Israel's Peace Now turns 30

by Beth O'ConnellMon Apr 7, 3:29 PM ET

Loathed or loved by many Israelis, Peace Now this week marks 30 years as a movement which has deeply influenced public opinion but not achieved its vision of peace with the Palestinians.

The group plans to celebrate three decades of activism and anti-settlement battles on Tuesday at a Tel Aviv square named after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated after addressing a peace rally there in 1995.

In 1982, Peace Now led a 400,000-strong protest at the same square, calling for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

What was then seen as a radical concept is now the US-backed consensus view in Israel and the basis for negotiations under way with the Palestinians.

Longtime activist Galia Golan remembers secret meetings with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in occupied east Jerusalem nearly 30 years ago to discuss possible future peace talks.

The breakthrough finally came in 1993 when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Rabin signed the Oslo accords, five years after the PLO recognised Israel's right to exist.

"We had a role in changing the public dialogue and the fact is that today there is a majority supporting the two-state solution, negotiations and pulling out of the West Bank," said Golan, 69.

Peace Now first won prominence on Israel's political scene in 1978, riding a wave of popular support for army reserve officers who had published a letter calling for peace between Israel and Egypt.

One year later, president Anwar Sadar signed a peace treaty with prime minister Menachem Begin making Egypt the first Arab government to make peace with Israel.

Since then Peace Now, which calls itself Israel's oldest peace movement, has drawn hundreds of thousands of Israelis to its rallies, and some of its activists have gone on to win parliamentary seats.

It has also taken its campaign against Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank to Israel's highest court. The international community considers the settlements illegal and a key hurdle to Middle East peace.

"Peace Now was established to fight the settler movement," says Sammy Smooha, a sociology professor at Haifa University.

"It has provided information on settlements and demonstrated that they are counterproductive for Israeli security and the peace process."

The peace movement was a counterforce to hardline Jews who settled the West Bank and Gaza Strip after their occupation in the 1967 Middle East war.

"We saw the issue of the settlements as central for peace from the start," says Golan, a professor at the Lauder school of government in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.

"We failed to prevent new construction but we managed to make the issue critical and make the public realise we must get rid of them," she said.

Not surprisingly, the movement's loudest critics come from the right-wing settler movement.

"In 30 years Peace Now has brought upon Israel only violence. I don't judge their intentions, just the result of their deeds," says Dani Dayan, chairman of the main settlement organization, the Yesha Council.

Dayan pointed to the group's support for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza five years later, which he said had served only to bolster Israel's Islamist foes Hezbollah and Hamas.

The last major Peace Now demonstration was in May 2005 in support of the removal of Jewish settlements in Gaza, and today some question the group's relevance now that its political views are mainstream.

To the settlers, Peace Now's influence seems to have waned since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, the collapse of US-sponsored peace talks early the following year and Hamas's seizure of Gaza last June.

"Israeli public opinion has seen the illusion of peace, seen the big mistakes Peace Now and their allies have made," says Dayan, who believes it may result in victory for the right at the next elections.

But over the years Peace Now has made a significant contribution to raising public awareness, says Smooha, "spreading the idea that peace is possible, achievable, and not an illusion."