After almost two years of war in Gaza and at least 65,000 Palestinians killed, recognition of Palestine as a state has become an urgent issue internationally. France and the United Kingdom recently recognized Palestine, joining other Western countries and bringing the tally to four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council whose recommendation is required for recognition at the United Nations. Meanwhile, calls for a Palestinian state are multiplying. Among them is a petition by 60 Israeli NGOs, united under It’s Time, a coalition supporting a two-state solution that organized a peace summit in May. Reset DOC spoke with Raluca Ganea—co-founder and executive director of Zazim, a civic movement of Arabs and Jews working together for democracy and equality, and a member of It’s Time—about what is required to turn the vision of a two-state solution into a political reality.
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You helped promote a petition calling on UN members to recognize Palestine. Why now? And why, after nearly two years of war, does the two-state solution remain essential?
We started thinking about a campaign right after October 7, 2023, when the Netanyahu doctrine—managing the conflict and strengthening Hamas instead of working with the PA for a peace agreement and an end to the occupation—collapsed so tragically. But in those first days and months, we were overwhelmed: family, friends, colleagues taken hostage or killed, rockets falling. We just focused on freeing the hostages and ending the war. As the war in Gaza turned genocidal, there was even less space to talk about the day after. We just focused on stopping what was happening in Gaza. Talking about the day after may seem irrelevant after two years of war, but it is actually part of offering an alternative to Netanyahu’s eternal war.
What does Benjamin Netanyahu want?
Netanyahu has a very clear vision: endless war to prevent a Palestinian state, annex all Palestinian land, expand settlements, and carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza and likely the West Bank. He presents it as the only option. So even though it’s hard to look beyond what’s happening in Gaza—and stopping that is the most urgent—we still have to talk about the day after, to propose an alternative vision. The Saudi–French initiative was a great opportunity to raise this issue and begin that conversation. At the same time, we run campaigns for soldiers to refuse participation in war crimes or illegal orders in Gaza. We believe it’s important to hold both ends: to say what must stop, and also what must happen. The UN event was an opportunity we couldn’t miss to start working on the day after.
What role can the international community play, even with Donald Trump back on the scene?
Donald Trump is a problem. More broadly, the international community, international law, and institutions are very weak—not only on Gaza but on many other issues. The world order built after World War II is collapsing on many fronts. Still, we can only do what we can. For us, that means pushing the international community to get more involved, and recognition of Palestine is one step. We hope it won’t remain symbolic, but bring real change on the ground—more tools to pressure Israel to end the war, to fight annexation in the West Bank, and to give Palestine a different status in international law. It’s not a magic solution, and there are many challenges—Trump among them.
What do you say to those—like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who argue that recognizing Palestine only rewards Hamas?
It’s such transparent propaganda that it’s painful to see people buying it. I can understand the fear—many in the south and north of Israel are still living the trauma of October 7 and the months that followed. But Netanyahu exploits that. Recognition of Palestine isn’t a standalone move: it comes with ending the war, freeing all hostages, and a clear demand from Arab states, Turkey, and others that Hamas cannot remain in control of Gaza. Recognition is in Israel’s own interest—it means mutual recognition, security arrangements, and Hamas excluded from government.
Your organization looks ahead to a future of peace. How do you hold onto that vision amid the deep polarization in Israel after October 7? A recent poll, for instance, found that more than 80 percent of Israelis support expelling Gazans, and over half even support transferring Arab citizens of Israel…
The general picture is gloomy. Polarization is a global problem fueled by social media and populist leaders. In Israel, it’s compounded by an ongoing war exploited by Netanyahu. The way to deal with this isn’t to chase polls, as many opposition leaders do, targeting the center-right. That strategy has failed for years. Nobody on the soft right will vote for a left leader. Instead, opposition leaders should use polls to understand Israelis’ fears and find a way forward. Otherwise, the Overton window—the degree of acceptability of government policy—keeps shifting right.
Our role as civil society is to be clear about our vision. If you dilute it to appeal to the other side, you get nowhere. The right has always been clear about its ultra-nationalist, extremist vision. After October 7, while we were in mourning, they were already calling for conquering Gaza and rebuilding settlements—and they normalized it. Two years ago, when Netanyahu’s doctrine of “managing the conflict” collapsed, I thought people would clearly choose a two-state solution over destroying the other side. But since we didn’t push that vision and the right pushed theirs, we are now in a genocidal war. It’s unthinkable, but it shows why we must start, however hard and long the road may be.
