Though largely ignored by the Western media, there is a burgeoning movement for ceasefire inside Israel — and it is shifting public opinion.
An Israel Democracy Institute poll conducted in the first week of May found that 62% of Israelis believe the government’s top priority should be a ceasefire deal. This compared with less than 40% in mid-January who favoured a ceasefire in return for the release of the hostages held by Hamas.
Among the organisations playing a key role in the Israeli peace movement is Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab social movement that organises against racism and occupation.
Federico Fuentes spoke with Standing Together's national field organiser Uri Weltmann to find out more about this fledgling peace movement.
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How has the peace movement developed since October 7? Is it shifting public opinion and undermining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support? What role is Standing Together playing within the movement?
After October 7, Israeli police limited people’s right to protest. That is why, throughout October and November, most of the actions taken by the peace movement were not necessarily marches, pickets and rallies.
Instead, we hung posters in the streets saying “Only Peace Will Bring Security” and organised emergency Jewish-Arab conferences in two dozen towns and cities across Israel.
Only in December did openings arise to organise larger protests. Standing Together brought hundreds to a rally in Haifa on December 16, and a thousand people to a rally in Tel Aviv on December 28.
In January, we had our first march against the war, with more than 30 peace movements and organisations mobilising thousands.
The latest, and biggest, demonstrations occurred in early May, involving Palestinian and Jewish speakers and thousands marching in Tel-Aviv under the banner: “Stop the War, Bring Back the Hostages”.
There is also a broader movement calling for the return of the hostages, which over time has developed along explicit anti-war lines.
In the first months after October 7, families and friends of the hostages organised demonstrations to raise awareness of their plight, with a strategy of lobbying the government.
However, two months ago this movement shifted to the left when it linked up with anti-Netanyahu organisations.
They publicly announced that they had concluded that Netanyahu and his government were an obstacle to a ceasefire agreement that could return the hostages alive. They said what is needed is mass protest to bring down his government and force early elections.
A few weeks ago, when negotiations between Israel and Hamas seemed on the brink of an agreement, this protest movement openly declared that they supported ending the war in exchange for returning the hostages.
They held one of their mass Saturday protests in Tel Aviv — attended by tens of thousands — under the slogan “Hostages, not Rafah”, and popularised the chant “Kulam Tmurat Kulam” (in Hebrew: “[Release] all of them, in exchange for all of them”), which is a call to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jail in exchange for the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
This broad protest movement has shifted the political climate in Israel: the right-wing parties that comprise Netanyahu’s coalition are losing ground. While they won 64 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) in the November 2022 elections, according to recent polls they would only win between 45–52 seats if new elections were held.
This spells trouble for Netanyahu, as it not only means he would be ousted from office, but that his trial over corruption would resume and he could possibly end up in jail. So he has both a political and personal interest in a prolonged and protracted war on Gaza, as demanded by his far-right coalition partners.
He knows that a hostage deal will most likely mean an end to the war. And an end to the war would mean the unravelling of his coalition government and early elections — and with that political defeat and possibly loss of personal freedom.
This assessment is what brought the broad protest movement calling for the return of the hostages to realise that Netanyahu is an obstacle that must be removed, rather than a mere stakeholder that requires convincing.
Standing Together members have intervened in these mass protests — in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva, Kfar Sava, Karmiel and elsewhere — stressing that the safe return of the hostages must be accompanied by an end to the war and the further killing of innocent civilians in Gaza.
Furthermore, our message is that the long-term safety of both peoples will not be achieved through war, occupation and siege. Rather, it requires ending the occupation and achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that recognises the right of everyone to live in freedom, security and independence.
Standing Together established the Humanitarian Guard to counter far-right attempts to block aid convoys going to Gaza. What can you tell us about this initiative?
In mid-May, the Israeli public’s attention was drawn to images and videos of violent and extremist settlers, known as “The Hilltop Youth”. They attacked supply trucks at the Tarqumiah checkpoint — a main border crossing connecting the Occupied Palestinian West Bank with Israel — that were carrying food and other humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.
In response, Standing Together announced the formation of the Humanitarian Guard. This is an initiative to bring together everyday peace activists from across Israel to act as a physical barrier between the extremist settlers and trucks at the Tarqumiah checkpoint.
To date, more than 900 people have signed up as volunteers. Everyday, dozens of people come to the checkpoint via organised transport from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv or by private cars.
Our protective presence at the Tarqumiah checkpoint allowed hundreds of trucks to safely pass during the first two weeks of the Humanitarian Guard, delivering tons of food to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip where there is growing mass starvation and an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
We see the Humanitarian Guard as both a way to express solidarity with people in the Gaza Strip and to wage a fight over the character of our society: we refuse to allow Israeli society to be modelled after the morality of the far-right fanatic zealots who dehumanise Palestinians and promote a politics of death.
Standing Together, as a movement, is rooted inside Israeli society, with all its complexities, and is working to shift public opinion and organise Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel to build a new majority within our society — one that can advance towards peace, equality, and social and climate justice.
[UPDATE: We received news on June 2 that extremist settlers attacking aid trucks at the Tarqumiah checkpoint had announced they were suspending their activities, thanks to the daily presence of Standing Together activists.]
The United Nations voted to upgrade Palestine’s status and some European governments have officially recognised Palestine. Is there a sense within Israel that it is losing international support? What impact is this having on the public's views towards the government?
The UN vote to upgrade the recognition of the State of Palestine, as well as the statements made by several countries, including Spain, Norway and Ireland, are important diplomatic steps towards reinforcing the international legitimacy of the fight for Palestinian liberation and statehood.
I am convinced — and there is broad international consensus around this — that UN resolutions serve as the best basis to allow Palestinians to win their right to national self-determination, through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and the Green Line (the pre-June 4, 1967 boundary) serving as the basis for the border between the Palestinian and Israeli states.
Such a peace agreement would have to include: dismantling all Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank, which are illegal according to international law; a just and agreed-upon solution for Palestinian refugees based on UN resolutions; taking down the so-called Separation Wall; and releasing Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, including the more than 3600 “administrative detainees” who have been held captive without charges, trial or convictions, in some cases for many years.
Within Israel, the mainstream media portrays this shift in public opinion abroad and diplomatic moves as supposedly aimed against all Israelis. It tries to portray international criticism of the Netanyahu government’s action as criticism levelled against all Israeli citizens.
This has the effect of consolidating people around the Netanyahu government. Even people who are critical of its actions find themselves siding with him against The Hague.
This shows the importance of creating a space inside Israeli society for criticising the policies of the political establishment.
If all criticism is external or conflates the people and government, it will have the effect of closing, rather than widening, the gap between the majority of people and the current leadership.
[This is an abridged version of an interview first published in Spanish at Nueva Sociedad. The full translation can be read at links.org.au.]