Last week, hundreds gathered in Tel Aviv for the Haaretz Democracy Conference, held in collaboration with the New Israel Fund and NIF grantee Zulat for Equality and Human Rights. Alongside editor-in-chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, and several members of the Knesset, NIF’s Director in Israel, Shira Ben Sasson-Furstenberg, addressed the crowd:
“We stand, as civil society, against the great power of the government,” said Shira. ”Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are determined to fight for democracy. I learned in these last years, that everything is important, that every act is a brick in the wall. Every demonstration, every policy paper, every conference and every forward to your family’s WhatsApp group matters.
“We are at the start of a year that will determine a great deal. An election year. A year in which, I fear, this government will offer us more hatred, more polarization, more conflict between its citizens. In which they will try to destroy anything that smells of ‘leftist’, liberals, or love of Arabs. Their purpose is chaos and conflict.
“But what kind of country do we want? A country represented by the hangman’s noose [Ben Gvir’s symbol] or the dove of peace?”