You mentioned actions of refusal and civil disobedience. Among your campaigns is the display of a black flag. Can you tell us more about that?
It’s a metaphor from a 1956 Supreme Court ruling after the Kfar Qassem massacre. In that ruling, the Court didn’t just define an illegal order, but an obviously illegal one—an order a soldier or commander has a moral duty to refuse. The Court said an order with a “black flag” flying over it is one every eye and heart can recognize as illegal—against moral, human, and state law. In my generation, we were taught this ruling at school and in the army: soldiers must distinguish illegal orders. We wanted to use that ethos, part of Israel’s own tradition, to speak to people who are told by the government that everything is justified to prevent another October 7. We remind them they have a moral duty to differentiate between orders that defend citizens and those that cannot be justified. This is not just civil disobedience—we are calling on soldiers, active and reserve, to refuse participation in war crimes, as is their duty.
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What does it mean, in practice, for a citizen or a soldier to refuse participation in the war? And what risks come with that choice?
Refusing is very hard—your friends are there, and not going feels like abandoning them. The government’s propaganda is also very strong. But the reality is that refusal is growing, in different forms—gray refusal, value-based refusal—and it will increase as the war drags on. It’s becoming impossible to defend its goals. This is not a defensive war for Israeli citizens; it’s a political war serving Netanyahu and his extreme partners.
It also takes a huge toll on families and the economy—husbands away for months, divorces, and businesses collapsing. This cannot go on. So even though it’s difficult, more and more will refuse. In the end, that’s what will stop the war: there simply won’t be enough soldiers to fight it.
And what does this look like for private citizens?
There are different ways to resist. With our call to refuse war crimes, for example, we distributed over half a million flyers in mailboxes across the country. Anyone can write to us, get a package of flyers, and deliver them in their neighborhood. Actions like these are probably more effective now than demonstrations.
Demonstrations still matter—mainly to show the world what’s happening—but they no longer influence the government. Israel is still a democracy in the sense that we can protest, though there is police violence. But in reality, the government doesn’t care about public pressure or opinion. That erodes people’s sense of agency, making it harder to act; we’ve completely lost the ability to influence our government.
There’s a plan circulating for Gaza’s future—the so-called “real estate bonanza” put forward by Minister Smotrich. What’s your position on it?
It’s outrageous—an agenda of Jewish supremacy, racist, and unacceptable under any law. It’s part of an ultra-religious, ultra-nationalist, even messianic vision that has taken the country hostage. But this vision, like Smotrich’s, is not supported by most Israelis. If we had elections today, he wouldn’t even pass the threshold—which is why they avoid elections. It’s an unacceptable program because it involves ethnic cleansing.
The Oslo Accords were supposed to pave the way to two states, but that never materialized. What do you think happened?
There are many reasons why the Oslo Accords failed, with blame on both sides. From the Israeli perspective, two stand out. First, the agreements were divided into stages, leaving room for many interpretations, while on the ground, Palestinians’ lives in the West Bank actually worsened. But most decisive was the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by a Jewish ultra-nationalist—an act encouraged by Netanyahu, then opposition leader, who incited rebellion against Rabin’s efforts to end the occupation and reach a two-state solution with a coalition of Jewish and Arab parties. That assassination brought Netanyahu to power in 1996 and effectively ended Oslo. Rabin had a vision; those around him did not.
Where is the opposition to Netanyahu on this issue?
The assassination also collapsed the Israeli peace camp overnight. We were told the priority was to reconcile Israeli society internally, and that pushing to end the occupation was divisive. That mindset was very damaging. Since then, Israel has had human rights groups fighting the occupation, but not a real peace movement. And since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, there have been no negotiations with the Palestinians—16 years now. The separation wall built in the early 2000s only deepened the divisions. A generation of Israelis has grown up never meeting Palestinians, making it easier for Netanyahu to sell the idea that the conflict can be “managed” indefinitely—through economic measures, normalization with the Gulf, anything but addressing Palestinians’ lack of sovereignty, freedom, and justice. And the entire world went along with it.
Cover photo: Annalena Baerbock, President of the United Nations General Assembly, speaks at the conference on the two-state solution in the Middle East before the general debate of the UN General Assembly in New York, on September 22, 2025. (Photo by KAY NIETFELD / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP)
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