Samah Watad
+972 Magazine / May 8, 2026
Another peace conference at a time of genocide and ethnic cleansing exposes this shrinking movement’s inability to influence our reality.
Stepping into the third annual “People’s Peace Summit” as a Palestinian journalist was uncomfortable. While the previous two gatherings took place during the peak of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, this year’s conference came at a moment when the prospect of a peaceful future feels somehow even more distant, despite the so-called “ceasefire.”
I arrived at Expo Tel Aviv last Thursday with one question in mind: Would the conversations taking place in its halls ever reach the broader Israeli public? And if so, how could ideas of equality, mutual understanding, and sustainable political solutions resonate in a society that has, particularly in recent years, moved so far away from such concepts?
More than 80 civil society organizations had spent months preparing the conference, hoping it could stand as proof that another future is possible. But there was an unspoken reluctance to confront the question of whether their politics retain any traction, in what is shaping up to be a decisive election year. Even as someone who tends to recognize hope wherever it exists, however faintly, I find myself increasingly sceptical — not of the sincerity of these activists, but of their ability to do more than theorize, to move beyond moral conviction and toward political influence.
Throughout the three panels I attended, I hesitated before challenging other participants, wary of coming across as overly confrontational or dismissive of activists who clearly believe in their work. Many spoke earnestly about peace, Israeli-Palestinian partnership, and the need to imagine a just and equal future. But when discussions turned to the practical question of shifting Israeli public discourse, things became vague.
Some paused. Others circled back to long-term cultural change, but no one could offer concrete practical strategies. A few admitted, quietly, that they had none.
In some ways, the conference was aware of its own limitations. Maya Savir, one of the organizers, told me its aim was simply to “bring these words and ideas back into the public space, allowing people to hear them again,” rather than to produce immediate, tangible change. There is undoubtedly value in that. But sitting in the auditorium, the event often felt deeply disconnected from the political and social reality outside it, so much so that I found myself questioning the very utility of such an event.
More than a conceptual gap
Savir, who grew up in Israel’s peacebuilding circles, maintained that the conference was not fringe but a reflection of shifts within Israeli society. In her view, more Israelis today are at least willing to acknowledge Palestinian rights, even if they do not agree on what securing those rights would require.
“We need to go back to speaking about values — equality, justice, and the right of both peoples to live here,” she said. The conviction behind her language was genuine. But values do not amount to a political program. Several activists I spoke with acknowledged how difficult it was to bring up these ideas even within their own families.
Asad Ghanem, a Palestinian political scientist at the University of Haifa who did not attend the conference, explained that this gap between stated values and political enforceability is to be expected: Israeli society has undergone a deep structural shift to the right, to the point where simply affirming that Palestinians have certain rights — before even proposing how they may be granted — is now treated as radical.
“These voices are important,” he said of the roughly 5,000 people who attended the conference. “But they are very few.”
The closest the conference came to discussing practical solutions was through repeated invocations of the two-state solution — the last familiar political framework many activists in Israel’s “peace camp” still cling to, despite the fact that the territorial and political foundations of such a solution have largely disappeared.
When I shared my complicated feelings about the conference with Emilie Moatti, a former Knesset member in the Labor Party who is now running with the Zionist-left Democrats Party, she responded confidently with regard to the party’s prospects in the upcoming election: “We will win, and we will bring a deal.” Does she really believe that someone like Naftali Bennett — the former settler leader who aspires to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister — would be willing to form a coalition capable of reversing Israel’s trajectory toward further annexation and annihilation?
In the context of the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing across the West Bank, the absence of concrete political strategies is more than a conceptual gap. For Palestinians, it means that while discussions about coexistence happen inside conference halls, their suffering continues — and even worsens.
The Palestinian question
My disillusionment with the conference also stemmed from the peculiar place of Palestinians within it. Despite our physical presence at the summit, and the fact that several Palestinians spoke from the main stage, it often felt like only one specific type of Palestinian political perspective was being centered and presented as if it were representative of all Palestinians in this land and in the diaspora.
