Eli Haligua interviewed Ido Setter from the Israeli organization Standing Together. Ido told Avlaremoz about the 100-day war in the region and the need to take steps for a lasting peace in the region as soon as possible.
Ido Setter is a playwright, and his play “An Be An Kan” was staged in Turkey in 2016.
Can you please tell us about Standing Together for those who don’t know you? When was the organization founded, and what was its primary goal at the time of establishment? And also I wonder about your membership. Are you able to bring Palestinians and Israeli Jews together at this moment?
Standing Together was founded at the end of 2015 in order to pursue peace, equality and social and climate justice. Its primary goal at the time of its establishment was to stand in solidarity with the different communities in Israeli society: Israelis, Palestinians, LGTBQ, Russians, Ethiopians, orthodox Jews, secular Jews. Israeli society tends to divide itself by the Right-Left axis and put all its various communities under those categories. We aim to create a cooperation between all the communities, based on mutual interests, and create a grassroots populist left movement.
We have about 5000 members in our movement (a member is someone who pays a monthly membership fee and takes part in the movements’ activities). About a third of the members are Palestinians.
After October 7th it’s harder to talk about the idea of Israeli – Palestinian solidarity – but we feel that it is also crucial. The public seems to agree with us, as hundreds of new members have joined our movement since, looking to build a new and better future for all the people who live in this land.
In your social media posts, you emphasize that a military operation is not the solution for the hostage deal and never ensures security for both nations. Will these revenge attacks relieve the pain of the October 7 attack? What would you suggest as a solution?
Unfortunately, I doubt that. Revenge attacks only bring retaliation, and only nurture more fear
and destruction. It is clear today, as it has been 3 months ago, that the only way to bring back all the hostages alive is by making a deal. I think that the immense pain of October 7th can be relieved only if two things happen: the first one, is that the Israeli government will fulfill its duty towards the hostages and do everything possible to bring them back alive; the second is that we, the Israeli and Palestinian public, will demand from our leaders to move towards a future of security and peace.
I experience that even demanding a ceasefire is enough to be labelled as an antisemite / self-hater by the Hasbara Jews. But this war doesn’t kill only civilian Palestinians but also Israeli soldiers. IDF risks the hostages’ lives, as we witnessed by the shooting of 3 Israelis and hostages who were killed because of the airstrikes. Israel hasn’t rescued even 1 hostage since October 7, but more than 100 hostages returned home through diplomatic negotiations. I wonder about your opinions and also struggles with the supremacist Jews.
I think that demanding a ceasefire and an Israeli – Palestinian peace treaty is the most patriotic thing one can do these days. Today (January 14th) we mark the 100th day of this war. More than 1200 Israeli civilians were murdered by Hamas. More than 20,000 people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by the unprecedented firepower that the IDF deploys in Gaza. More than 130 Israeli civilians are still in captivity, only one was released by a military operation.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes. Besides war, what does the Israeli right wing envision for the next years? Besides terrorist attacks, what does Hamas envision? After we saw what 100 days of war yielded, we can surely say that the notion that military brute force can bring security is not true, and we must oppose it. The only thing that can bring security is peace.
I have a very simple thing to say to the supremacist Jews: besides the fact you’re hideously racist, your paradigm doesn’t work. If we want to build a viable future in this land, we cannot, simply cannot, base it on the military control of millions of people. What happened on October 7th proved that we must move in the opposite direction – the direction of equality and freedom.
Last week, the police cancelled your demonstration. Do you feel significant pressure on your organization as peace activists?
I feel that the Israeli far right wing government is doing all it can in order to try to hide its utter and complete failure. But I also believe that the Israeli public is aware of this failure and understands that now is the time to choose between an everlasting war and peace. We will hold our demonstration this week and it’ll be more powerful, simply because we have no other options other than reaching a treaty that will end the war and move us forward.
Do you think there is hope for a permanent cease-fire and peace for the region in the near future?
Absolutely yes. It may seem very far away. It may even seem naive; but I strongly believe that there is hope. One of Standing Together’s mottos is – “where there is struggle, there is hope”.
What happened on October 7th, and what is happening ever since, shows us that Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty that will end the occupation is not only the most moral thing to do – it’s an absolute necessity. If we don’t move forward in this direction, we’re bound to live in a state of perpetual war. We must move towards peace and build a better future for ourselves and our neighbors.
I feel that it should be odd for a state which is built on Holocaust trauma to be accused of genocidal intent in Gaza at the International Justice Court. What is Israeli society’s reaction to it?
I think it’s a reaction of anger, but also of shame. I think that in the world outside the International Justice Court, intent is less important than actions, and therefore see this as an opportunity to focus the discussion on the horrible reality that Israel is creating in Gaza in the last 3 months. The real significance, in my opinion, is not whether those actions can be labeled as genocide, but how do they affect the Palestinians who were hurt by them, and what sort of future they dictate to Israelis and Palestinians? As a consequence, we must focus now not on the proceedings, but on what’s going on in Israel and in Gaza.
Thank you very much for your time and for all your activity to bring peace to the region. I also would like to add that our readers can be friends with Standing Together by making any amount of donation from your website. Would you like to add anything?
Thank you very much for interviewing me. We do have a “Friends of Standing Together” program that lets people support us and get involved (link: https://www.standing-together.org/friends)
I would like to add one last thing, which is also one of our mottos: the people in Israel / Palestine are better than their government. I firmly believe that and I firmly believe that this is the key for peace.
