The leaders, known as The Elders, called on Biden in an open letter to offer "a vision for peace."
In an open letter, Elders chair and former Irish president Mary Robinson, onetime United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and others said history "will never forget your leadership" if Biden is able to build a coalition of partners who seek a just settlement and who can deliver a viable plan.
In calling for the plan to be based on a two-state solution, they stressed that "it must recognise the equal rights of Palestinians and Israelis."
They also said any Biden-led plan should be rooted in international law, determine who next runs Gaza, address Israel's legitimate security concerns, and must "end Israel's accelerating annexation of Palestinian land."
"As polarisation increases, the world needs you to set out a vision for peace," wrote The Elders, an international organization of senior statesmen, peace activists and human rights advocates founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007.
"That vision must give hope to those who reject extremism and want the violence to end."
With the conflict in Gaza raging and thousands of innocent civilians killed, the Elders acknowledged a peace plan could not emerge overnight.
"A comprehensive agreement will take years. It will demand enormous political courage from all leaders, in the face of significant domestic opposition," they wrote.
Those in power will require legitimacy and credibility among their people, and a commitment to two states living in peace. "Those leaders are not currently in power in Palestine or Israel," they said.
The Elders also warned that the current violence is feeding anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and undermining American objectives in the Middle East and Ukraine.
While condemning the "horrific Hamas attacks of 7 October" in which Palestinian militants slaughtered some 1,200 Israelis, according to authorities, "destroying Gaza and killing civilians are not making Israelis safe.
"These actions will breed more terrorism, across the region and beyond. There is no military solution to this conflict."
The world has spoken for years of a two-state solution, with no significant progress, and The Elders warned that has only suited extremists on both sides.
"It is time to end the empty rhetoric, and implement a serious peace plan that undermines extremists," they told Biden.
The Elders, including two Nobel peace laureates, said Mandela showed them how "the road from hatred to forgiveness can be long and difficult."
"Some will never walk it," they added. "But the majority of Palestinians and Israelis want to live in peace, not endure yet more violence. Please help them find the path to peace."
Jews and Arabs pay tribute to peace activist killed in Hamas attack
Gezer, Israel (AFP) Nov 16, 2023 -
Hundreds of Jews and Arabs joined relatives of Israeli-Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver Thursday to pay tribute to an "extraordinary woman" and "beacon of hope" who was murdered by Hamas militants on October 7.
They gathered at Gezer kibbutz in central Israel where the 74-year-old had lived in the 1970s. When the Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel last month, Silver was living in Beeri kibbutz near the Gaza border.
She had been missing since the attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and her death was confirmed by the authorities only this week.
"She was an exceptional woman," her close friend Emilie Moatti, a former lawmaker for the Israeli Labour party, told AFP.
She said it was painful there had been no funeral for her friend, as "there is nothing left to bury".
Beeri kibbutz is located less than five kilometres (three miles) from the Gaza border and before the war it had a population of 1,200.
But at least 85 of them were killed during the October 7 attacks and another 30 or so taken hostage by the Islamist militants, or reported missing.
Vivian Silver was named as one of the missing. Israel's consul general in Toronto confirmed her death on Monday.
A feminist activist advocating for peace with the Palestinians, Silver had set up aid programmes for Gaza residents and helped them travel to Israel for medical treatment.
- Peace group symbol -
She won numerous prizes for her peace work, and in 2014 helped found Women Wage Peace, a grassroots Israeli peace movement which now counts more than 45,000 members.
A tearful Ghadir Hani, an Arab-Israeli from the northern port town of Acre who had worked with Silver in WWP, on Thursday recalled the last time she spoke to her friend as the deadly Hamas attack unfolded.
"You told me everything was all right, but that you could hear noises. And then there was no reply to my messages," said Hani, wearing a black veil.
Around her neck was an azure blue scarf -- one of the peace group's symbols.
"You said that only light can repel darkness. How I wish you were here to bring light and hope as you always did," she said.
Gathered on the grass of the kibbutz to remember Silver were Orthodox Jews, Bedouin, women in veils and many wearing the distinctive blue WWP scarf.
"Vivian was a symbol of peace, a bearer of hope," said the group's co-founder Marie-Lyne Smadja.
"We must win this war and then we must change the paradigms and ask ourselves some questions. But first Hamas must be crushed and the hostages freed," she said.
The idea for Women Wage Peace was born during another Gaza conflict, the Israel-Hamas war of July and August 2014.
"The only way to live in security here is to make peace," Silver's son Yonatan Zeigen said on Thursday, quoting his mother.
"We, the living, will continue to shine and persevere and strive to bring about the tomorrow that you always spoke of," he told mourners.
"Now you are gone, I am in love once again with words such as peace, gender equality and brotherhood," he added.
Arab-Israeli parliamentarian Ahmad Tibi described the Hamas attacks of October 7 as "horrors".
He told AFP he had come to the ceremony to pay tribute to an "extraordinary woman... who also thought about the well-being of the people of Gaza".
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