The Future Is Peace: A Shared Jour­ney Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon is one of this year’s buzzi­est books, and for good rea­son. It is a love let­ter to Israel/​Palestine filled with pain and promise. 

The the­sis of the book is that though the authors expe­ri­enced tragedy due to the ongo­ing con­flict, they still believe that there is a place for learn­ing, dia­logue, growth, and, one day, peace. When Abu Sarah was younger, his broth­er was killed by Israeli forces after being beat­en in prison for throw­ing rocks. Moaz’s par­ents were killed on Octo­ber 7th by Hamas. For some, these loss­es might engen­der fear or hatred of the oth­er. Yet, for Abu Sarah and Inon, they do the oppo­site. The book explains how it was their shared pain that brought them togeth­er, first in friend­ship and then in activism. 

Both authors work in tourism. Abu Sarah found­ed Mej­di tours, which takes Jews, Mus­lims, and Chris­tians across both sides of the con­flict zone. Inon found­ed the Abra­ham Hos­tel in Jerusalem which spawned a net­work of hotels and tours meant to fos­ter uni­ty and under­stand­ing across the faiths. With this exper­tise, the authors invite us on a tour of sorts, mov­ing from the bor­der of Gaza to Jerusalem, from Jaf­fa to the West Bank. Each stage of the tour includes an overview of the his­to­ry of the stop, art­ful descrip­tions of the scenery and set­ting, and dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers on the ground who each tell their sto­ry. Some­times these stake­hold­ers are Abu Sarah and Inon them­selves, but we also meet Abed, an Arab liv­ing in Jaf­fa whose fam­i­ly remained there after 1948 and who teach­es about his family’s ties to the city; and Muham­mad, Aziz’s nephew who was attacked by set­tlers in East Jerusalem on his way to buy food. Amer­i­can read­ers may rec­og­nize Rab­bi Paula Mar­cus, an Amer­i­can activist and trav­el com­pan­ion of the duo who rep­re­sents a lib­er­al Amer­i­can voice and perspective. 

Although the book cen­ters peo­ple and place, the authors also make fre­quent use of poet­ry. These poems not only break up the inten­si­ty of the nar­ra­tive but add one more medi­um to show the toll that the con­flict is tak­ing on those liv­ing through it. In the same way that a good tour guide uses a vari­ety of tools to teach — maps, lit­er­a­ture, land­scape, encoun­ters on the street — Abu Sarah and Inon use their fine­ly honed craft to take their read­ers inside the crevices and the soul of a coun­try they love.

The Future Is Peace is a mar­vel in that it will chal­lenge and inspire you in equal parts. This is not an easy read. The authors do not avoid show­ing their read­ers the hard­est parts of life in Israel/​Palestine: the check­points, the vio­lence, the big­otry. Nev­er­the­less, read­ers will walk away with hope. Both Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon believe in peace. They’ve talked about it at their now famous TED talk. They spoke about it togeth­er to the Pope. And now, this book makes it even more acces­si­ble for read­ers. In fact, in their epi­logue, they imag­ine a world where their vision of peace has come true. It is their ​“world to come.” If there are peo­ple out there like Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon, then maybe we will final­ly find a way past the intractable bar­ri­ers that have com­pli­cat­ed peace for so long and blaze that path toward a bet­ter future for all.