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Author: Yuval Katz, Lecturer in Communication and Media, Loughborough University
Original article: https://theconversation.com/israels-peace-movement-offers-a-ray-of-hope-amid-the-pain-of-gaza-conflict-256030
The first thing I do when going back to Israel for a visit is go for a run. After more than two years abroad, it is a good opportunity to refamiliarise myself with the home I left to pursue my academic career more than eight years ago.
I knew things would not feel the same. On October 7 2023, Hamas militants breached the fence surrounding the Gaza Strip, killing over 1,000 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage. It was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and a resounding blow against the founding idea of the state of Israel, which was established as a safe haven for the Jewish people, who have been persecuted for millennia.
But in the 18 months that have passed since this catastrophic day, I have grown increasingly critical of the path Israel has taken. It has become a path of revenge, in which Israel has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians through ruthless air strikes and ground operations in the Gaza Strip.
Now, as many government officials openly declare that there are “no innocent people in Gaza”, plans are in the making to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians through “voluntary immigration”. Although it has not been recognised as such by international law (charges of genocide are currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice), the Netanyahu government has been accused of premeditated genocide, carried out by Jews only 80 years after the Holocaust ended.
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In the meantime, Israelis are frustrated and exhausted. Their security has not improved, and 59 hostages remain in Gaza (only 24 of whom are thought to be alive). Those who returned from captivity alive report that military operations kill rather than save them – many of them urge the government to stop the war.
During my run, I was amazed by the mesmerising advocacy campaign to release the hostages. Faces of the hostage and their stories are omnipresent across the public sphere – in posters hung on walls and fences, on flags, bumper stickers and slogans sprayed in graffiti on highways.
One cannot escape the simultaneous presence (absence) of the hostages. When driving across the country, I listened to radio hosts mentioning those left behind in the Gaza tunnels at the beginning of every hour. Lest we forget.
Yet, with all the yearning to bring them home comes a devastating helplessness. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose intelligence failures were responsible for October 7 and the endless war, is still in power – and many ordinary people feel there is little they can do to change this reality.
Perhaps it was my indefatigable search for hope that led me to an organisation that embodies the alternative to endless cycles of conflict.
My academic work focuses on how media forms – whether that be popular television shows, digital activism, or mainstream journalism – generate spaces where Palestinians and Jews meet each other. Where they can process their traumas together creatively through art and storytelling in ways that offer new possibilities for a life worth living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
But I completed collecting the data for my book project before October 7. Now, returning, I felt an urgency to discover whether a vision for peace was still possible amid this unbearable despair.
Standing together
The movement, Standing Together, was founded in late 2015 in the wake of a series of violent incidents. Witnessing the incompetence of left-wing parties and human rights organisations to protect Palestinian citizens of the state from growing racism, a few dozen activists decided to organise a joint demonstration for Palestinians and Jews, so they set up a Facebook page to invite people to join.
The movement has expanded significantly since then; from a group of roughly 20 activists, it now consists of over 6,000 registered members, operating in 14 local centres across the country and is a leading organiser of political activities on Israeli campuses.
I visited its headquarters in Tel Aviv – where the movement has expanded from a couple of rooms to a whole floor of an office building, with paid staff managing its data, media content, finances, and student relations.
I conducted several interviews with Standing Together’s managers in which they indicated that membership and donations have grown exponentially since the war started. They told me many Palestinians and Israelis are looking for a political home to advance a vision of peace, equality and solidarity.
The activities of Standing Together include operating information booths which also collect humanitarian aid for Gaza and send it across the border. They screen events and movies for members that reflect the harsh reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while offering an alternative to perpetual violence.
A series of national screenings was dedicated to the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land, which depicts the dispossession of the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank.
The movie had been banned from commercial screening in Israel, but the filmmakers, peace activists for whom changing the political reality in Masafer Yatta is more important than anything else, have made it free to screen – they want all Israelis to see it.
It also screened the joint Memorial Day service, a ceremony that has been staged for years now to allow bereaved families from both sides to meet and grieve together and call for a political change in which no more people join this community of pain.
People who attended a screening of the Israeli-Palestinian memorial day ceremony at a synagogue in the city of Ra’anana at the end of April were attacked by right-wing activists. There was no response or condemnation from government officials.
As darkness threatens to consume the people of Israel and Palestine with little regard for human life, movements like Standing Together spread light and bring hope.
Yuval Katz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.