We are a relatively new organisation, but we’re proud of how we organise Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel to influence and change our society.
This is the political context in which we operate — Israeli society is the one we aim to transform. Our activism and grassroots organising is directed towards this goal: talking with people, gaining support for our positions, and activating people politically.
We have many partners, locally and abroad, who share our values. What is unique about Standing Together is how we operate — the fact that we work for justice, peace, freedom, and equality for Palestinians inside the very country creating and maintaining the violent, oppressive regime.
This nightmarish war has raged for months now. The unfathomable humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the civilian death toll, the horror of Hamas’ attack on October 7th, and deep concern for the lives of the hostages — we cannot accept living in this reality. We are working hard to change it.
We fight to transform our society because we deeply care for the people around us. We love this land and those who live here. And we look with horror at the direction that the governing leaderships push us towards. We all have skin in the game, and our loved ones are deeply impacted.
Our movement is binational, with Palestinian members, and Israel — the state in which we have citizenship — is occupying and denying the humanity of our people. The state declared war on our national identity and is committing atrocities against our relatives in Gaza and West Bank.
For us, bringing about foundational change is urgent — it is quite literally a matter of life or death. And for the past few months, even more so. We partnered with more than 30 organisations to mobilise thousands in Tel Aviv and Haifa for a ceasefire agreement.
We’ve repeatedly said — in Hebrew and Arabic, on the streets, in the press, and on social media — that only a ceasefire agreement can bring back the hostages alive and stop the killing of innocents in Gaza. We’ve helped shift opinions and have rallied thousands for this cause.
We stand by this very basic fact:
• There are millions of Palestinians in this land. None of them are going anywhere.
• There are millions of Jews in this land. None of them are going anywhere.
And this must be the starting point of any serious discussion.
Our recognition of the right of both peoples for safety, dignity, and freedom clashes with the Israeli political establishment, which continues to promote ethnic cleansing, violent military control, incarceration, and the denial of millions of Palestinians of civil rights and sovereignty. When high-ranking politicians in Israel openly state that they favour an Apartheid state, in which Jews are granted civil rights, but millions of Palestinians should concede to live as stateless subjects under military rule — we must resist, together.
This is why we were the leading movement on the ground fighting against the Nation-State Law, and organised the first protest against this racist legislation in July 2018, where thousands of Jews and Palestinians marched in Tel-Aviv.
This is why we spent the past year participating in the protests against the judicial overhaul, intervening in the mass demonstrations with a message that says that there cannot be democracy without equality, and without ending the occupation. This is why we work to politicise and empower Palestinian youth inside Israel. Organising those left behind by the old political structures, and who want to realise a better society, free from racism, sexism and homophobia. We train them to become organisers and leaders.
This is why we marched to the home of Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in the streets of the illegal settlement Kedumim, calling for its evacuation. This is why we say — in Hebrew and Arabic, inside Israel — that we reject the settler agenda.
We do so because we know that the current reality is not only deeply unjust — the atrocities committed in the last months shake us to our core — but also because it dangerously undermines our safety. If we and our families are to have a secure future, our political reality must change.
Our years of campaigning against occupation and injustice are not merely based on abstract morals, but on the concrete interests of the majority in our society: we, as people in Israel (Jewish and Palestinian) don’t benefit, but lose, from the reality of occupation and war, and must fight to change it. Rather than equating the people in Israel with the establishment at the top, we recognise the deep contradictions between the interests of the majority in our society — Jews and Arabs, secular and religious, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi — and that of the political and economic elites.
Therefore we engage with people from diverse communities in Israel, across differences, around our shared interests. We’re not content with denouncing the injustices and condemning our reality, but work strategically to organise and build power from below, to create change.
Sides do exist. But it’s not all the Jews on one side against all the Palestinians on the other. It is the vast majority of ordinary people, both Jews and Palestinians, against the few who benefit from the status quo. Our ideas are not confined to theory, we were able to build a movement around them: 5,000 dues-paying members, tens of thousands of supporters, two dozen local chapters in cities and on campuses, with confident and diverse leaders.
As organisers, we know the real test lies in whether we will succeed in building power: Will masses of people align with our strategy’? Will we change policy and common-sense perceptions? Our movement aims not merely to be right, but to win.
Our movement members, after collective discussions and deliberations, democratically adopted a strategy for Standing Together, that aims to build a new majority in our society, one that would allow us to advance peace, equality, and social and climate justice. To do this, we champion the various causes that advance people’s interests and improve our lives: we campaign to raise the minimum wage, fight for a Green New Deal, protest for LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights and against domestic violence, and organise urban youth to achieve affordable housing.
So are we a human rights NGO? Or an anti-war movement? We’re not really either of these. Standing Together is an attempt to do something new. To create a People’s Left that can win a majority away from the ideas of the establishment, and offer hope. If our values resonate with yours — then let’s be partners.
• From Instagram
