Marginalized Israeli peace camp has opportunity to rebuild

Yossi Mekelberg

The mere idea of writing about the peace camp in Israel might seem ludicrous. After all, the entire Israeli society is still traumatized by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack, while most Jewish Israelis are demonstrating little to no sympathy for the current suffering of the people of Gaza as they face the bloodiest ever military assault by the Israel Defense Forces.
In the meantime, the security situation in the West Bank is deteriorating, raising the question of whether Israelis can be convinced that peace is their best security and prosperity guarantee, or even if there is the intellectual space to lay the conceptual foundations for peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians. And yet, more than ever, this dire situation could and should lead to new thinking and allow for the decimated peace camp in Israel to rise like the phoenix from the ashes of this devastating war.
What the last three months have demonstrated beyond doubt is that, in the absence of peace, it is the extremists who are dominating not only the discourse but also the events, with catastrophic consequences. Moreover, without switching the discourse from war and hostility to peace and coexistence, both sides will learn the wrong lessons from the current war and will become even more entrenched in their negative views of each other and, as a result, further radicalized. This makes paramount the necessity to infuse hope into society, based on solid policies and programs. This would replace the current dangerous zero-sum approach with a horizon where both sides benefit from peaceful coexistence, even if it means compromising on some of the historic aspirations.
The peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians enjoyed its heyday in the early 1990s. After the Oslo Accords were signed, the peace camp in Israel thrived and enjoyed broad support. It felt exonerated when peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution was not only desirable but also seemed possible. However, it has now shifted to the point where the peace camp is confined to the margins of Israeli society and politics. However, there is still a big minority that believes that a two-state solution must be the preferred way forward – and that should be utilized effectively.
For too long, the enemies of a peace based on a historic compromise of partitioning Mandatory Palestine, on both sides, were allowed to monopolize the political and social spheres and to use whatever means they could utilize, including terrorism, to derail the peace process. On the Israeli side, after months of incitement against the government and the Oslo Accords orchestrated by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then leader of the opposition, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing extremist. This act signaled the beginning of the end of the peace process and, with it, the gradual decline and near-disappearance of the camp that supported it.
There is something in the approach of the Israeli peace camp that inherently puts it at a relative disadvantage compared to the hawks and especially the settler community. Not only do its members believe that their cause is just, but they also cannot understand why others cannot see this too. There is an element of haughtiness in this approach that derives from an unsubstantiated, deterministic belief that, because peace based on a two-state solution is obviously the right and just approach, people are bound to support it, at least eventually. This attitude is also coupled with the idea that peace agreements are reached between elites, whether political, economic or intellectual. While the argument for the role of leaderships and elites holds some sway, but still requires support of a critical mass in society, the argument that the right things happen because they are … well, right, is both naive and arrogant and is without any empirical evidence.
Another major blow to the peace camp was the collapse of the 2000 Camp David peace negotiations, which were immediately followed by the eruption of the Second Intifada, to the detriment of any future peace negotiations and the consolidation of a large and sufficiently committed peace movement. First was the notion promoted by the Israeli prime minister at the time, Ehud Barak, that Israel was presenting the Palestinians with the most generous offer ever and they rejected it, serving as ultimate proof that there is no Palestinian partner for peace, leaving the Israeli negotiating team taking no responsibility for the failure of these negotiations.
Worse, the outbreak of the Second Intifada gave rise to the claim that, instead of accepting this generous peace offer, they – and this included every Palestinian who responded with violence, whether or not they were involved in terrorism – had their will for peace cast into doubt. To these two skewed conclusions was added another, which argues that, when Israel withdraws from territories – never mind territories that should never have been occupied in the first place, as was the case with the withdrawal from Lebanon or the disengagement from the Gaza Strip – it is “rewarded” with rocket and missile attacks. If there has been any oversimplification in Israel’s response to its military threats, this is one of the more worrying examples.
With the demise of the peace camp’s leaders, such as Rabin and Shimon Peres, while others succumbed to fatigue and despair, the peace movement was left leaderless and rudderless, with no new cadres of supporters. Worse, it had no novel ideas for adapting to the changing circumstances, which allowed the right wing’s security and settler discourse to take over. Much of the thinking and activism in support of peace was left to civil society, the Meretz party and those representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Knesset. Meanwhile, the Labor party, which had been at the helm when the Oslo Accords were signed, mistakenly avoided the issue altogether, seeing it as a vote loser rather than a winner.
For now, the Oct. 7 Hamas attack – among whose victims were a substantial number of peace activists – has left very little room for talking about peace, reconciliation and coexistence. Instead, there is only the language of “destroying Hamas” at whatever cost to the Palestinians. But there is also an opportunity for this marginalized segment of Israeli society that still believes in peace based on a two-state solution to rebuild itself in terms of ideas, leadership and appeal to wider parts of the population. The alternative to this has proved to be catastrophic for all aspects of Israel’s existence and a fatal blow to its international reputation. It is high time to bring back a peace discourse with the Palestinians as a matter of long-term existential and moral necessity. If not now, when?