Dr. Gil Murciano of Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and Uri Weltmann of Standing Together, spoke April 17 at Temple Sholom. <\/i>(photo by Pat Johnson)<\/i><\/p>\n
For months, weekly rallies across Israel after Shabbat have demanded the return of the hostages from Gaza. These rallies have often coincided with separate protests, which have been going on much longer, against the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu generally and its proposed judicial reforms specifically. These two streams of protesters have coalesced in recent weeks, according to an Israeli activist leader who spoke in Vancouver last week, because, he said, many Israelis are convinced that Netanyahu is not advancing freedom for the hostages, but hindering it, for his own political advantage.<\/p>\n
Uri Weltmann, field organizer of Standing Together, made the claim April 17 during an event at Temple Sholom organized by New Israel Fund Canada.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened three weeks ago is that it stopped being two different protest movements,\u201d said Weltmann. \u201cThey are basically changing their strategy. They are calling for early elections and for [Netanyahu\u2019s] government to be removed and replaced with a different government. [Activists are] pointing their finger at him as the obstruction, as the obstacle toward advancing to a ceasefire agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Weltmann argues that Netanyahu is concerned not only for his political survival, but for his freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cFor Netanyahu, the protraction of this war, the continuation of this war, is in his political interest,\u201d said Weltmann. \u201cHe knows that a temporary ceasefire might lead to a permanent ceasefire. A permanent ceasefire would mean an end to the war. An end to this war would bring an end to this coalition government because the extremists he huddled with have already said publicly that, if they will end the war before total victory, they will topple the government.\u201d<\/p>\n The end of the current government and the ousting of Netanyahu, he said, would have more than just political ramifications for the prime minister, who opinion polls suggest would be soundly routed if an election were held now.<\/p>\n \u201cNew elections mean him losing the majority and him losing the majority is not only Netanyahu the politician being ousted from office. It\u2019s also Netanyahu facing corruption charges, having his trial resume, [and he] might lose his personal liberty. For him, it\u2019s intimately linked to the continuation of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n The consensus among these activists is that Netanyahu is seeking to prolong the war and the captivity of the hostages to protect his political and personal interests, said Weltmann.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly important political development within Israel that a broad movement around the families and friends of the hostages have made this link,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Weltmann\u2019s group, Standing Together (known in Hebrew and Arabic as Omdim Beyachad-Naqif Ma\u2019an), was founded in 2015 and is one of the on-the-ground groups New Israel Fund supports.<\/p>\n Among the goals of the group is to build a grassroots movement for peace and progressive politics in Israel, including in rural and peripheral areas of the country. Making such a movement successful beyond the activist hub in Tel Aviv is the only way to advance Standing Together\u2019s goals, Weltmann said. Even a more centrist or progressive government, if elected tomorrow, would not necessarily advance meaningful steps to peace and coexistence if there is not a broad popular movement in support of such a policy shift, he said.<\/p>\n Without a national movement for peace, he said, a new prime minister, however well-intentioned, would not feel the pressure to abandon the status quo and take steps for a changed future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe must, as a strategic starting point in our process of progressive transformation of Israeli society, be present in the Negev, be present in the Galilee, be present in those parts of Israeli society that for too long have been the playing ground of the right-wing with left-wing actors completely non-present,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must be there organizing local communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Jewish citizens cannot do it by themselves, said Weltmann, and neither can Arab citizens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe must have Jewish-Palestinian unity and cooperation within Israel for this change to be effective,\u201d he said. An example of this strategy was a slogan adopted by a joint Jewish-Arab slate in Haifa during the recent municipal elections. The far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party of Itamar Ben-Gvir ran slates across the country trying to solidify the party\u2019s roots at the civic level. The joint slate in Haifa played off Otzma Yehudit\u2019s xenophobia with the slogan \u201cJewish Arab Power.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are at a crossroads,\u201d said Weltmann. \u201cEvery Israeli should choose which side am I on: the side that leads to a continuation of the status quo, a continuation of the state of affairs in which the Palestinians live in the occupied territories under military rule devoid of citizenship, devoid of rights, a situation that can lead to Oct. 7 one after another unless we put an end to it, or the reality of an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will guarantee both people safety, security and an imaginable, livable future?\u201d<\/p>\n Weltmann spoke alongside Dr. Gil Murciano, an Iran expert and chief executive officer of the think-tank Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, which one journalist has called \u201cthe diplomatic wing of the protest movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Weltmann, Murciano longs for a \u201cnew majority\u201d in Israel\u2019s body politic. \u201cA new majority that will allow us to advance toward a state where we live in peace, we live in dignity, we live in equality, without the occupation, without the injustices, throughout our society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A fundamental shift in perspective is needed, argued Murciano.