Peace Now - Peace Now and The Second Intifada (2000-2005)

Peace Now and The Second Intifada (2000-2005)

Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in December 2000, Peace Now has arguably lost a certain degree of the Israeli public's support due to the violent nature of the Second Intifada. Whilst the First Intifada was largely a popular movement on part of the Palestinian public, the Second Intifada consisted of far more violent confrontations between Palestinian militants and the IDF, Israeli settlers within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Israeli civilians. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 132 Israeli individuals were killed by Palestininan militant bomb/suicide attacks within Israel proper between 2000 and 2004.

The decline in public support for Peace Now was illustrated in an IMRA commissioned poll in August 2009 which found that 41% of adult Israeli-Jewish asked agreed with the statement that "Peace Now has caused great damage to the State of Israel", while 19% disagreed. The results are not so stark when one takes into account the political party affiliation of those asked; whilst 98% of Likud voters within the research group (of 506) agreed with the above statement, 33% of Kadima and 48% of Labor voters disagreed.

Despite the arguable decline in the Israeli public's support for the Oslo Peace Process, Peace Now succeeded in leading a demonstration of 100,000 people for the purposes of pressuring the government to withdraw from all Palestinian territories. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Peace Now was instrumental in creating the Israeli Peace Coalition, which later evolved into the Israeli-Palestine Peace Coalition. It mains objective is to is to end the Israeli occupation in Palestinian lands, and to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution.