Why the Israeli left's 'peace summit' is in denial about the Gaza genocide

Middle East Eye

09-05-2025

On 8 and 9 May, a so-called "People's Peace Summit", titled "The Time Has Come", took place at Binyanei HaUma convention centre in Jerusalem.
Sixty Israeli organisations gathered under the banner of peace, claiming to prepare the ground for a political resolution to the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict".
The summit featured tours, workshops, film screenings, performances, and - on the second day - keynote speeches promoting what organisers described as a "peace-based worldview".
According to its website, the summit aimed to promote "dialogue" between Palestinians and Israelis, in hopes of sparking societal change and inspiring belief that after each war, a political process would follow.
"The time has come," the organisers declared. "Now, when it burns and hurts, after long years of fear and violence, of struggle, of occupation and terror. The war that erupted on 7 October must and can be the last war - the one after which peace will come."
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But this vision relies on a dangerous abstraction - one that ignores the reality of what is happening in Gaza. The language of peace and dialogue is being used to mask complicity, deflect accountability, and delay action.
Peace performance
Despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, this marked the second consecutive year the "People's Peace Summit" took place under the same slogans and with the same speakers. Aside from minor adjustments to the schedule, little had changed.
What is happening in Gaza demands explicit political statements and mass mobilisation - not vague appeals centred on Israeli captives
If one wonders how the Israeli public can remain silent in the face of what is unfolding in Gaza, the answer lies in a basic, grim truth: a significant portion of the population embraces extreme right-wing, messianic ideologies.
These beliefs, rooted in a religious-nationalist vision, have increasingly shaped Israeli politics, particularly through parties like Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit.
A March 2025 poll conducted by Israel's Direct Polls Institute found that nearly 60 percent of Israelis supported resuming military attacks on Gaza - despite mounting international condemnation and the catastrophic humanitarian toll.
At the same time, many of those who consider themselves liberal or humanitarian continue to avoid making an unequivocal call to end the genocide in Gaza. Their silence reflects not just hesitation, but complicity.
Israeli peace organisations continue to do everything but confront the elephant in the room.
This is not a war - it is a genocide. And calling simply for an end to "the war" is not only useless, but evasive.
What is happening in Gaza demands explicit political statements and mass mobilisation - not vague appeals centred on Israeli captives or Jewish national security, but because infants and children are dying as the world watches.
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While artists stand on stage to sing, dozens more will likely be starved or killed.
On Wednesday alone, Israeli air strikes killed more than 100 Palestinians across Gaza, including in a crowded marketplace and a restaurant in Nuseirat refugee camp. Among the dead were women, children, and two journalists, as Israel escalated its assault in a genocidal war now entering its 20th month.
There is no time - and no purpose - for abstract conversations about future peace processes while genocide is ongoing.
By the time the so-called "day after" arrives, the damage will be so vast, with consequences spanning generations, that the very notion of a political resolution or peace will be rendered meaningless.
Genocide denial
What is happening in Gaza has been visible from the start. No person with internet access and a functioning conscience can deny it. The only thing missing is the will to name it.
Viewed in this light, the summit's refusal to use the word "genocide" - despite the affirmation of international genocide scholars - speaks volumes.
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So too does its silence on Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war, and its failure to address the Jewish-Israeli public about what is being done in their name and with their participation.
The absence of any serious critique of the military's actions raises a fundamental question about the summit's motives: do the organisers truly believe that any means are justified if the alleged goal is to topple Hamas?
Even more surreal is the map the summit organisers published: "The Map of Peace and Love - Israel/Palestine 2040".
At first glance, it looked like satire, but it wasn't.
In this imagined landscape between the river and the sea, nearly every place name is Jewish or a slogan.
The only Arab reference is a central spot named after Lebanese writer Elias Khoury. Arab identities appear only in the context of coexistence with Jews in Jordan and Egypt.
This is not a vision of shared life - it is a colonial fantasy that imagines Israeli expansion beyond the river and the sea, into neighbouring territories.
Privileged distractions
Journalist Orly Noy, chair of B'Tselem, criticised the peace summit for offering what she described as "privileged distractions" - dialogue workshops, interfaith prayers, and future-oriented panels - while Gaza burns.
She noted that not a single panel was dedicated to the ongoing genocide, and argued that the summit was designed to "make Israelis feel better about themselves" without demanding they confront what is being done in their name.
One of the organisers, Raluca Ganea, responded in Haaretz by accusing Noy of aiding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's agenda through divisiveness.
She insisted that political institutions emerge after wars to build diplomatic solutions, and that energy should be directed toward shaping what comes next.
But framing critique as sabotage is not only evasive, it reinforces the very silence Noy was condemning.
At a time when there has been no large-scale public call for draft refusal or an end to the genocide, dismissing internal criticism further serves to protect national consensus rather than challenge it.
What's more, Ganea is wrong on the facts: genocide typically does not conclude with diplomacy but erasure - just like the Palestinians in Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, and elsewhere, who were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
To this day, Israel refuses to allow them to return, and both the Israeli right and left continue to oppose the right of return.
Beyond 'dialogue'
There is no space to discuss the "day after". No place for talk about peace or a political solution.
The catastrophe in Gaza will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters in modern history.
The Israeli left will be remembered as those who stood by and did the bare minimum to acknowledge the horrors taking place
For their role, the Israeli left will be remembered as those who stood by and did the bare minimum to acknowledge the horrors taking place. When challenged, they adopted right-wing rhetoric and aligned themselves with the national consensus, thereby enabling the continued starvation of children.
The summit makes clear why there is no room left for dialogue with the Israeli left. After 20 months of genocide, something fundamental has shifted in what it means to be Palestinian.
Any cooperation now serves only to reassure the Israeli left - to sustain the comforting illusion that, despite everything, there are still Palestinians willing to talk, negotiate, and feed hope.
But while children, women, and men are being starved and bombed in refugee camps, there is no place for shallow hope-talk.
The only legitimate political discourse now is a demand to end the genocide, grounded in the belief that justice can still prevail.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.