Left movement surge

Submitted by martin on 1 May, 2019 - 1:37 Author: Alon-Lee Green, Standing Together
Standing Together

On 9 April, the Israeli left had the general elections. All together, the left parties have less than 20 seats, out of 120. This is the rock bottom of the Israeli left in its 70 years of history.

Around these left parties, the Knesset is filled with a massive majority of centre, right, and far-right parties. None of those are committed to progressing an Israeli-Palestinian peace, none of those are active in the fight for social justice, and none will try to cancel the discriminatory Nation State Law or to fight racism.

This is the reality we must deal with in the next few years: the real fights against annexation, against the occupation, racism, and capitalism will not be pushed by the parliamentary opposition, which is weak and powerless, but by the people, from the streets.

Since 10 April, the day the election results were announced, more than 550 people, Jews and Arabs, decided not to fall into despair. They joined Standing Together and chose to be part of the largest grassroots movement in Israel. Within one week alone, our monthly sustaining members almost doubled in numbers.

This surge in membership is not only a reaction to the landslide victory of the right wing, but it also rests on the understanding that a grassroots movement is the only way to restore hope, to build a force for change, and to connect the various struggles.

We know where this government that is being rebuilt today is going. We know it will be against Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, against LGBT communities, against working people, against the periphery, against all of us who hold the interest for deep change in Israel. But we are the majority of this country, and with this fact also lies our true power: creating a popular left force, that is socialist and Jewish-Arab, that will face this government with not only the morality and feeling of being right, but also with the power of connecting communities and struggles into an historic block of change in Israel.

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