Israel Expected Silence. Instead, Resistance
Dear Friend,
Mattan here. When the war with Iran and Lebanon broke out, everything moved fast: airstrikes, headlines, fear. And with it came a familiar expectation: that people inside Israel would fall in line, that dissent would disappear, that war would once again close ranks and shut down opposition.
But that’s not what happened: instead, resistance to the war is growing.
Groups organizing weekly war resistance demonstrations and actions need your help. If you believe this kind of resistance needs to grow, please consider making a donation today.
On the very same day the war began, the Peace Partnership, a coalition of Jewish and Palestinian organizations came together within hours to organize anti-war protests: Their demonstrations took place every week since the beginning of the war: first in just one city, the following week in three cities, the following week in six cities, and today anti-war demonstrations are taking place in dozens of cities every week. Their activists, to much media attention, suffered police violence and attacks from ultra-right gangs – but they continued to show up on the streets.
Refuser Solidarity Network proudly supports the Peace Partnership coalition and the anti-war protests: we provide financial assistance for their core activities, for salaries for organizers, for signs and leaflets printing. We also support their press work, to make sure that their anti-war message is amplified in the press in Hebrew, in Arabic and internationally.
Two days after the beginning of the war, the Peace Partnership was already meeting to organize an emergency gathering to figure out how to resist in a moment like this. And by the end of that same week, nearly 60 organizations had signed onto a public anti-war statement in the Israeli daily Haaretz, breaking through the wall of consensus.
This is what it looks like when people refuse to be swept along. And this is exactly the kind of work Refuser Solidarity Network is supporting and funding: providing the Peace Partnership with resources, press work capacity in Hebrew, Arabic and English, support with buying needed equipment, and logistical support so that internal resistance will not be silenced.
What followed wasn’t a single protest or a one-time statement. It was something slower, more stubborn. Organizers began building through conversations, coordination, trust. Online gatherings brought together activists who, in quieter times, might never share a room. Jewish and Palestinian organizers, grassroots groups and established organizations, all trying to answer the same question: how do you keep resisting when everything around you is pushing toward war
And then, people took to the streets. The first protests were fragile. In Tel Aviv, demonstrators were attacked by right-wing activists and shut down by police within minutes. That could have been the end of it. Instead, they came back. A week later, the protest held. Then it grew. Then it spread: to Haifa, to Jerusalem, to more and more places where people refused to stay silent. What started as something small and exposed began to take on weight, and we were with them along the way to provide for their financial needs, making sure their organizers are paid for their valuable work, providing protest equipment and buses to bring people from across the country.
More groups joined. More people showed up. The map of resistance widened. That doesn’t happen on its own. It takes coordination, resources and people willing to keep going after the first setback, and the second, and the third. It takes networks that can hold together under pressure. This is where we come in.
Refuser Solidarity Network is helping sustain this kind of organizing by backing the Peace Partnership and others who are doing the difficult, often invisible work of building resistance from within. Not just reacting to events, but creating the conditions for something larger to take shape.
Because moments like this don’t just pass. They accumulate. We will continue to resist. Please donate today so we can continue to fund the Peace Partnership, the largest coalition of groups in Israel truly opposing Israel’s plans to destabilize the entire Middle East.
Please consider making a regular, monthly, contribution, because that type of donation allows us to support groups for the long term, and to plan for the long struggle ahead – it’s the type of support that is most stable and helpful for groups on the gound. With your support, their work becomes possible Join us.
In solidarity,
Mattan Helman
Refuser Solidarity Network