Building Progressive Infrastructure

Emerging from that gathering was The People’s Peace Journey: a five-day march across Israel that sought to engage diverse communities, amplify calls for peace, and sow the seeds of a broader grassroots movement. It also helped generate sustained momentum for this year’s summit, encouraging local and global allies alike to take part.

We were heartened to see our friends at Friends of Standing Together lead a solidarity event in Toronto prior to the Israeli event, and to witness a wide range of groups organize watch parties to tune in to the summit live from Israel. These actions are more than symbolic, they represent the global scaffolding of a movement for peace that stretches beyond borders.

Still, while last year’s summit felt like a spark in the dark, a defiant response to despair, this year’s takes place against an even bleaker backdrop. The war in Gaza has only intensified. The death toll climbs, the destruction widens, and both Hamas and the Israeli government have embraced increasingly extreme rhetoric. What was once considered fringe now shapes national policy. The Israeli leadership continues to pursue a messianic, ethnonationalist agenda that includes the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians.

That the situation is more desperate now than it was a year ago does not mean this summit is misguided or misplaced. Now is the time to stand up for peace, not as a naïve ideal, but as an urgent necessity. We need a peace camp that shows up in person and for one another, that gives people the strength to know they are not alone. We need voices that instill not only the belief that peace is moral and just, but that it is achievable. And we need this belief to be contagious.

The courage and vision behind this summit must be celebrated. So too must every action, every campaign, and every movement that refuses to give in to the cynical voices who claim peace is impossible. In moments when violence is normalized and dehumanization is politically convenient, the persistent pursuit of peace is not just brave, it is revolutionary.

This message is not a demand for peace activists to shift their focus, nor a call to abandon existing strategies. Rather, it is a call to all of us to recognize that transformative change rarely comes from a single source. It comes from many directions - movements, campaigns, coalitions - all building a common infrastructure aimed at justice and liberation.

A persistent critique of progressive movements is that we are too fragmented. That we duplicate efforts, spread resources thin, and fail to coordinate. But the problem isn’t multiplicity, it’s our failure to fully grasp and utilize the complementary roles each group plays. When we treat different approaches as competing instead of collaborative, we lose sight of our shared purpose.

We need to stop fearing overlap and start strategizing around it. Right-wing movements, like the settler movement in Israel, have mastered this. As revealed in the recent BBC documentary The Settlers, British-American journalist Louis Theroux profiles figures like Daniella Weiss, often referred to as “the grandmother” of the settlement movement, who openly explains how settlers’ advocacy and organizing directly shape state policy. This is not a scattered movement; it’s a coordinated infrastructure of activists, donors, media figures, and government officials all pushing in the same direction.

This movement is actively funded by the Israeli government, even as essential services like education and healthcare are underfunded. The goal is clear: to globally legitimize illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and to reframe them not as a necessary evil, but as an ideological triumph.

We have witnessed a narrative transformation. In previous decades, Hasbara spokespeople often argued that settlements were a regrettable necessity or a temporary measure. Some even invoked the possibility of “land for peace.” But today, there is no such hedging. Many now unabashedly assert exclusive Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea, with no room for Palestinian rights or national aspirations.

This evolution in rhetoric should serve as a lesson. If those advocating for domination and apartheid can shift public discourse to make the extreme seem inevitable, then we, too, can and must shift the discourse toward peace, compromise, and diplomacy. We must reclaim and redefine what peace means. We must normalize compromise, land swaps, shared governance, and co-existence. We must make peace not only imaginable again, but popular.

To do that, we must build a resilient and flexible infrastructure of progressive organizations, each playing a role in a shared ecosystem. Disagreement is natural. But it cannot lead to disengagement or disavowal. If one group is fighting in the streets, another in the courts, another in the media, and another through interfaith dialogue, they are all part of the same body. We need to see our different approaches not as conflict, but as coordination.

Let’s also shed the myth that there are “too many” progressive organizations. The problem is not quantity, it’s the lack of shared strategy. Instead of calling for consolidation, we should be calling for synergy. Our strength lies in our diversity, so long as we can clearly communicate what each group does, how it contributes to the whole, and how allies and supporters can engage across different efforts.

This year’s Israeli-Palestinian peace summit will not, on its own, solve the conflict. It won’t immediately bring the hostages home or halt the bombardment of Gaza. But it is far from symbolic or disconnected. It is a vital component in a much larger movement. One that acknowledges the complexity of the moment and insists that complexity is not a barrier to action, but a strategic asset that, when embraced, can drive smarter, stronger, and more resilient movements.

This summit is a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there are people choosing light. Choosing dialogue. Choosing justice. It is not the whole answer, but it is part of it. And if we build the necessary infrastructure to support and complement it, then this summit, in tandem with other initiatives and efforts, can become turning points.

The work is long. The obstacles are immense. But we are not powerless. And it is the whole, not just the sum of our parts, from which we will emerge victorious.