"A Palestinian man rests with his son under the rubble of their destroyed house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Reuters

Israel missed its opportunity to avoid the carnage of the Hamas attack a year ago and end its forever wars during the 1980s and early 1990s. If Israel had then adopted the two-state solution for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, a democratic Palestine could have emerged. Hamas could have been jostling for power with Fatah and other Palestinian factions instead of preparing a cross-border raid to kill and kidnap Israelis. Palestinians could have been absorbed with building their state while Israel could have benefitted from implementing the 2002 Arab plan promising peace in exchange for territory occupied in 1967.

The 1982 war on Lebanon gave momentum to Israel's infant peace movement. Yesh Gvul ("There is a Limit") was established at the launch of the war by combat veterans who rejected service in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories. Yesh Gvul’s efforts are said to have contributed to the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

While mainstream Peace Now was founded in 1978 by 348 army reserve officers and soldiers during negotiations for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the 1982 "war of choice" launched by Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon was a turning point for the movement. The officers realised that Israel would secure peace only if the 1967 occupation ended and Palestinians would achieve statehood.

Peace Now warned against getting "stuck in the mud of Lebanon" during the war. After the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila neighbourhoods, Peace Now staged a mass demonstration in Tel Aviv. More than 400,000 — 10 per cent of Israel’s population — demanded Sharon’s resignation. In response, the government established a commission of inquiry which found Israel indirectly responsible by laying siege to Sabra and Shatila and introducing armed Maronite Christian Phalangists who took revenge for the assassination of their leader President Bashir Gemayel. When the government, headed by Menachem Begin, baulked at the commission's call for Sharon to step down, Peace Now led a march to the prime minister's Jerusalem residence to protest. On the way right-wing Israelis attacked the demonstrators and activist Emil Grunzweig was killed. Sharon relinquished the defence ministry and was appointed minister without portfolio.

Peace-minded Israeli activisim long predated Peace Now but it was the first mass movement to complement the multiplicity of groups with human rights focus. Hebrew University organic chemistry professor Israel Shahak headed the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights (1970-1990). When it was clear that the 1967 occupation of Palestinian territories would not end soon, Jeff Halper established the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in 1997 and has campaigned against colonisation and the displacement of Palestinians. Breaking the Silence was created in 2004 by Israeli army officers and reservists to collect testimonies from soldiers to reveal to the Israeli public human rights abuses committed against Palestinians. B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, seeks to end the occupation and apartheid imposed on Palestinians dominated by Israel.

While Peace Now has survived and established a US branch, it has joined the human rights campaigners and no longer mounts mass protests or stages marches. There are several reasons for the change. The first was demographics. In 1977, the right-wing Likud came to power. It appealed to conservative lower middle-and working-class Israelis not supportive of the Labour party and leftist parties. At the same time, the religious communities grew in size and influence. Between 1989 and 2006, 979,000 Jews migrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Most were anti-left, anti-Palestinian and supported the Likud and right-wing parties which join coalitions formed by the Likud.

There were other contributing factors. The failure of the 1993-1999 Oslo process to deliver peace for Israelis and a homeland for Palestinians (largely due to Israeli obstruction) led to the 2000-2005 Second Intifada of the gun and bomb. Negotiations produced no breakthrough and were abandoned in 2014. Israeli settlers and soldiers withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but since then Israel has repeatedly waged war against Gaza and ramped up colonisation and suppression of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.

Writing in The New Republic on May 22nd, 2024, Eric Alterman asked, "What on Earth Has Happened to the Israeli Peace Movement?" He cited the Israeli-American pollster and political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin who wrote that "the number of Israeli Jews who defined themselves as members of the left fell by 50 percent, from 30 percent to just 15 percent in the early 2000s, the other half immediately shifting to the self-defined centre, as the right wing’s popularity began to climb, reaching 60 percent of Jewish Israelis by 2019." While Israelis now mount huge weekly protests against the Likud-right wing coalition under Binyamin Netanyahu, their goal is to press him to ceasefire in Gaza to secure the release of around 100 Israelis captured by Hamas on October 7th last year. They care little or nothing for the 42,000 Gazans killed and more than 94,000 wounded by Israel's war on Gaza or Israel's policy of denying the besieged enclave food, medicine, and water. Most Israelis focus on the shock and humiliation of the Hamas raid and are not moved by Palestinian suffering inflicted by Israel in multiple breaches of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israeli liberal daily Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy calls Israel a country of "blood,” of bloodletting. Following the assassination of Hizbollah leaders Hassan Nasrullah, Levy castigated Israelis who celebrated, handed out chocolates. He pointed out that killing has resolved none of Israel's problems. "The West Bank is on the verge of exploding; Israel is stuck in a ruined Gaza with no exit in sight, as are the hostages; Moody's has downgraded the economy to the floor; the mass slaughter that began in Gaza is shifting to Lebanon. Half a million people have been displaced from their homes, on top of 2 million of (Palestinians) in the Strip." Levy observed that Israel's security situation is "shakier," a regional war looms, the 60,000 Israelis displaced from the north by Hizbollah's missiles and drones have no hope of return, and Israel's international standing is lower than ever. He warned that the US will not back Israel "forever" if it wages war without end. Unfortunately, the region and the world have waited for years in vain for that auspicious day.