When human rights activist Ziv Stahl was awakened by the blasts of rockets on October 7, while staying at her sister’s house on kibbutz Kfar Aza, she did not for a moment foresee the scale of the terrorist attack taking place around her.
She also didn’t imagine the horror she would feel when she later called the police, who “basically told me no one was coming.”
That day, Hamas members murdered Stahl’s sister-in-law and several prominent peace activists who lived on the kibbutz.
Stahl, who is executive director of the human rights organization Yesh Din, says she is not calling for revenge for what happened that day, nor is she taking a pacifist stance on Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
“I am not saying ceasefire at any cost. Israel has the right to defend itself and protect Israeli citizens,” she explained, but considered that this should not be done indiscriminately or at the cost of thousands of Palestinian lives.
Stahl’s position, which she described as “complicated,” speaks to the challenge Israel’s peace movement faces in the face of the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Israeli Jews who have spent their lives committed to coexistence with Palestinians must now balance concerns about Israel’s cycle of war violence and the security needs of Israelis amid great personal loss.
As protests in solidarity with Palestine take place across the West, some of Israel’s small left-wing groups, peace activists and human rights advocates, like Stahl, have chosen to take a step back from the public debate over a permanent ceasefire. .
Others say finding an end to the war and forming a two-state solution is more urgent than ever, even though it may be an unpopular view in the country that over the decades has shifted politically to the right.
Some activists complain that authorities are trying to equate peace activism with support for Hamas.
It has been almost impossible to obtain permission to protest the war, except for a protest in Tel Aviv organized by the left-wing Arab and Jewish party Hadash. And in early November, four prominent Palestinian political leaders in Israel were detained for participating in a silent anti-war protest.
Left-wing youth and fear
In a left-wing community space in Tel Aviv, decorated with a red banner with the words “a nation that occupies another nation will never be free”, a group of young Israelis discuss their newly formed anti-war group, called “Gen Zayin”, which means Generation Z.
Group members asked the CNN to use pseudonyms for them, citing dozens of people detained since October 7 in Israel for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism.
Many of those detained are Palestinians, and activists claim that the arrests and detentions are carried out without due legal justification and simply to demonstrate support for the Palestinian people.

While in the West young voters are often more liberal than their grandparents, in Israel it is the opposite, said Rafael, one of the co-founders of Gen Zayin, who uses a pseudonym.
A 2022 poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that 73% of Jewish respondents aged 18 to 24 identified as right-wing, compared to 46% of respondents over the age of 65.
The group’s anti-war stance will not be well received by the majority of the Jewish population at this time, they point out, which is why Gen Zayin members put up posters in the dead of night and surreptitiously share pamphlets defending their anti-war and anti-government manifesto in schools. secondary.
Rafael, 24, strongly supports a two-state solution and accuses the country’s right-wing, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of encouraging Hamas with its attempt to repress a Palestinian state.
“The situation is unsustainable and the only way we can live in a fair, egalitarian and democratic society is through peace, the end of the occupation, the eviction of settlers” from the West Bank and the right of return for around 5.9 million refugees Palestinians around the world, he pointed out.
PHOTOS: See images of the conflict between Israel and Hamas
Source: CNN Brasil

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