A Coptic Egyptian who once identified as anti-Zionist spent two days in London engaged in candid conversations with Jews, Druze, Muslim reformers, Iranians, Assyrians and representatives from Somaliland at the Tel Aviv Institute's New Middle East Laboratory in late June. The gathering brought together activists, writers and community leaders to explore what a different Middle East might look like, aiming to create space for honest dialogue rather than manufacture consensus.
Two years earlier, the author would not have accepted such an invitation. For nearly two decades, he was active in the "Free Palestine" Movement and viewed Israel as the primary obstacle to peace. The Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and moral contradictions he witnessed among pro-Palestinian activists prompted him to reconsider long-held assumptions. That reassessment led him to conclude that Israel's existence is justified and essential.
At the conference, the author expected to spend much of his time defending his views and anticipated being perceived as the room's resident critic of radical Islamist ideology. Instead, he found himself in direct conversation with three Muslim reformers. The discussions were candid, with participants challenging one another without questioning motives, united by the belief that their communities deserved futures free from those who weaponize religion to justify violence.
A conversation with Hussain Abdul-Hussain, whose book The Arab Case for Israel the author had recently recommended, proved particularly significant. When discussing Islamic texts cited by extremists, Abdul-Hussain observed: "I don't want to encourage self-hatred." This remark crystallized the author's thinking about how to confront destructive ideologies without requiring entire communities to despise themselves or inherit collective guilt.
The author began questioning whether his communication approach was effective in creating opportunities for reform-minded Muslims and Arabs to engage in scrutiny of radical Islamist ideology. The London conversations convinced him that persuasion and coalition-building require more than being correct; they require creating space for people who share goals even if they arrive there through different paths.
Notably, some of the strongest voices defending Israel's place in the Middle East came from non-Jewish participants - Arab intellectuals, Iranian dissidents and Muslim reformers who have experienced firsthand what Islamist movements do to their societies. Though they disagreed on history, politics and religion, they shared conviction that extremism threatens all their communities.
The author observed an emerging coalition of people who refused to let extremists define their identity or determine their future - a story that rarely reaches beyond the region. Where the Middle East is typically portrayed as irreconcilable camps of Arab versus Israeli or Muslim versus Jew, he witnessed something different taking shape. Two years after never imagining he would be in such a room, he believes the region's future depends on building many more like it.