Close to 9,000 Israelis have signed a petition supporting the call to recognize a Palestinian state ahead of an upcoming summit co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France on September 22 in New York, in which Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Belgium are expected to formally recognize Palestinian statehood.
The petition, entitled ‘No to war — yes to recognition!’ had collected 8,866 as of Friday morning and was organized by Zazim – Community Action, an Israeli grassroots movement of Jews and Arabs working together for democracy and equality.
“We are citizens of Israel who are opposed to continuing the war in Gaza and believe in peace. We call on the nations of the world to recognize Palestine during the United Nations General Assembly,” the petition reads.
“Recognition is a done deal,” the petition continues. “We must choose whether we join the world or side with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and Hamas, who oppose recognition.” (There is no sign that Hamas opposes recognition of Palestinian statehood, and the terror group is likely to celebrate the move. It does oppose a two-state solution, support for which is likely to be included in the recognition announcement.)
The petition aims to “show the world that a large part of Israeli society understands that recognition of a Palestinian state is also in Israel’s interest,” and to put pressure on states that have not agreed to recognize a Palestinian state, such as Germany and the US.
Organizers of the petition aim to present 10,000 signatures of Israelis at the UN General Assembly next week to “show the world that there is a strong and clear Israeli voice that opposes a never-ending war and expects international involvement to end the war and bring peace.”
The General Assembly will include a summit on September 22, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, called a “High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution,” where the majority of states are expected to vote in favor of Palestinian recognition.
The French-Saudi initiative to revive discussions on the two-state solution and recognition of a Palestinian state was “a tremendous opportunity,” Raluca Ganea, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Zazim, told The Times of Israel.
“A political solution with two states for two peoples, each with sovereignty, security and peace, is the only alternative on the table,” she said.
“The only other option is eternal war, ‘super Sparta,’ where enemies never disappear,” she added, referencing Netanyahu’s controversial comments this week that Israel faces a Spartan path.
Ganea said that the majority of the signatories were Israeli Jews because “Palestinians are afraid to put their name to such a petition.”
Many of the signatories include members of bereaved families. They include Ayelet Harel, co-CEO of the Parents Circle-Families Forum for bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families, whose brother was killed in 1982 during the Lebanon War, and others who lost loved ones during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023.
Among them are Yotam Kipnis of Zazim, whose parents Lilach and Eviatar were murdered on Kibbutz Be’eri; Liora Eylon, who survived the Kibbutz Kfar Aza massacre but whose son was murdered; Maoz Inon, a peace activist whose parents Bilha and Yakov Inon were killed in Netiv Ha’asara; and Yonatan Zeigen, whose mother Vivian Silver was murdered on Kibbutz Be’eri.
Since October 7, some bereaved families, particularly from kibbutzim in the Gaza periphery — the region hardest hit — have sought to honor their loved ones by pushing for a political solution that includes recognition of a Palestinian state. For them, the massacre was not proof that the two-state solution is dead, but rather that its absence led to the disaster.
“October 7 proved that the policy of ‘managing’ the conflict and of strangling every other horizon for the Palestinians, explodes in our faces every time,” Zeigen said.
For Zeigen, whose mother Vivian was a noted Canadian-Israeli peace activist, indefinite and perpetual war and destruction for both peoples has proved fatally ineffective at preventing continued violence.
“There is a fundamental issue here in which two peoples have a shared problem of how to live together on the same land, in freedom, security and prosperity,” he said. “The path to a solution is not through military force, but only when we meet the Palestinians from a starting point of equality. To do that, we need to end the occupation, annexation and the conflict in general.”
For bereaved families who have signed the petition, October 7 did not alter their views on the conflict so much as crystallize them. Inon, a peace activist for over than 20 years, said the attack did not surprise him.
“I knew already that the status quo was unsustainable and would explode, but I thought it would happen in the West Bank and not in Gaza,” he said. “The only way to achieve peace and security is through negotiations, equality and reconciliation. Those who believe that a wall will bring peace and that war will bring security are mistaken.”
