These young leftists are pushing Israel’s Zionist left to confront the occupation
Founding members of Forum Dov from the Young Democrats. Seated, from right, Adi Cohen, Ro’ee Lotem, Hadas Zangy, Erez Uzan and Maya Vennor. Standing, Itay Kopelman and Itamar Megged
Shany Littman reports in Haaretz on 24 July 2026:
The speakers in the conference’s opening video talked so fast that I couldn’t follow what they were saying. It was probably not meant for my generation. Fair enough.
The hall at ZOA House in Tel Aviv was filled mostly with people in their 20s. The conference took place on July 6, about two weeks before the Democrats’ primary, which was held this past Monday. In the lobby, current and former Labor Party and Meretz Knesset members mingled with candidates seeking the party’s nomination, all eager to speak with the young audience.
Everyone wore big smiles and greeted one another with enthusiastic hugs. The presence of so many young people clearly lifted the spirits of the older generation. Young leftists are a fairly rare breed these days, and that is no small thing. For their sake, candidates were even willing to utter words that have long been considered taboo, even in parties that define themselves as left-wing: peace, negotiations, a diplomatic solution and the evacuation of settlements. “Occupation?” That’s for the advanced class.
This was the conference of Forum Dov, an acronym in Hebrew for Democracy and Security. The group operates as a pressure bloc within the party, seeking to put the diplomatic solution back at the center of the agenda and support candidates who commit to advancing it. The conference was intended to help the forum’s roughly 2,000 members better understand the candidates’ positions.
“We learned the hard way that managing the conflict does not bring security. It brings existential danger,” said Erez Uzan, one of the forum’s founders, in his opening remarks. “We need politicians who will do everything they can to convince the public that a diplomatic solution is not only desirable and necessary, but also possible. There is a solution. It’s called the two-state solution.”
The forum was founded by activists from the protest movement against the judicial overhaul, who concluded, even before October 7, that the enormous energy generated by the demonstrations had to be translated into organized political action. After helping push for the merger of Labor and Meretz, they established the party’s youth organization, the Young Democrats, and have recently launched Forum Dov as well.
Uzan, 27, is studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He began his degree in October 2022, just a few months before Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveiled his judicial overhaul plan. Then he took to the streets, and since then, his studies have largely been put on hold.
“We realized we were getting beaten up, sprayed with Skunk water, failing our exams and sacrificing a lot to fight for this country,” Uzan says. “Then we realized that if another election comes around and everything looks exactly the same, we’ve achieved nothing.”
“The left has developed an increasingly moralistic and purist discourse. It insisted on stopping war crimes, on calling what is happening in Gaza genocide and what is happening in the West Bank apartheid. But saying the conflict has to end without explaining how, or what comes afterward, isn’t a persuasive political argument.”
Erez Uzan
The activists concluded that “if you want to influence the party from within, you have to organize as a coordinated force,” Uzan says. Their model came from the settler right.
“We saw how settlers inside Likud built organized voting blocs that effectively turned the party into a branch of Bezalel Smotrich’s movement. Obviously, you also have to learn what not to do. We’re not going to run the kind of mass membership drives you see in Likud, where someone pays people’s membership fees, promises them jobs and gets their votes in return. But there are lessons to be learned from what they did right.”
Such as?
“The settlers understood that ideas and ideology come first. They have a clear vision: that this should be a state for Jews only, from the Jordan River to the sea. Those are sweeping ideas. They also built a narrative claiming this is the only path to security. They speak clearly about what they want. There’s deep ideological work behind it.”
Even so, Uzan is convinced the settler movement has not truly succeeded. “The Israeli public didn’t buy the idea that if we expel all the Arabs, the Messiah will come and we’ll live forever. But Israelis do want security. We all want to know that no one will break into our homes at night and slaughter our children in their beds. One side talks about that clearly. The other has spent years avoiding the subject and promising things like another assistant in kindergarten. Of course they’re going to win.
“We need to deepen our ideological thinking instead of settling for slogans. We need clear, concrete plans and we have to learn how to communicate them in a way that persuades the public. To make that happen within the democratic system, we have to organize. There’s an element of community-building here.”
“Organized groups have tremendous power,” says Hadas Zangy, 26, a political science and sociology student from Emek HaEla. Zangy admits that “‘studying’ is a big word. Right now I’m mostly just enrolled. Hopefully after the elections I’ll finally finish my degree.”
She was not especially political until the judicial overhaul protests turned the streets into her second home. A year ago, she was elected chair of the Young Democrats. “We stepped into a vacuum that existed within the Democrats, and we can feel it. Many Knesset members and candidates approach us because they understand how important the forum has become.”
What do the party veterans think about that?
“Some are probably worried. They think speaking more clearly could cost us a few seats in the next election. Even if that’s true, it’s important in the long run. If we sound like Eisenkot, Bennett or Lapid, no one will vote for us.”
Polls show that young people tend to lean to the right.
“I don’t expect much from my generation. We grew up in a reality of endless conflict and were never offered an alternative. The only voices we heard were from the right. Our long-term mission is to convince the Israeli public, and especially my generation, that the only path to security is through political agreements, a two-state solution and peace. In the Young Democrats, we go door to door trying to convince people.”
