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Developing an Israeli Grand Strategy toward
a Peaceful Two-State Solution
as well as rabbinical leaders of the settler movement. The
latter trend reflects an understanding that building support
beyond the traditional "peace camp" will be the decisive
factor for mobilizing an active two-state majority in Israel –
and that any such solution must recognize essential interests
and obtain optimal support within the settler community, in
order to diminish support for resistance from the rejectionist
Right (Sher, 2016).
At the policy level, track-two advocates have advocated
political concepts that would permit Israel and the Palestinian
leadership to move ahead in the peace process on the basis
of “what has been agreed upon shall be implemented,”
instead of the failed approach of “nothing is agreed upon
until everything is agreed upon” (Hirschfeld, 2014), as well
as outreach toward key regional players – particularly Egypt,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia – in order to obtain wider legitimacy
among Israelis and Palestinians for a well-phased peace-
making process.
Boomerang from the Right: A Moderate
Counter-Mobilization
Escalations of extreme Right racism and violence in recent
years – particularly waves of hate crimes targeting Palestinians
and Israeli peace activists – seem to reliably generate counter-
mobilization. Israeli and international activists now organize
annually to join Palestinian farmers for the West Bank olive
harvest, to oppose violent harassment by militant "hilltop
youth" settlers. The "Price Tag" campaign of vandalism and
violence generated the inter-religious, anti-racist "Light Tag"
(“Tag Meir”) movement and the CSO Coalition against Racism
in Israel. In Jerusalem, grassroots groups have recently arisen
to prevent disruption of Christian holy sites on Mount Zion, and
to remove racist graffiti defacing Arabic language on public
signs – the latter one of ten new initiatives of the "Jerusalem
Tolerance Forum," recently awarded NIS 200,000 to expand
their work by the Jerusalem municipality (Biton, 2016).
This grant, from a municipality not known as a bastion of
political Leftism, is emblematic of a reactive embrace of
certain forms of anti-racist and "shared society" activism.
The epidemic of extreme Right racism in Israel has done
something that decades of anti-occupation campaigns did
not: it has motivated some moderate religious and Center-
Right figures, not associated with the classic "peace camp,"
to become outspoken advocates of dialogue, humanization of
the other and liberal democracy – all commonly considered
in Israel to be "Leftist" values.
A prominent example in Orthodox religious circles is Rabbi
Binyamin Lau, a nephew of Israel's former Chief Rabbi
raised in the B'nei Akiva religious Zionist youth movement
and educated in the Gush Etzion yeshiva in the West Bank.
While maintaining his position as a congregational rabbi in
Jerusalem, Lau has emerged in recent years as a mainstay
of the "Light Tag" movement and an outspoken opponent
of racism and religious extremism – recently assuming
directorship of the "Judaism and Human Rights" initiative of
the Israel Democracy Institute (Kamin, 2013). In the ultra-
Orthodox sector, Adina Bar-Shalom – founder of the Haredi
College and daughter of the late former Chief Rabbi Ovadia
Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas party – is renowned for her
revolutionary advocacy of higher education for women and
greater integration of her community into Israeli economy and
society. Less known, but no less remarkable, have been her
integration of conflict resolution and dialogue courses into
the college curriculum, and public advocacy of peace and
humanization of the Palestinians – in tacit contradiction of
some of her late father's remarks (Miller, 2016).
Dialogues with religious leaders have aided in mitigating
tensions surrounding contested holy sites. Right wing
rabbinical leaders engaged in the Siakh Shalom (Talking
Peace) initiative released public statements recognizing the
authority of the Islamic Waqf administration on the Haram
A-Sharif/Temple Mount. The Mosaic organization, led by Rabbi
Michael Melchior has pro-actively established a dialogue with
Muslim dignitaries which played a major role in decreasing
tension with respect to Jerusalem’s Holy Places (Maltz, 2016).
Referring to a political solution, former National Security
Advisor General Yaakov Amidror – who is recognized by the
rabbinical leadership as a guide on security and political
affairs – has publicly opposed the idea of annexing area C
or building new settlements, and advocated taking steps to
advance negotiations with the Palestinians (Amidror, 2016).
On the secular Right, a host of longtime Likud stalwarts have
publicly denounced the tide of racism in their party. Israel's
President Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin is most prominent among these
territorial maximalists turned, however incongruously, into
champions of civic equality, the rule of law, human rights, and
respect for the mosaic of identities comprising Israeli society
– a thoroughly liberal-democratic, multi-cultural paradigm
(Hecht, 2016). Rivlin's outspoken advocacy, including public
visits to Arab victims of attacks and condemnations of racism,
has turned him into a target of Right-wing trolls on social
media – yet he appears quite undaunted (Lior, 2015).
These contemporary ideological currents collided in a
November 2014 arson attack on Jerusalem's only fully
integrated, bilingual Arab-Jewish school, where extremist
vandals used the cover of night to burn a first grade classroom
and spray racist slogans. It proved a watershed moment in
terms of public response – rather than intimidate or stigmatize,
the attack provoked an outpouring of unprecedented support
for the school from diverse quarters of Israeli society. This
was capped by a pair of visits from President Rivlin, who
provided official legitimacy for a previously controversial
educational model (Lazarus, 2015).
The Hand-in-Hand CSO's network of integrated, bilingual
schools has expanded steadily in recent years, with 1,285
students now enrolled at six growing regional campuses. In
fact, according to Resource Development Director Rebecca
Bardach, Hand-in-Hand cannot keep up with surging demand
– waiting lists at existing schools now include hundreds
of families, and the organization has received requests to
establish programs at eight additional locations (Bardach,
