[[link removed]]

THE ANTI-WAR LEFT MAKES INROADS IN ISRAEL  
[[link removed]]


 

Interview by Federico Fuentes
June 2, 2024
Links
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Standing Together’s national field organizer Uri Weltmann
discusses the growing peace movement inside Israel, confronting
far-right extremists seeking to disrupt humanitarian aid going to the
Gaza Strip, and the left’s recent electoral breakthroughs _

,

 

_This interview with Standing Together's Uri Weltmann was first
published in Spanish at __Nueva Sociedad_
[[link removed]]_.
Translation by LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal._

Omdim be’Yachad-Naqef Ma’an, or Standing Together, is a
Jewish-Arab social movement in Israel that organises against racism
and occupation, and for equality and social justice. Federico Fuentes
interviewed Standing Together’s national field organiser Uri
Weltmann to discuss the growing peace movement inside Israel, how
activists are confronting far-right extremists seeking to disrupt
humanitarian aid going to the Gaza Strip, and the left’s recent
electoral breakthroughs.

HOW HAS THE PEACE MOVEMENT INSIDE ISRAEL DEVELOPED SINCE OCTOBER 7? IS
THE MOVEMENT SUCCEEDING IN SHIFTING BROADER PUBLIC OPINION AND
UNDERMINING PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU'S WAR EFFORTS? AND WHAT
ROLE IS STANDING TOGETHER PLAYING WITHIN THE MOVEMENT?

After October 7, Israeli police limited people’s right to protest
and exercise their civil liberties. It was nearly impossible to get a
permit to demonstrate. That is why, throughout October and November,
most of the actions taken by the peace movement — including Standing
Together — 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, where we raised the demand
for an alternative path to the government’s.

Only in December did openings arise to organise larger protests.
Standing Together brought hundreds to a rally in Haifa on December 16,
and then a further thousand people to a rally in Tel Aviv on December
28. In January, we had our first march against the war. A coalition of
more than 30 peace movements and organisations mobilised thousands of
people.

The latest, and biggest, demonstrations to date 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”.
One of the speakers was Shachar Mor (Zahiru), whose nephew is being
held captive in Gaza by Hamas. He strongly criticised the cynicism of
Netanyahu and his allies, and called for an end to the war in order to
bring back the hostages. Avivit John — a survivor of the massacre in
Kibbutz Beeri, where many innocent civilians were murdered on October
7 — told the crowd that while she lost friends and family in the
Hamas attack, she did not want us as a society to lose our humanity as
well. She called for an end to the war, recognition of the shared
humanity of Israelis and Palestinians alike, and to bring back the
hostages.

Alongside these protests, there has also been 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. Instead, 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. There are millions of
Jewish-Israelis in our country — and none of them are going
anywhere. There are also millions of Palestinians in our country —
and none of them are going anywhere. This must be the starting point
of our politics if we are to imagine a future of justice, liberation
and security.

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. Palestinian truck drivers were beaten and
hospitalised, bags of flour and wheat trashed and trucks set on fire.
These violent attacks received media attention, locally and
internationally, especially as they occurred in front of Israeli
soldiers and police who did nothing to stop them.

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,
document what is happening and force police to do their jobs. 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.

The first day I was there, police were forced to push the settlers
aside and allow aid trucks to pass, with drivers honking their horns
in support. The settlers looked visibly upset by our presence and the
fact we far outnumbered them. They left the checkpoint, but we found
out by monitoring their WhatsApp group chats that they were
reassembling down the road to attack the aid trucks before they
arrived at the checkpoint. When we arrived at the intersection where
they were, we found them pillaging a truck, destroying food packets
and throwing food on the side of the road. It was only when we arrived
that the police reluctantly moved them to the side of the road,
allowing the ravaged truck to drive away. Our activists collected the
food from the side of the road and loaded it onto the next trucks. We
also documented the attacks by the settlers and filed complaints,
which resulted in the police detaining a few of them.

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.

THE UNITED NATIONS RECENTLY VOTED TO UPGRADE PALESTINE’S STATUS
WHILE CERTAIN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS HAVE NOW OFFICIALLY RECOGNISED
PALESTINE. EVEN THE US HAS DRAWN A LINE AT SUPPLYING ISRAEL WITH BOMBS
TO ATTACK RAFAH. 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. The Green Line
(the pre-June 4, 1967 boundary) would serve 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 built in the early 2000s; 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. The Israeli political establishment tries to conflate the
government and state with regular people. It tries to portray
international criticism of the Netanyahu government’s action in
Rafah as criticism levelled against all Israeli citizens, while war
crimes accusations against Netanyahu and other high-ranking Israeli
officials are portrayed as accusations made against all Israelis. This
has the effect of consolidating people around the Netanyahu
government, so that even people who are critical of its actions or who
seek a political alternative 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 critique is external, or if criticisms conflate 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.

AMID THE ONGOING WAR, LOCAL ELECTIONS WERE HELD A COUPLE OF MONTHS
BACK IN WHICH, FOR THE FIRST TIME, STANDING TOGETHER OBTAINED
REPRESENTATION ON THE TEL-AVIV AND HAIFA MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. WHAT CAN
YOU TELL US ABOUT THESE RESULTS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE IN TERMS OF
BUILDING A NEW LEFT IN ISRAEL?

Local elections were held in Israel on February 27. Originally planned
for October, they were postponed due to the war. Held once every five
years, these elections determine the makeup of the municipal councils
that run the affairs of cities and towns, approve budgets and devise
local policy. In the months prior to the elections, two new urban
movements, both in ideological affinity with Standing Together,
emerged in Tel-Aviv and Haifa to contest those elections. 

In Tel Aviv, the local movement, Purple City, is headed by Itamar
Avneri, a member of the Standing Together leadership. It unites a
coalition of mostly urban youth around questions of housing and
climate justice. In September, it joined with others on the left, such
as the Communist Party, a local environmental movement and some
community activists, to form an electoral coalition called We Are All
the City. This coalition obtained 14,882 votes (7.6%) at the election
and won 3 out of the 31 seats on city council. Avneri, who was the
third candidate on the coalition’s slate, was elected as a city
councillor.

In Haifa, the local movement, The City's Majority, is headed by Sally
Abed, another member of the Standing Together leadership. It contested
the elections on its own and won 3451 votes (3%), electing Abed as the
movement’s sole city councillor. This was the first time a slate for
the Haifa city council was headed by a Palestinian woman. The slate
also included Orwa Adam, an openly gay Palestinian activist — a
first in Israeli electoral history.

Both tickets were joint Jewish-Arab movements and although
organisationally, legally and financially independent from Standing
Together — as required by electoral laws — both were publicly
recognised as in line with our “brand” of politics. These
experiences of successful electoral breakthroughs from below are
important to build a new, viable, people’s left in Israel — one
that is grassroots-based, internationalist in its orientation and
grounded in socialist values. In the coming years, this is the main
challenge facing everyone who hopes to see a combative left in Israel
capable of confronting the mainstream institutional hegemony and
building power around an alternative political project

* Israel
[[link removed]]
* peace movement
[[link removed]]
* Standing Together
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]