A Tortuous Trail: The predicament of the Israeli peace movement, 1993-2008

In a closed-to-the-media meeting held in mid August 2009 with members of the radical right wing - Jewish Leadership (Manhigut Yehudit) - faction of the Likud party, former IDF Chief of Staff and current deputy Prime Minister, Moshe (Bougie) Ya'alon, referred to the Israeli peace movement, Peace Now, as "a virus." He said that the movement jeopardized Israel's national interest by their persistent anti-settlement campaign, which, he maintained, negated the basic right of Jews to live wherever they wished in the entire "Greater Israel" territory. He was wholeheartedly seconded by Dr. Uzi Landau, the National Infrastructure Minister. This was - at least thus far - the latest episode in a long chain of attacks, direct and indirect, by Israeli officials, members of the media and often even the "man in the street," against peace activism and the peace movement. The common denominator of all these attacks is the prevalent accusation that the movement and its activists are "unpatriotic" and "self-haters," who, more than the "natural" Israeli and Jewish values and interests, cherish universal values such as human rights and the national right to self-determination (in more refined wording), and the enemy's ideas and interests (in blunter terms).

These attacks are not at all self-evident, considering the small membership and low profile of the peace movement in the last two decades or so, certainly since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000. The intriguing question then, is why do they even bother? If the movement is indeed so small and unnoticeable, why is it the target of so much anger, mistrust, and verbal and non-verbal violence in Israel, yet popular in international public opinion?

The answer is that despite its small size and current invisibility, it is clear that the peace movement was quite successful in influencing Israeli public discourse on the origins and development of - and possible solutions to - the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict.  The peace movement has successfully promoted the idea that Israel should not only react but can and should make moves to change the regional situation from a zero-sum game to a win-win one.

Friends and foes alike admit today that several ideas developed and cultivated by the peace movement over the years - such as the two-state solution or the realization that military superiority alone could not guarantee Israel's security in the long run - served as the basis for the Oslo peace process. Despite being rejected by the Israeli Jewish mainstream for many years, the ideas of the peace movement were adopted in the early 1990s by the Israeli policymakers who "created" Oslo and incorporated them into the official foreign and security policy of the state. In fact, despite the collapse of the Oslo process and the subsequent shift to the right of Israel's ruling parties, some of the peace movement's ideas - most notably the concept of a two-state solution - remain part of official Israeli policy, and are accepted by the majority of Israelis to this day.  

This being the case, other questions emerge: Why didn't the movement and its activists get any credit for this cognitive and political transformation, not even during the Oslo heyday? Why have both the Israeli upper echelons and the general public consistently turned a cold shoulder to peace activists, and how did these negative relations with the mainstream effect the ideology, strategy, tactics and organizational structure of the peace movement in the years since the signing of the first Oslo declaration of principles in August 1993?

I attempt to answer these and other questions in my book The Israeli Peace Movement - A Shattered Dream, by focusing on external and internal processes and interactions experienced by the peace movement.  Using insights from general social movement theory and theories on public opinion and foreign-security policymaking, the book analyzes the findings of public opinion surveys conducted in the framework of the Peace Index project in order to systematically juxtapose the peace movement's positions with Israeli public attitudes on relevant matters between 1993 and 2008.

Following the introductory, theoretical chapter of the book, the next two chapters cover the Israeli sociopolitical terrain and provide readers with a brief history of Israeli peace activism and organizations from the pre-State days to 2008. The main chapter of the book - The Path Strewn with Obstacles, which is divided into five periods - describes and analyzes in great detail the predicament of the movement, which paradoxically, following the launching of the Oslo peace process, experienced a prolonged, fatal decline in membership, activity, political significance, and media visibility. The final chapter - A Path Finder: Exploring New Ways or Getting Lost? - puts forward a detailed 'balance sheet' of the movement's achievements and failures.

The appendices include a comprehensive list of all Israeli peace groups and movements, as well as graphs summarizing the findings of the Peace Index surveys.

Hermann, Tamar S. (2009). The Israeli Peace Movement - A Shattered Dream. NY: Cambridge University Press, 310 pp.