Israel’s optimists gather for People’s Peace Summit 

With Israeli troops erasing the remnants of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, settlers displacing numerous Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Israelis still traumatized October 7, 2023, the timing might seem inauspicious for a gathering in support of peace. 

Add to that the fact that the Palestinian Authority is in disarray, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is unchallenged and that rightists attacked two anti-war events this week in a spilling of extremist attacks onto the streets of Beersheva and Ra’anana. 

But the It’s Time coalition of 60 Israeli peace and civil society groups is undeterred. Its leaders insist that the dire circumstances make the May 8-9 gathering in Jerusalem calling for an end to the Gaza war all the more urgent. They hope the gathering, titled the People’s Peace Summit, can spark political momentum and revive peace hopes that never recovered from the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. 

“The goal is to bring the possibility of peace back into the Israeli discourse because it was violently removed from the conversation for thirty years,” says Mika Almog, a coalition leader. “This entails creating a bridge between the pro-democracy struggle and the struggle for peace and ending the war.” 

The conference is a follow up to a gathering last July in Tel Aviv that was the first major gathering of the peace camp since it was set back by Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack, which sparked Israel’s ongoing Gaza military campaign. 

According to Almog, the Israeli peace camp is actually bigger and more diverse than it is depicted in the media, and also stronger than it is perceived by its own adherents. “We feel alone and that anyone who speaks of peace is belittled, ridiculed or branded a traitor,” she said.  

But the gathering aims to boost the peace camp’s confidence and create a wide platform for activity and activism, Almog said. 

However, expected low Arab participation amid a police crackdown on expression among Palestinian Israelis and the inability of West Bank Palestinians to travel into Israel is likely to turn it into a predominantly Jewish gathering rather than a broad interface of the two peoples. 

The key question is whether it can have any tangible impact amid the right’s seemingly entrenched dominance. Where you stand on the summit’s prospects seems to be a function of whether you harbor any hope that Israel as a whole can still be salvaged from extremism. 

Ghadir Hani, another coalition organizer who is a key activist in the Jewish-Arab Standing Together organization, stresses that the conference will not soft pedal the enormous challenges of the moment. “It’s true that the name of the conference is peace, but we will definitely be dealing with the difficult things. We will say that while we are sitting here, Gaza is being flattened, and what is left of the hospitals and schools are being bombed and children and families are being erased,” says Hani, who comes from the northern city of Acre. 

“One of the reasons we will be sitting together is to give hope to the people in Gaza, to tell them there are people here who are struggling [for them]. I know that it is difficult, challenging and not simple, and we don’t delude ourselves. On the other hand, those who will bring peace and who will change the reality are we Israelis and Palestinians.” 

In Hani’s view the conference will be successful if there is a large turnout and if a large number of organizations “think together how to strengthen a discourse of peace and of ending the conflict on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. And we must think about how to continue from here”. 

Almog says the conference will show attendees that there is a lot they can personally do to advance peace. The 60 participating organizations, include not only familiar names such as the anti-occupation veterans’ group Breaking the Silence and Ir Amim, which strives to protect East Jerusalem Palestinians, but also lesser known groups such as Social Workers for Peace; Jordan Valley Activists (which escorts Palestinian farmers to protect them from attacks by settlers); and the Mizrahi Civic Collective (a  Mizrahi group for social justice and peace). All will be looking to recruit new volunteers through the conference.  

The conference in Jerusalem will open with a gathering on stage including victims of October 7, Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, leaders from NGOs, artists and politicians including Yair Golan from the recently formed left-wing Democrats party and Ayman Odeh, leader of the largely Arab Hadash party. 

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former senior Palestinian official Nasser Qidwa will present a peace plan they have been promoting in recent months. 

Numerous workshops are planned, including sessions on how seemingly intractable conflicts abroad were resolved, women and peace, and skill building for activism. Pro-peace musicians will be performing throughout the day and a bilingual play for children will be staged. 

Despite the bevy of planned activity, veteran political and strategic analyst Yossi Alpher predicts that the summit will have “zero concrete impact” 

“This is not going to change the political lineup. If they’re preaching to anyone it’s to the converted and in Israel today that’s not enough. Netanyahu’s coalition is stable and will last until elections next year. It has survived the war and even the pressure for a commission of inquiry. I see no indication that this reflects a new majority in Israeli public opinion.” 

But Avi Dabush, an October 7 survivor who heads Rabbis for Human Rights, which is participating in the conference, differs “It can definitely help. There are a lot of people who want a stronger voice that sets peace as a goal even if it’s complicated and difficult.” 

“I believe that peace is actually much closer when we are in a situation of war than in a situation of status quo because status quo is a counterfeit approach that says you don’t have to deal with things,” he added. It was after the shocks of the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt and the first intifada that there was greater openness for peace, he said. 

“It seems that people wake up only after the catastrophes and wars, so this means that there is also an opportunity,” Dabush said.