“Is the use of force or violence absolutely necessary in a just cause?” asked Dr. Sari Nuseibeh at his talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Friday. He is president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and received his PhD from Harvard, where he is spending this year. He is also the former representative from Jerusalem for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Nuseibeh began his talk by outlining what he saw as the two most prevalent problems in the conflict. The first is that “everything political came from the top down. The people on both sides are regarded only in a receptive light.” Secondly, “the negotiations have all shied away from the main issues.”

In response to this, Nuseibeh has tried to handle the situation by remedying these problems. He has created a joint Israeli- Palestinian document in which he “tried to draw out very honestly and address the main issues.” He has been working on this for the last three years.

Right now the document holds over a half-million signatures, a number that is unprecedented with any previous document.

“It is called ‘The Destination Map’ because a road map without a destination doesn’t work,” said Nuseibeh.

During his lecture, he emphasized the negotiations and turning away from violence.

“In every stage, it would’ve been better if the Palestinians had responded without violence, from hearing of the conception of Israel to the present,” he said. “The whole course of history might’ve been changed.”

He encouraged both sides to put down their arms.

“We are not terrorists but ordinary people who want this occupation off our back. We have been painted as terrorists and violence has worked to our disadvantage,” said Nuseibeh. “It will also disadvantage Israel. The more they win against us, the more it will make the Zionist dream of a Jewish state impossible. There will be many Arabs in Israel, enough that they may even constitute the majority. If it is impossible to have a Palestinian state, by default it is impossible to have a Jewish state.”

Although Nuseibeh’s talk was optimistic he said he knows there are still problems to reason out.

“These problems are that each side sees a different good and the talks have failed because two different rational courses are being taken. We have to somehow create a vision of the future, like prophets after death and then get people to have faith. We will then have the people as instruments to make the future appear,” he said.

Nuseibeh believes that this “mass mobilization will affect leaders who won’t be able to oppose it.”

Nuseibeh stresses that the answer lies in the hands of the ordinary people, Palestinians and Israelis who really want the same thing, not in the hands of leaders who worry about appearances and other political matters.

When asked about how dignity figured into his plan, Nuseibeh answered, “I have to start living from this moment. I can’t fight ghosts and I can’t change the past anyhow.”