During the shiva for his parents, Inon and his siblings made a conscious decision to reject revenge.
“We do not want to avenge the death of our parents. It won’t bring them back to life, and it will only increase the horrors and terror in which we are trapped,” said Inon. “The path to our own healing, and that of our peoples, cannot be through bloodshed. It will only be through a process of reconciliation.”
The planned recognition of a Palestinian state has elicited strong condemnation from Israel, which has called the initiative a “prize for terror.”
“The only beneficiary is Hamas… When terrorists are the ones cheering, you are not advancing peace; you are advancing terror,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said last week.
The petition rejects the notion that Palestinian statehood is a gift to Hamas.
“Recognition of a Palestinian state is not a punishment for Israel, but a step toward a better future of mutual recognition and security for both peoples. All of the countries [voting to recognize Palestine] have made it clear that Hamas will not be able to take part in governing and that all hostages must be released immediately,” it reads.
Seventeen countries, plus the European Union and the Arab League, have called for Hamas to disarm and end its rule of Gaza, signing a statement at a previous UN confab in July declaring that “Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot noted at the time that the declaration was unprecedented on several fronts. “For the first time, Arab countries and those in the Middle East condemn Hamas, condemn October 7, call for the disarmament of Hamas, call for its exclusion from Palestinian governance, and clearly express their intention to normalize relations with Israel in the future,” he said in July.
The authors and signatories of the petition, including bereaved family members, find the suggestion that they would support Hamas absurd.
“Our government is trying to do everything they can to portray those who support recognition and support the French-Saudi plan as antisemites, as being against us, as giving a prize to Hamas, and all sorts of things like that, which are simply not true,” said Ganea.
“Smotrich said multiple times [before October 7] that Hamas is a ‘strategic asset’ for Israel — [it was] not me and not residents of the [Gaza] envelope,” said Inon, adding that it was the Israeli government who knew what Hamas was and decided to pursue a policy of strengthening it in the Strip rather than the Palestinian Authority and moderate actors.
“The establishment of a Palestinian state will be a reward for moderates, for those who love life and humanity,” he continued. “It’s just a shame that it’s being done now after so many lives were sacrificed in vain, for the sake of land and for extremists on this side and on the other.”
Zeigen said that “a Palestinian state is not a reward for Hamas — it’s exactly what can dismantle it, because Hamas is an idea that is based on resistance and unregulated violence,” adding that the cycle of trauma and vengeance that Israelis and Palestinians are both stuck in will be channeled into violence so long as there is no “sense or hope of a better horizon.”
However, he also added that beyond the discourse, Palestinian statehood is not something that Israel has the right to approve or veto.
“Statehood is a basic right. In a world divided into nation-states, where rights are granted to people as citizens of a state, there is no justification for [the Palestinian] people not to be equal,” he said.
Signatories of the petition argue that more and more Israelis are, if not explicitly supportive of Palestinian statehood, receptive to the idea that military solutions to the conflict have failed.
Polls have shown that a majority of the public has lost trust and faith in the government and opposes its policy in Gaza.
Those who have supported the petition believe that, in the face of a government that they say does not feel beholden to the Israeli public, which is not basing government policy on national interests but on political needs, pressure from the international community is necessary.
“The world forced Israelis and Palestinians to meet for the first time around the negotiating table in Madrid in 1991, and it’s time for the world to again force Israelis and Palestinians to leave the battlefield and enter the negotiating room,” said Inon.
Zeigen said that international calls to recognize a Palestinian state are “tough love” and “needed.”
They also want to demonstrate to the world that Israelis are not their government.
“It is very, very important to show the world that the Israeli public is not buying this government propaganda,” said Ganea.
The petition shows that “there are more and more Israelis who believe in the path of diplomacy, the path of agreements, the path of negotiations,” said Inon.