact from fiction and address violent extremism represented in the popularity of Hamas’s narrative and propaganda in the West. It is essential we build bridges between diaspora communities of Palestinians and Israeli/Jewish communities so that we can build tenable, pragmatic solutions and prevent escalations of violence and hate.

I have shown time and again that it is entirely possible to be pro-Palestine and against the Israeli military occupation and the displacement of the Palestinian people while opposing Hamas and the armed resistance narrative and promoting healing, reconciliation, peace, and coexistence.

I lost over 31 of my family members in three separate Israeli airstrikes during the current war; my two childhood homes have been destroyed, and my family is homeless. Despite the personal pain and losses, I wanted to turn this tragedy into a catalyst for something different. I wanted to honor the legacy of my dead family members to break out of the vicious cycle of incitement, hatred, violence, revenge, rinse and repeat. I connected with Israeli hostage families, victims of October 7, and other allies across the political and ideological spectrum within the Jewish and Israeli communities to build bridges and find common ground, centering my approach on empathy, humanity, and mutual respect.

I am humbled by the growth of platform and how I have transformed multiple tragedies since October 7 into opportunities for engagement and a new narrative that is sorely lacking in the current Israel and Palestine discourse. We are on the precipice of history-changing times, and we need the ability to counter hate, extremism, and divisiveness with rational reconciliation, bridge-building, and democratic dialogue.

But no matter my strengths, I cannot sustain this alone. I’m raising funds to help me with the following:

1. Avoid having to go back to my regular day job. I’ve been on an extended unpaid leave of absence and have one month left, after which I have to return to work and stop my activism and advocacy efforts.

2. Help me move to Washington, DC, where I can directly impact policy and decision-makers.

3. Maintain my independence and my ability to challenge harmful voices and entrenched narratives on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. I could have received funding from a variety of sources, but I cannot lose my independence and be beholden to strings and restrictions that are tokenizing, insincere, and harmful to my prospects.

4. Recruit helpers, staff, allies, partners, and volunteers and expand my reach and influence beyond social media and traditional press.

My eleven-plus years of professional experience in non-profit administration and development and my business administration background uniquely position me to operationalize the above goals and gradually turn them into a thriving, one-of-a-kind effort that fills multiple gaps in the Israel and Palestine space.

Even if the war in Gaza ends tomorrow, Hamas’s ideology and destructive propaganda will persist and require a multi-tiered, multi-pronged, long-term, and sustainable strategy to undermine and challenge them. The cause of true and durable peace is more urgent now than ever. It necessitates support from allies in the United States, in the Jewish and Israeli communities, and, ultimately, from the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Please consider supporting me to make this work possible. I'm taking a leap of faith in the face of the unknown and am walking away from an established career in nonprofit administration to make this happen. It would be an honor and a privilege to receive your backing.

Thank you.