Mohammad Darawshe: Shared Society Conference Reaffirms Partnership

Mohammad Darawshe, Givat Haviva Director of Strategy, Addresses Shared Society Conference

 

Welcome to the Givat Haviva Conference for a Shared Society, 2026.

We gather today at a moment that is not easy for any of us. Our country is going through a period of wars; families are suffering pains of many kinds; society is facing successive traumas. We are confronting the challenge of daily discrimination among citizens, and its most severe manifestation over the past three years has been the escalation of crime in Arab society as a result of systematic neglect by the authorities. The most painful example, just yesterday, was the killing of Nazim Adham Nassar, a 15-year-old boy from Nazareth.

And yet, despite all this weight, we chose to be here. We chose to come together, to speak, and to search together for a path that can bring us back to the principle of shared living.

This conference is not merely an annual event. It is a declaration of will, the will to affirm that partnership between Arabs and Jews is not temporary, nor a secondary project, but rather a fundamental condition for building a safe and just future for all.

Despite the tensions we are living through, society in all its components has proven that it is capable of preserving its social fabric and that it refuses to be drawn into internal violence. This fact alone gives us a genuine window of hope.

Today we will hear from initiatives and leaders who are actively working on the ground: in education, in local authorities, and in civil society. We will see models that remind us that cooperation is not a slogan, but a daily practice, and that building trust begins with small but steady steps.

After two and a half years of division over positions regarding the war in Gaza and the crises that followed, we need to reimagine our relationship with one another. We need the courage to see the other not as an adversary, but as a partner in a shared destiny. We need political, social, and economic partnership founded on equality.

This conference is one of those moments in which we test our ability to identify problems, to dream of solutions, and to work together to implement them.

I thank you all for your presence, for your commitment, and for your belief that the future can be better than the reality we are living today.

Let us begin this day with an open spirit and a genuine readiness to listen, to engage in dialogue, and to build together. Thank you, and I wish us all a fruitful conference that carries the seeds of change