Aziz Abu Sarah

Aziz Abu Sarah (, ; born 1980) is a Palestinian peace activist, journalist, social entrepreneur and politician.

After watching his brother die of internal injuries subsequent to being released from an Israeli jail following a year-long detention for stone throwing, Abu Sarah first turned to anti-Israel political writing. After high school, he learned Hebrew and joined an Israeli-Palestinian families bereavement organization, and began lecturing in schools against violent activism.

Abu Sarah co-founded the alternative tour company Mejdi with his Jewish friend Scott Cooper, which gives different perspectives on any given point of interest to tourists in various multi-cultural locales. He later received recognition for his conflict resolution work in such disparate places as Colombia and Afghanistan. He has advocated for better political representation and living conditions for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem through his association with political advisor Gershon Baskin.

Early life Abu Sarah was born in al-Eizariya, a town in the West Bank, to a Muslim family, the youngest of seven children. His father ran a produce import-export company with neighboring Arab countries. As a youth growing up during the First Intifada, he threw stones at passing Israeli cars "because we were bored, with nothing to do."

The family moved to nearby East Jerusalem when Abu Sarah was 16 due to his difficulty in obtaining an Israeli identity card in al-Eizariya.

To illustrate the impact of the death toll as a result of the Second Intifada, Abu Sarah helped arrange for 1,200 coffins (the number of casualties on both sides) draped with Israeli and Palestinian flags to be displayed in Rabin Square. The authorities mostly scuttled the event, but it was later successfully carried out in front of the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.

Abu Sarah is a former co-executive director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, an arm of George Mason University's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He coordinated the group's work in Islamic countries such as Afghanistan and Syria. +972 Magazine and provided analysis on programs broadcast on CNN, Fox News and al Jazeera.

Tourism After studying tourism management, Abu Sarah founded his own tour company. Through the course of this work he met Marc Gopin of George Mason University, who inspired him to turn the company into a social entrepreneurship. Each tour is dispatched with two tour guides, one Jewish and one Palestinian, with each giving his own historical perspective. The model was so successful that it spawned similar operations in Vietnam, Turkey, Colombia, Ireland and other places experiencing cultural conflict. At first he planned to run together with his political adviser Gershon Baskin on a joint Israeli-Palestinian list, but this later changed to an all-Palestinian list called Al-Quds Lana (Jerusalem is Ours). The party did not hold large political rallies or public town halls due to fear of harassment from hardline community opponents, so instead they met with local committees, teacher's groups, students, and communities in closed door meetings. The Palestinian Authority had already appointed its own governor of Jerusalem, Adnan Gaith, who said "We tell Aziz Abu Sarah, if you want to become the mayor of Jerusalem, you should wait until Jerusalem becomes the capital of the Palestinian State. He planned to sue to obtain this right in the Supreme Court of Israel.

On 25 September 2018, Abu Sarah dropped out of the race. He cited an Israeli threat to revoke his Jerusalem resident I.D. on the grounds that most of his time was being spent outside of Jerusalem, and with his tour company. He was also concerned about opposition from Palestinian election-boycott activists who were "applying strong pressure on our candidates and their families" to end their campaign. Solidar Silver Rose Award at the European Parliament

Books and publications Clark, Kelly J.; Abu Sarah, Aziz; Kreimer, Nancy F. (2018): Strangers, Neighbors, Friends: Muslim-Christian-Jewish Reflections on Compassion and Peace. Cascade Books Abu Sarah, Aziz. Column roll, +972 Magazine