About us

Peace Now in the UK - Peace Now in Israel - Peace Now worldwide - Mission Statement

Peace Now UK works in the UK to promote the goals of Israeli Shalom Ahshav - Peace Now, founded in 1978 as a grassroots peace movement, campaigning for a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours and a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on mutual recognition self-determination and peaceful co-existence.

Peace Now UK supports the right of the Palestinian and Israeli people to live in peace and security and calls for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel based on the pre-June 1967 borders, subject to equitable, agreed modifications and mutual security arrangements.

Peace Now UK urges both parties to resume unconditional negotiations and advocates:

… an end to all violence
… an end to the occupation
… a freeze on settlement building with a view to the evacuation of settlements

To further these aims, Peace Now UK undertakes educational programmes, promotes public debate, conducts campaigns in order to foster dialogue and raise awareness.

Peace Now in Israel

Peace Now (Shalom Ahshav) is the largest extra-parliamentary movement in Israel, the country’s oldest peace movement and the only peace group to have a broad public base. The movement was founded in 1978 during the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks.

The basic principles of the movement from the outset were the right of Israel to live within secure borders and the right of its neighbours to the same, including the right of the Palestinians to self-determination. In time the movement became convinced that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the territories occupied in the 1967 war is the only viable solution to the conflict. Fully supporting the break-through represented by the 1993 Oslo Accords, Peace Now has consistently supported any and all steps promising to promote resolution of the conflict, in addition to pressing all parties in power in the country to initiate steps to bring about the end of the occupation and negotiations for peace.

Peace Now operatesin Israel and worldwide through public campaigns, advertisements, petitions, distribution of educational materials, conferences and lectures, surveys, dialogue groups, street activities, vigils, and demonstrations. 

A particularly important ongoing project of Peace Now is its Settlement Watch, which monitors – and protests, the building of settlements, including housing tenders, expropriation of lands, budget allocations, and the like, along with studies of settlers attitudes regarding possible evacuation (and compensation) in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Known for their credibility and reliability, the data and maps produced in the framework of this project have raised public awareness of the terrible price Israel is paying for these obstacles to peace. Indeed one of the objectives of Peace Now is to convey the sense of the harm incurred to Israel not only by the economic and political aspects of continued occupation, but also the moral damage done to the values and fabric of Israeli society – in addition to the untold hardship incurred on another people, the Palestinians.

While Peace Now is an Israeli movement, working primarily amongst the Israeli public, it also has been engaged over the years in dialogue and joint activities with Palestinians in the occupied territories. The largest such joint activity was a massive Hands Around Jerusalem in 1989 in which some 15,000 Israelis and 15,000 Palestinians called for peace. Shortly after the beginning of the al-Aksa Intifada, the movement was instrumental in the creation of the Israeli Peace Coalition, which evolved into the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Coalition, composed of political and public figures as well as grass-roots activists from both the Israeli and Palestinian mainstream. The movement also conducts joint activities and statements with the Palestinian Peoples Campaign.

Peace Now Worldwide

Peace Now is active in the UK, in the United States (Peace Now USA and Peace Now Chicago) , France ('La Paix Maintenant') , Belgium ('Shalom Archav'), Argentina ('Paz Ahora'), Brazil ('Paz Agora') and Canada (Peace Now Canada) .

Peace Now UK Mission Statement

Our Vision : Peace now between Israel and Palestine through Two States for Two Nations (2 for 2).

Mission
Peace Now exists to...
Lobby for peace negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, and to foster dialogue at every level.

We carry out our mission on the following levels:

International
To lobby and activate politicians and media in Britain, Europe, Israel and Palestine to advocate 2 for 2.

National
To run publicity campaigns and to stimulate widespread media coverage that promote 2 for 2.

Community
To create grassroots community support for 2 for 2 through cultural events, lectures and discussions, and to cooperate with like-minded peace movements.