Peace Now’s executive director, Shaqued Morag, was among the speakers at a peace rally in Tel Aviv Today.

Shaqued said: “We are the proof that things can be different here. There is a generation raised here, which cannot even imagine peace and coexistence. As much as it concerns the prime minister of the past 12 years, this generation will, too, live by the sword. From the Gaza border to Tel Aviv, from Lydda to Um el-Fahm, children are paying the price for this lack of leadership.

We must not accept this!

The ability to imagine a different reality starts here: Jews and Arabs, citizens of Israel who insist to say: Things can be different here. We will have peace. We will have equality. We will have two states for two peoples!”

A keynote speaker at the rally was author and peace activist David Grossman. Here are some excerpts from his speech:

“The eagerness of each side in the war to ‘burn into consciousness’ its victory has created thousands of small defeats. An entire generation of children, in Gaza and Ashkelon, will probably grow up and live with the trauma of shelling and bombing and sirens.

You - the children – are the truly scorched-consciousness of the conflict, and I feel the need to apologize to you for not being able to create a better reality for you, one that every child in the world is entitled to.”

“Most of all, I ask, again, how is it that Israel, my country, a country with tremendous forces of creativity and invention and daring, has been turning the millstones of the conflict for over a century, and is unable to turn its vast military force into a lever to change reality, to free us from the curse of periodic wars, that will open a different path for us?”

“We, the Israelis, still refuse to understand that the era is over in which our power can determine a reality that will be comfortable only for us, for our needs and our interests. Will the recent war finally bring to our minds that at a certain point, our military power becomes almost irrelevant? That no matter how big and heavy is the sword we carry, in the end every sword is a double-edged sword?”

“… the real struggle today is not between Arabs and Jews, but between those - on both sides - who strive to live in peace, in a fair partnership, and those - on both sides - who are mentally and ideologically fed by hatred and violence.”

“I wish we could establish and strengthen again, anew, the healthy forces in both societies, those of us who refuse to be collaborators of despair. So even if another such murderous wave breaks out - and I fear it will break out every few years - we can withstand it in a sober and mature manner, as we see happening in these very days in endless meetings and discussions and wonderful initiatives.”

“In my eyes, and as we prove in our standing here, today, in our determination, in our steadfast commitment to the idea of ​​peace and equality, and in the fair partnership of the two peoples and in our “nevertheless-ness,” which is a source of great hope in these dark days, a hope that gives us a chance to find the way we have almost lost, the complicated and demanding path to live here together, in full equality, and in peace, Arabs, Jews, human beings.”

Several thousand people attended the rally, which was sponsored by a coalition of Israeli peace organizations.