Standing Together is a movement, which describes itself as “progressive” and “grassroots”. They work with Palestinians and citizens of Israel to campaign for social justice, equality and peace, and against the occupation. They argue that the people in the region have far more in common that what divides them and that furthermore only a tiny minority benefits from the status quo of occupation and social inequality.
Standing Together works for a future of independence and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, with real economic, environmental and social justice and full equality for everyone in the region. They fervently believe that such a future is possible.
They further state that “to achieve it, we must stand together as a united front: Jewish and Palestinian, secular and religious, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi, rural and urban, and people of all genders and sexual orientations. As the largest Jewish-Arab grassroots movement in Israel, we are committed to creating an alternative to our existing reality by building the political power to make it happen”.
Natalie Azoulay: Standing Together in Jerusalem
Recently, I was fortunate to hear first hand from Natalie Azoulay, field organiser of the Hebrew University Jerusalem chapter of Standing Together.
Natalie is 22 years old and she is an undergraduate student in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she has lived for 15 years. Nat is studying media and sociology.
She is Interested in journalism as part of activism.
Since last winter the branch has been doing protests that bring Standing Together into other protests, as the largest left-wing grassroots organisation in Israel.
One protest two months ago was when a large group of settlers were going round a Palestinian village confronting people and in one altercation two Palestinians were killed. However, the media reported it as an attack on settlers.
It was quite a small protest and the Standing Together chapter came to support it, helping it to double in size.
Another bigger protest was about settler violence, a protest in Tel Aviv.
Another protest was for Awdah Hathaleen who was killed by a settler, who was not brought to justice, with no charges. Many Standing Together people knew him and so they protested outside the national centre for prosecutions.
Then belatedly, charges were brought against the settler.
Another successful meeting was about a week later as a few students came together and went to the offices of a right-wing party who are large funders of settler expansion. Standing Together highlighted cases of settler violence, showing people that they were not going to be silent about it.
Activists painted their faces red to show blood as they see that blood is on the hands of the government. It was on every digital news site and Channel 14 were very upset and were talking about all day long and on the evening news. This was going to create a lot of conversations and Standing Together mainly achieved their goal. They are not going to be silent about the bloodshed and the people who are funding it.
Standing Together also values self-reflection. The action was well executed -in and out in 10 minutes with no violence and no police presence. It gained a lot of media attention with clear and strong imagery and a clear message that these people are funding settler extension and that causes a lot of bloodshed.
Another protest was in a mall in Tel Aviv with layers and an opening in the middle. Standing Together made an11-metre banner stating that one day a Palestinian state will arise and there will be peace. The- words’ Palestinian state’ are very explosive to many Israelis who claim wrongly that it is a cry for terrorism.
However, Standing Together wanted to get people talking. When Standing Together unfolded the banner they initially got a few looks with people yelling and screaming at them to take it down shouting “we don’t want to see that” and “traitors”. However, it did generate a conversation but five minutes after it was unfolded some teenagers tore it down to clapping and cheering in the mall.
Natalie felt disheartened. They were not doing anything wrong and just trying to get people to talk about peace and sovereignty for Palestinians, but people didn’t want to hear about it. It was unfortunate, but they may renew the banner for other places.
What worked? It was a striking display and garnered attention. And what didn’t work? The crowd disruption and not much conversation as they had hoped for.
Some people tried to chase Standing Together activists out of the mall.
Moving forward, the election is coming up and Natalie said that they were encouraging Standing Together supporters to come and vote if they are Israeli citizens.
Standing Together will also be focused on messaging around the election and no matter what the outcome there is still a lot of work to be done, talking to people abut peace.
One goal is to bring Jewish and Palestinian students on campus together more. The classes end up in cliques and separate with some tension there. It is prevalent on the university campus with Jewish students coming from the Occupied Territories who speak loudly about not wanting to see Arab people on campus. Standing Together want to bring people together. Peace has to start somewhere and from conversations and co-resistance and Natalie is sure that they are going to have a good year.
Natalie also mentioned that the DBS campaign can be counterproductive as there is a desperate need to amplify the voices of those in Israel who are supporting Palestinian rights and peace.
Swimming against the tide
It is never easy to swim against the tide and take a principled stand in any society and Israel is certainly no exception to this rule. Standing Together should be both applauded and supported by all those in this region and this country who want to see full equality of citizenship and an end to the terrible bloodshed in Israel and Palestine that has gone on for so long now.
To learn more about Standing Together, please see here .
To learn more about the UK Friends of standing Together, please see here .
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