As Israel’s war on Gaza drags on into its eighth month, an internal war between Israeli peace activists, right-wing individuals and security forces is playing out on the ground, mostly below the international media’s radar.
Israeli peace activists, who are trying to deliver aid to Gaza and are protesting for a ceasefire and the end of Netanyahu’s government, have received death threats, been physically attacked (necessitating hospitalisation in some cases), imprisoned and shunned by society.
“While attending the Tel Aviv protests I’ve been pushed over by Israeli extremists, family members have cut off contact with me for my political beliefs and I make sure to never wear my political T-shirts in public on trains and buses,” 85-year-old peace activist Natalie Netanya Ginsburg, who uses two walking sticks, told Crikey.
Ginsburg volunteers with Machsom Watch, an organisation of Israeli women that helps Palestinians at Israeli checkpoints facing military bureaucracy and mistreatment by soldiers.
She also volunteers with Rabbis for Human Rights, which regularly travels into the Israeli-occupied West Bank to support Palestinian farmers, who are harvesting their olives as they come under regular attack from Israeli settlers who live in illegal outposts and settlements nearby.
“In order to keep friendships that I value with conservative Israelis, we’ve had to avoid politics completely,” Ginsburg said.
“I’ve been involved in political activism for decades, but the situation has never been this bad and neither have I ever been afraid until now. I truly worry for the younger generation who can have problems with jobs even if they have been detained for a few hours by the police for protesting.”
Three young Israelis have been repeatedly jailed for their refusal to serve in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
A spokesperson from Mesarvot, an organisation representing young Israelis who object to the occupation, said that the young refuseniks, as they are called, are demanding the IDF recognise them as conscientious objectors and stop imprisoning them repeatedly.
Activist Ofer Neiman is a former Israeli reservist who was kicked out of the IDF for his political beliefs. He was a member of Yesh Gvul, which also offers support to Israelis refusing to serve.
“In addition to supporting refuseniks, Yesh Gvul also tries to educate the Israeli public about Israeli soldiers being told to carry out orders that are blatantly illegal under international law, and encourage them to disobey such orders,” Neiman told Crikey.
“Israelis who are involved in peace activism continue to suffer negative consequences for their beliefs and actions.
“Physical assaults by the police and members of the public, death threats, incarceration and problems at the workplace,” Neiman said.
“The situation was particularly bad after the Hamas attack on October 7. It has eased somewhat but protesters are still being attacked by the police and face a backlash from members of the public.”
One of the more notorious cases was that of Meir Baruchin, a 62-year-old schoolteacher who was fired from his job at a school in Petah Tikva in Israel.
Baruchin made the mistake of posting two posts on Facebook, showing a photo of dead Palestinian children and warning of the rising bloodshed in the West Bank, pleading for the madness to stop.
“He only served four days in jail,” Neiman told Crikey.
“However, there are two Palestinian citizens of Israel who have been in jail for over half a year for organising protests against the war. That is the difference between being a Palestinian Israeli and a Jewish Israeli.”
Recently a group of rabbis were arrested for trying to deliver aid to Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli extremists, who have regularly attacked the trucks, set them on fire, destroyed the aid and assaulted the truck drivers, apparently under the protection of the Israeli police and with their coordination, have been largely left alone.
Rabbi Alissa Wise, who led a delegation of Rabbis for Ceasefire towards the Gaza border trying to deliver aid, was arrested.
“I was held for nearly 10 hours at the Ashkelon police station,” she said afterwards.
“Unlike the right-wing settlers blocking aid from entering, we were immediately stopped, and myself and six others were arrested,” Wise told the Inquirer.
However, Suf Patishi from the Israeli activist organisation Standing Together said his group had successfully stopped Israeli settlers from blocking aid convoys at another checkpoint.
“We managed to form a human chain around the aid trucks to stop the settlers from puncturing tyres and ripping open flour bags. Our second strategy was to inform the police of individuals who were about to sabotage the aid and then the police could not turn a blind eye to what was happening and pretend they didn’t know what was taking place,” Patishi told Crikey.
