Last month the Berl Katznelson Institute, a think-do tank working to build up the Israeli peace camp, convened a conference in Tel Aviv. The conference brought together a wide range of the Israeli left’s intellectual community, including a number of NIF grantees. The Berl Katznelson Institute is also a grantee of NIF.
This conference is one in a series of happenings supported by NIF that seek to build support for the peace camp and to ensure that the camp’s leaders are working strategically.
The conference’s focus was the shifting sensibilities in Israel after October 7 and in the wake of the attempted judicial overhaul. These events exposed the fragility of Israel’s democratic infrastructure, which, for the Berl Katznelson Institute, means that now is the time to propose big, bold ways to shore up that infrastructure.
NIF’s director in Israel, Mickey Gitzin, spoke at the conference about the potential pitfalls Israel’s progressive camp face if they fail to clarify what they mean by the most fundamental liberal concepts. If progressive Israelis don’t make the issues of equality, defining Israel’s borders, and Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, their top priorities, he said, then the Israeli left is doomed to fall into the traps set by the right. They must be able to define what they mean when they say “equality,” and they must be able to answer the question “what are we fighting for?”
Watch Gitzin lay out this challenge: