In these dark and terrible days in Israel and Palestine, the members of the grassroots Jewish-Arab organisation Standing Together are raising their voices in ever larger numbers to call for an end to life by the sword, and for Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel to work together to build a safe, just and equal future for all.
The past few weeks in Israel and Palestine have been an unending nightmare. Sixty-seven Palestinian children have lost their lives. Another two Israeli children have died in the south of Israel. Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel were shot by the police during protests. In Holon, Sderot and Lod, people have lost their lives. Children have been spending their days and nights in shelters - and in Gaza, they haven’t even had shelters to run to. Wherever you looked, you could see violence, pain, fear and death.
In these past days, this has been our reality here in Palestine and Israel. Again.
Why again? Every few years, we experience yet another terrible round of violent escalation. And the past few days have proved yet again that the government of Israel has no solution for us. The politicians - Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smutrich, Amir Ohana and their friends - are offering only more of the same: life (and death) by the sword, violence, fear in the streets, racism, and incitement.
Because of them, civilians in Palestine and in Israel continue to live in fear, as one round of escalations follows another. And as far as the politicians are concerned, let there be more violence in Jaffa, Lod, Acre and all over the country; let it go on and on and intensify, so that people will be afraid to leave their houses, and afraid to hope that our world can ever be anything other than it is today.
It is clear that our elected representatives do not want peace. It is clear that they are determined to maintain the longstanding policies and practices of discrimination against Arab-Palestinian citizens in Israel. It is clear that they want the police and the border security forces to continue with their provocations, with their brutalisation and harassment, as, all the while, the settlers remain protected.
But I say: it does not have to be this way. We must not allow this endless round of fear and violence to continue. I truly believe that - regardless of politicians’ determination to keep the conflict going - we, the people, have the power to change all of this. But it will only be possible if we work together, both the Jewish and the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Last week, we marched together in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem whose residents are facing exclusion and eviction from their homes at the hands of Israeli Jewish settlers. We also stood together, Arabs and Jews, in the heart of Tel Aviv, thousands of us, and we demanded a just and peaceful reality for all of us. We demanded a ceasefire, an end to the illegal settlements, and an end to the occupation, and we called for a move towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.
This weekend, we took a stand in Be'er Sheva and in Haifa against political arrests; we stood in Lod in solidarity with its Palestinian and Jewish residents who seek unity not division; and we stood again with the people of Sheikh Jarrah against settlers’ attempts to displace them from their homes.
This is the mission we have been taking on, in Standing Together, in these past weeks of violence and war. We believe this mission is more important than ever: we are working to create the strongest-ever public voice, which will say loud and clear that the majority of the people who live here want a ceasefire, and an end to the occupation and settlements.
We are demanding - as we gather in growing numbers and raise our voices in more than a hundred different locations across Israel - a change of direction. We are demanding a move at long last toward a life of freedom, equality, justice and peace. In these past weeks, every single day, we have mobilised thousands of Arab-Palestinian and Jewish Israeli citizens. We have shown that there can be a different reality, and a better way. As we have stood together, joined forces and shown solidarity in these days, even in such dark and terrible times, we have felt a lot of hope.
Standing Together has organising people for almost six years, and in the past ten days, it has become the leading voice and organising body for Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel who hope and believe that our lives can be different. We have vowed to continue our work, because we are not willing to return to “normal”. And ceasefires are not “normality”. Ceasefires such as the one we have just seen are only temporary, and they come in the wake of yet more suffering and yet more needless destruction and loss of life.
We will continue to organise tirelessly and struggle for far more than just a temporary halt to death and violence. We are working for a society in which all of us - Arabs and Jews - will have security, freedom from violence, and safety in our homes, on our streets, and in our cities. And, most of all, we will be equal. Together.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Alon-Lee Green
National Co-Director, Standing Together
Alon-Lee Green is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and the National Co-Director of Standing Together, a progressive Jewish-Arab grassroots movement. Throughout his political and social years of activity, he has organised numerous campaigns against the recent wars between Israel and Palestine, and for a just peace and equality and social justice in Israel.
Image credits: © Standing Together