Rather than a people with our own diverse and complex political visions, we were generally treated as a monolith. At times, it felt like a particular political framework was being imposed on Palestinians rather than genuinely negotiated with us.
To be clear: I do not dismiss the importance of these activists’ work. Speaking openly about ending the occupation in today’s Israel is rare and carries risks. Nevertheless, there is little space within these circles to consider the myriad preferences of Palestinians, even those that can be harder to swallow.
Sondos Saleh, a Palestinian former Knesset member elected as part of the Joint List in 2020, argued that the conference did not need to offer feasible solutions to be worthwhile. “We have to be in every space,” she said. “If we’re not there, someone else will speak for us, or decisions will be made without us.” At the same time, she questioned whether initiatives like this can meaningfully put the brakes on Israel’s rightward shift when the discussions rarely leave these circles.
Amal Oraby, a Palestinian lawyer and political activist who moderated a session on the West Bank, approached the issue more pragmatically. Given Palestinians’ destitute political and material realities, he argued, the immediate focus should be to simply reduce harm.
“I realize the complexity of what we are going through, and the question of what is the [impact] of such events is valid,” he told +972. “But it is my duty to try to make my existence on this land viable. It is my responsibility to try to make things better for my people and my family.”
His position reflects the two pressures many Palestinians are caught between: On the one hand, the desire to build and sustain forms of coexistence with Jewish Israelis who genuinely believe in our equality in this land; on the other, the recognition that these Israelis remain a small minority, unable to translate their beliefs into political power that can actually change our lived realities.
As Ghanem suggested, there is no real short-term horizon for a negotiated agreement to end the occupation — not via elections, nor initiatives emerging from within Israeli society. Rather than waiting for a political breakthrough that may not come, he called for prioritizing the strengthening of Palestinian society itself: bolstering local institutions, professional groups, and broader forms of collective political coordination.
Without expanding the internal capacity of Palestinian society, no external process — diplomatic or grassroots — will succeed in undermining the decades of apartheid rule that Israel has imposed on Palestinians.
“There is value even in leftists speaking to themselves,” Maya Savir reflected. That may be true in a reality where the central question is no longer which political solution is preferable but whether any solution remains possible.
A limited opening
Over the past two and a half years, the peacebuilding community has faced its hardest set of challenges yet: a genocide in Gaza supported by the majority of Israeli society, widespread indifference to escalating settler-state violence in the West Bank, and the near-collapse of any serious political discussion about an end to the occupation and justice and dignity for all.
For Ghanem and Oraby, therefore, participating in these spaces is not driven by expectations of immediate political change. Instead, the value of these gatherings is in creating limited openings to build alliances, reduce immediate harm, and, perhaps most importantly, buy the movement time — to elect a new government, rebuild Palestinian society, and organize a more systematic plan for future action.
Even in the absence of a political solution, many of the people I spoke to believe that removing Netanyahu’s extreme government could at least create more space for civil society work, human rights discourse, and political organizing, lowering some of the pressures and restrictions that have intensified in recent years. But that expectation also feels disconnected from the broader political reality.
A government led by Bennett, for example, would likely still operate within the same “conflict-management” framework that shaped Netanyahu’s years in power. It is difficult to imagine such a government taking meaningful action against settler violence and settlement construction in the West Bank, withdrawing from the “Yellow Line” in Gaza, or even reversing more basic restrictions on free speech, the media, and civil society organizing. In that sense, what is being imagined is not necessarily a different political reality, but a less aggressive management of the same one.
That strategy comes with a cost: It may create the impression that Palestinians are willing to accept a reality that is only marginally better than the current one, while simultaneously reducing pressure for global action against Israel in the form of sanctions and arms embargoes. But for some, it is a price worth paying if it creates space to survive, regroup, and create new forms of political organization that can bring about more fundamental change in this land.
Samah Watad is a Palestinian journalist and investigative researcher based in Israel, covering politics and social issues
