
Faith Commons, a Dallas-based initiative that convenes faith and community leaders for conversations to advance the common good, hosted a forum on Monday, June 9th, titled “Two Peoples, One Land” at Wilshire Baptist Church. The event addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and explored possible pathways to peace.
Panelists included Rabbi Nancy Kasten, Chief Relationship Officer at Faith Commons, Rania Batrice, a Palestinian American social justice advocate, and Dr. Nimr Ikran, a North Texas orthopedic surgeon who has treated many of the injured in Gaza. George Mason, founder and president of Faith Commons, moderated the discussion.
Dr. Ikran began taking medical missions to Gaza shortly after Israel launched its military operations there, assuming the war would be short-lived. When he first arrived, one of the most striking things he saw was a line of trucks several miles long, filled with humanitarian supplies, stalled at checkpoints and unable to reach those in need.
“All that aid was right next to where it was needed,” he said. “The world had given so much stuff, and it wasn’t allowed to enter.”
He spoke about the devastation caused by Israeli bombing of hospitals and the deep gratitude expressed by Palestinians for the care they were receiving from aid workers.
“You would think [with us] coming from the U.S., they would say, ‘You guys are so terrible.’ But they were so welcoming,” he said. “But this is just what they’ve grown up with, unfortunately—war and destruction.”
Rania Batrice introduced herself by naming her Palestinian identity as central to all her justice work. While she expressed horror and condemnation over the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, she reminded the audience that “this did not start on October 7.”
She argued that widespread ignorance in the U.S. about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank stems from a failure of the American media to provide a full and accurate picture. “I’ve had people say to me, ‘Children aren’t really starving, and they’re only targeting Hamas,’” she said.
Though acknowledging she could speak for hours about what has unfolded in the region since 1948, Batrice urged attendees to “start from our common humanity.”
Rabbi Kasten described her journey from growing up in a secular Jewish household to forging a deeper connection to Israel during a high school exchange experience. Even so, she admitted for years she closed her eyes to the suffering of Palestinians. That changed during a 2006 visit to the Jerusalem–Bethlehem checkpoint, just before the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War.
“I watched what Palestinians had to go through for hours to cross the checkpoint to come and mop floors and build buildings [in Jerusalem],” she said. “This began my journey of being more curious and coaching myself to see what I hadn’t seen before.”
She encouraged the audience to “go beyond the headlines and ask ourselves, ‘What am I missing here?’”
When asked about pathways to peace, each panelist emphasized the importance of acknowledging the United States’ role in the conflict and called for a permanent ceasefire as a starting point.
Batrice asked listeners to be mindful of the language used when discussing the crisis in Israel and Palestine.
“The words ‘conflict’ and ‘war’ are such easy words to grab when talking about this,” she said. “But those terms [falsely] insinuate that there is some sense of parity… that there is equal access to the same things.”
Rabbi Kasten stressed the need to view the situation not as Israelis versus Palestinians, but rather as a struggle between those on both sides who want peace and those who do not.
To close the evening, Mason encouraged the audience to consider how they might give, act, and engage in meaningful dialogue that contributes to lasting peace.