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Is peace between Israel and the Palestinians still possible? It’s a question certain to trigger a heated debate, any time, anywhere.

“Yes! No! Yes! No!” Gideon Yago and Reza Aslan snapped at each other before a roomful of students at the University of San Francisco.

The two were speaking at an April 21 event sponsored by Abraham’s Vision, an organization that focuses on conflict resolution, examines identity, and promotes dialogue among Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian communities. The San Francisco–based nonprofit was founded in 2003 by Aaron Hahn Tapper, professor and chair of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies at USF.

Tapper moderated the conversation between Yago, a Jewish award-winning journalist, and Aslan, a Muslim scholar of religions and author of “No god but God.”

The pair tackled a variety of topics, from Israel’s political climate, to a one-state versus two-state solution, to the question that kicked off the evening: Is peace still possible between Israel and the Palestinians?

“I don’t think it’s feasible any longer,” said Aslan, who was born in Iran and lives in Los Angeles. “This is a very difficult thing for me to say. I have been an avid activist and supporter of the peace process and two-state solution for most of my professional career and adult life. Then, I went to Israel.”

While it wasn’t his first visit to Israel, Aslan said a recent 20-day trip made him realize that the way people think about the peace process is “flawed.”

“A two-state solution is like the difference between Quebec and Ontario,” he said. “You have two people who live on a single plot of land, who share the same currency and a single market, and who live under a single political ecosystem dominated by Israel. To think that these are a dividable people is ultimately flawed.”

Yago, who earned Peabody and Emmy awards as a political correspondent for MTV News, strongly disagreed.

He said peace is possible — just not under the Israeli government’s current framework. A distinction needs to be made between policy and politics, he acknowledged, even though one influences the other. 

“It’s easy for people who are external, like the Hezbollah, people in Lebanon, the diaspora and U.S., to be very politics-heavy and passionate,” Yago said. “But they don’t have to live with the results.”

He added, “For those who don’t have to live with a gun to their tent and are interested in this issue from external states, you can’t lose hope and can’t get caught up in the politics. When you eradicate hope, all you do is radicalize.”

When the conversation turned back to the process of creating peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Aslan and Yago continued to disagree.

While Aslan said the peace process is “predicated on dividing” Israel from the Palestinians, Yago had a different view, offering the analogy of SimCity, a popular city-building simulation video game.

“You’ve got to build something from the ground up,” he said. Compared with other territorial conflicts, such as in South Africa, Northern Ireland and India and Pakistan, “you have a really unique animal in the notion of Palestine and Israel.”

Yago suggested a peace process in which the diplomatic framework includes provisions for a viable economy, roads and job market and the ability to have a food and water supply.

“When you get caught up in the politics,” Yago said, “you lose your eye on the policy.”

After the conversation, which included a question-and-answer session, USF student and Berkeley native Arash Bayatmakou said he wished every student was required to watch a replay of the evening.

“Talks like this need to happen on a larger scale,” said Bayatmakou, a student in the MBA program. “To have a dialogue between two educated, well-informed and experienced people who are not talking heads is extremely useful, no matter what their opinions are.”

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