Eli Haligua interviewed Ido Setter from the Israeli organization Standing Together. Ido told Avlaremoz about the 100-day war in the region and the need to take steps for a lasting peace in the region as soon as possible.
Ido Setter is a playwright, and his play “An Be An Kan” was staged in Turkey in 2016.
Can you please tell us about Standing Together for those who don’t know you? When was the organization founded, and what was its primary goal at the time of establishment? And also I wonder about your membership. Are you able to bring Palestinians and Israeli Jews together at this moment?
Standing Together was founded at the end of 2015 in order to pursue peace, equality and social and climate justice. Its primary goal at the time of its establishment was to stand in solidarity with the different communities in Israeli society: Israelis, Palestinians, LGTBQ, Russians, Ethiopians, orthodox Jews, secular Jews. Israeli society tends to divide itself by the Right-Left axis and put all its various communities under those categories. We aim to create a cooperation between all the communities, based on mutual interests, and create a grassroots populist left movement.
We have about 5000 members in our movement (a member is someone who pays a monthly membership fee and takes part in the movements’ activities). About a third of the members are Palestinians.
After October 7th it’s harder to talk about the idea of Israeli – Palestinian solidarity – but we feel that it is also crucial. The public seems to agree with us, as hundreds of new members have joined our movement since, looking to build a new and better future for all the people who live in this land.
In your social media posts, you emphasize that a military operation is not the solution for the hostage deal and never ensures security for both nations. Will these revenge attacks relieve the pain of the October 7 attack? What would you suggest as a solution?
Unfortunately, I doubt that. Revenge attacks only bring retaliation, and only nurture more fear
and destruction. It is clear today, as it has been 3 months ago, that the only way to bring back all the hostages alive is by making a deal. I think that the immense pain of October 7th can be relieved only if two things happen: the first one, is that the Israeli government will fulfill its duty towards the hostages and do everything possible to bring them back alive; the second is that we, the Israeli and Palestinian public, will demand from our leaders to move towards a future of security and peace.
I experience that even demanding a ceasefire is enough to be labelled as an antisemite / self-hater by the Hasbara Jews. But this war doesn’t kill only civilian Palestinians but also Israeli soldiers. IDF risks the hostages’ lives, as we witnessed by the shooting of 3 Israelis and hostages who were killed because of the airstrikes. Israel hasn’t rescued even 1 hostage since October 7, but more than 100 hostages returned home through diplomatic negotiations. I wonder about your opinions and also struggles with the supremacist Jews.
I think that demanding a ceasefire and an Israeli – Palestinian peace treaty is the most patriotic thing one can do these days. Today (January 14th) we mark the 100th day of this war. More than 1200 Israeli civilians were murdered by Hamas. More than 20,000 people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by the unprecedented firepower that the IDF deploys in Gaza. More than 130 Israeli civilians are still in captivity, only one was released by a military operation.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes. Besides war, what does the Israeli right wing envision for the next years? Besides terrorist attacks, what does Hamas envision? After we saw what 100 days of war yielded, we can surely say that the notion that military brute force can bring security is not true, and we must oppose it. The only thing that can bring security is peace.
I have a very simple thing to say to the supremacist Jews: besides the fact you’re hideously racist, your paradigm doesn’t work. If we want to build a viable future in this land, we cannot, simply cannot, base it on the military control of millions of people. What happened on October 7th proved that we must move in the opposite direction – the direction of equality and freedom.
Last week, the police cancelled your demonstration. Do you feel significant pressure on your organization as peace activists?
I feel that the Israeli far right wing government is doing all it can in order to try to hide its utter and complete failure. But I also believe that the Israeli public is aware of this failure and understands that now is the time to choose between an everlasting war and peace. We will hold our demonstration this week and it’ll be more powerful, simply because we have no other options other than reaching a treaty that will end the war and move us forward.
Do you think there is hope for a permanent cease-fire and peace for the region in the near future?
Absolutely yes. It may seem very far away. It may even seem naive; but I strongly believe that there is hope. One of Standing Together’s mottos is – “where there is struggle, there is hope”.
What happened on October 7th, and what is happening ever since, shows us that Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty that will end the occupation is not only the most moral thing to do – it’s an absolute necessity. If we don’t move forward in this direction, we’re bound to live in a state of perpetual war. We must move towards peace and build a better future for ourselves and our neighbors.
I feel that it should be odd for a state which is built on Holocaust trauma to be accused of genocidal intent in Gaza at the International Justice Court. What is Israeli society’s reaction to it?
I think it’s a reaction of anger, but also of shame. I think that in the world outside the International Justice Court, intent is less important than actions, and therefore see this as an opportunity to focus the discussion on the horrible reality that Israel is creating in Gaza in the last 3 months. The real significance, in my opinion, is not whether those actions can be labeled as genocide, but how do they affect the Palestinians who were hurt by them, and what sort of future they dictate to Israelis and Palestinians? As a consequence, we must focus now not on the proceedings, but on what’s going on in Israel and in Gaza.
Thank you very much for your time and for all your activity to bring peace to the region. I also would like to add that our readers can be friends with Standing Together by making any amount of donation from your website. Would you like to add anything?
Thank you very much for interviewing me. We do have a “Friends of Standing Together” program that lets people support us and get involved (link: https://www.standing-together.org/friends)
I would like to add one last thing, which is also one of our mottos: the people in Israel / Palestine are better than their government. I firmly believe that and I firmly believe that this is the key for peace.
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