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to speak about \u2018wars of no choice\u2019 in Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to start thinking in terms of \u2018peace of no choice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n On the one side, he said, the extreme right has a plan of annexation, with Bezalel Smotrich, Israel\u2019s minister of finance and head of the far-right National Religious Party, calling for the government to \u201cencourage\u201d migration from Gaza to Egypt. On the other side, he said, since Oct. 7, people on the left have been motivated to seek an alternative to the status quo.<\/p>\n Dr. Maayan Kreitzman, a local food systems researcher and activist who moderated the event, challenged Murciano on this point. Rather than progressive voices calling for more coexistence, she said, she has heard the opposite. People that are \u201cquite dovish\u201d have had second thoughts about their worldview and transformed into a more hawkish, securitized attitude, she suggested.<\/p>\n Murciano acknowledged that all Israelis share one overriding priority. \u201cFor Israelis, it\u2019s pretty clear,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first, second and third priority of Israelis right now is security.\u201d<\/p>\n That is a prerequisite to any advancement, he said.<\/p>\n Murciano proposes something he acknowledges to be \u201ca little bit symbolic,\u201d an international peace conference to kick off a new process between moderate Israelis and moderate Palestinians. This could be a first step to breaking an impasse that has existed in recent years, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people have described the last decade as the lost decade of Israeli diplomacy,\u201d he said, a period where \u201cconflict management\u201d has been the priority; effectively, a maintenance of the status quo.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s the right description, actually. It\u2019s a strategy of not having a strategy,\u201d said Murciano. \u201cComing to terms with the fact that there is no political way out and basically every couple of years we\u2019re going to have a bit of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n This approach sees Israelis forfeiting the initiative to Hezbollah and Hamas, he said, \u201cBasically setting yourself in a situation where you only respond to a reality that is forced upon you.\u201d<\/p>\n Oct. 7, he said, destroyed this conceptual framing.<\/p>\n Part of any future needs to include a multilateral project to \u201crebuild life-sustaining systems\u201d in Gaza, he said, not a \u201cpeace-keeping force\u201d but a \u201cmultinational force\u201d that will be an on-the-ground part of a larger process toward peace and coexistence.<\/p>\n Ben Murane, executive director of New Israel Fund Canada, spoke of the emotional impacts of recent months.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re like me, what has been excruciating the past six months has been not just holding my pain, our Jewish pain, the pain of my Israeli coworkers, my family, my friends there, the pain of the Israeli people, but also, in my heart, holding the pain of the Palestinian people too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Since the earliest days of the current war, Murane said, there have been countless glimmers of hope in the form of cross-cultural dialogue.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the first few months, we were astounded to see, across Israel, dozens of gatherings, conferences, events with hundreds of Jews and Palestinians standing together holding up those now-iconic purple signs saying \u2018Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,\u2019 \u2018Jews and Arabs stand together\u2019 or just simply \u2018B\u2019Yachad,\u2019 together,\u201d said Murane. \u201cWe were astounded to see Jewish citizens of Israel respond to the needs of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel making calls to families of the hostages, joint Jewish-Arab humanitarian aid missions to the south and to the north. As the war in Gaza accelerated, those Israeli voices also said, \u2018We do have choices, even now. We have lots of choices with how we execute a just war justly.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Any long-term solution to the decades-long conflict must bring safety and dignity to both peoples, said Murane, \u201cand anything else, anything short of fairness to both sides, will perpetuate this for another generation.\u201d<\/p>\n New Israel Fund partners with and supports, according to its website, \u201corganizations in Israel that fight for socioeconomic equality, religious freedom, civil and human rights, shared society and anti-racism, Palestinian citizens, and democracy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n The April 17 event was hosted by Temple Sholom and co-sponsored by JSpaceCanada, which calls itself the advocacy voice of Liberal Zionism, Ameinu Canada, described as the voice of labour Zionism in Canada, and Canadian Friends of Peace Now, as well as the speakers\u2019 organizations.<\/p>\n Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said he had received emails expressing concerns about hosting a perceived left-wing event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI get the same emails when we host people to the right of centre,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the purposes of a synagogue, he said, is to engage with ideas that \u201ccomfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.<\/p>\n \u201cYou may find your truth by agreeing with what you here tonight,\u201d he said. \u201cYou may find your truth by disagreeing with what you hear tonight. The important part is to engage with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Vancouver activist David Berson promoted the opportunity to listen to the Israeli guests as a chance to gain a perspective apart from the most common refrain he hears on social media and WhatsApp threads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s another way you can look at what\u2019s going on,\u201d he told the Independent<\/i> after the event. \u201cCome out and hear a different perspective. I invited people to come tonight and listen to a different narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n The 200 to 300 people at the event was about double what organizers had earlier expected, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Gil Murciano of Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and Uri Weltmann of Standing Together, spoke April 17 at Temple Sholom. (photo by Pat Johnson) For months, weekly rallies across Israel after Shabbat have demanded the return of the hostages from Gaza. 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