Aziz Abu Sarah

In 2018, Abu Sarah started a campaign to be the first Palestinian since 1944 to become elected mayor of Jerusalem. 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. While some Palestinians gave their support, others called him a traitor, with some pelting Abu Sarah with eggs at a speech he gave outside Jerusalem city hall. The Palestine Liberation Organization has historically discouraged Palestinians from participating in Israeli elections because they claim it legitimises the occupation. 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.

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.

As a National Geographic Explorer, Abu Sarah hosted the 4-part web series documentary Conflict Zone in 2013, featuring perspectives from both sides of the conflict. He has written columns for The New York Times, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Post, +972 Magazine and provided analysis on programs broadcast on CNN, Fox News and al Jazeera.

Abu Sarah hosted Changing Directions, a program broadcast on the All for Peace radio station. The format revolved around interviews of members of the Bereaved Families Forum, and sought to find out how the respondents changed their outlook to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a result of experiencing tragedies. The station was shut down by the Israeli government in November 2011.

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. In 2009, Abu Sarah, together with business partner Scott Cooper, founded Mejdi, an enterprise that offers alternative tours for Jews, Muslims and Christians on both sides in the conflict zone. 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. The company partners with National Geographic Expeditions. Gopin helped get Abu Sarah his start in international conflict resolution work.

Aziz Abu Sarah (Arabic: عزيز ابو سارة ‎, Hebrew: עזיז אבו סארה ; b. 1980) is a Palestinian peace activist, journalist, social entrepreneur and politician.