Jews who reach the point of hopeless frustration with the Israel-Palestine problem have been known to demand, “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” Especially during the years of Yasser Arafat’s leadership of the PLO, this was a way of criticizing the Palestinian leadership for its rejectionism and commitment to violence, which so obviously failed to advance the Palestinian cause. It’s also a kind of rhetorical throwing up of hands, a way of saying that only a miraculously virtuous and charismatic figure could possibly break the impasse in the Middle East.
But underneath the reproach and the frustration, the longing for a Palestinian Gandhi is an expression of the Jewish desire to be enabled to make peace by being morally compelled to make peace.