The first panel featured Labor Knesset members Naama Lazimi, Gilad Kariv and Efrat Rayten. Zangy, who moderated the discussion, wasted no time getting to the difficult questions. She asked about evacuating settlements and how to persuade the Israeli public that such a move is necessary. She also asked what priorities the lawmakers would insist on if they joined another government alongside prominent right-wing figures such as Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, and what they would be willing to compromise on.
Rayten acknowledged that mistakes had been made during the previous “government of change,” the Bennett-Lapid coalition that served from June 2021 to December 2022. “The parties decided not to touch any of the difficult issues, including democratic and constitutional ones like limiting the prime minister’s term. The same was true of the territories and the conflict with the Palestinians. We said we wouldn’t go there. But this time we don’t have that luxury. The public is looking to us now. They trust us.”
The other two panels featured 16 candidates who are not currently members of Knesset, including Eran Etzion, Yaya Fink, Moran Zer Katzenstein, Omri Ronen, Emilie Moatti, Nimrod Sheffer, Moshe Radman Abutbul, Avi Dabush and Gaby Lasky.
The moderators pressed them on issues such as cooperation with Arab parties, negotiations with the Palestinians and defending liberal democratic values. The candidates, meanwhile, competed to sound like the strongest advocates for peace, equality and ending the conflict.
At one point, a woman in the audience interrupted the proceedings. She was part of a group of protesters challenging representatives of the left. They held up signs and shouted about what they saw as the left’s disregard for the plight of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who is imprisoned in Israel. Abu Safiya has been held in administrative detention without trial for more than a year and a half. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, there is serious concern for his life. Kariv tried to respond, but eventually gave up on the shouting match.
After they were escorted out of the hall, one of the protesters, Ruti Lavi, said: “The Democrats call themselves the left. You have people like Avi Dabush and Gaby Lasky, who represented defendants in military courts. She knows the horrors that happen there. He’s silent, she’s silent, Lazimi is silent. We came to a left-wing event because I have no reason to go to the right. The right wants blood. Why aren’t you saying a word about Abu Safiya? There was a demonstration calling for his release today. Why weren’t you there? Why haven’t you issued a statement? Are torture camps less important than holding primaries? If you’re the left, then act like the left. Stand up for the powerless, whose power and freedom have been taken away.”
Uzan says the protest pained him. “The voice we’re trying to bring is less centered on the moral argument, but that doesn’t mean we’re indifferent to these issues or that they don’t concern us. At the end of the day, they came to protest against practically the only people among the Zionist parties in the Knesset who could actually be their partners. I understand the frustration, but what’s the point of protesting Naama and Gilad? They’re almost the only people fighting every day for something bigger – the only path that can end the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians.”
But you say you want to focus less on the moral argument. That’s exactly what they’re protesting.
“Over the past 15 years, the left has essentially done two things. First, it lowered the flag of a diplomatic solution. It stopped dealing with the conflict, the occupation and political arrangements. It stopped talking about peace. That was one side of the Labor Party.
“The other side, which existed in Meretz and in civil society organizations, developed an increasingly moralistic and purist discourse. It insisted on stopping war crimes, on calling what is happening in Gaza genocide and what is happening in the West Bank apartheid. But saying the conflict has to end without explaining how, or what comes afterward, simply isn’t a persuasive political argument. Because, if ending the occupation means living without security and not being able to raise my children, then maybe I don’t want to end the occupation.”
Forum Dov is not the only group trying to push the Democrats to clearly define themselves as a left-wing, peace-oriented party. In recent months, journalist and documentary filmmaker Noam Sheizaf joined the Democrats and launched an initiative aimed at restoring the word “occupation” to the party’s vocabulary and official platform.
“I come from the world of peace activism and left-wing organizations,” Sheizaf says. “I tried to bring those people into the party. The Democrats should be the political home of the people who provide protective presence, who accompany Rabbis for Human Rights during the olive harvest, who protested not only for the hostages’ release but also for a cease-fire. These people haven’t really had representation in the Knesset for a long time. Labor and Meretz were peace parties that gradually drifted away from the occupation issue. We need to come in and support those who are willing to deal with it.”
How is your group different from Forum Dov?
“We’re older. We’re what’s left of the peace camp after wandering in the desert for 20 years. I’m the right wing’s caricature of the left: the guy with the round glasses who thinks everything begins and ends with the occupation. The settlements are where the judicial coup is being organized. Solve that cancer, and a great many things can change.”
“Forum Dov,” he continues, “is made up of younger people in their twenties and thirties who are a bit more centrist than we are. Their language is more focused on diplomacy and less on activism in the West Bank. But there’s a real affinity between us, and we all need to work together to renew the party and strengthen the left.”
At the Forum Dov conference, candidates spoke openly about a diplomatic solution and even about evacuating settlements. Does that also include using the word “occupation”?
“The word ‘occupation’ has disappeared from the party’s vocabulary. The candidates don’t know how to talk about it. They can barely bring themselves to say ‘Palestinian state.’ We need to support them, teach the party that language and stop being afraid of it.
“Yariv Oppenheimer [longtime peace activist and former director of Peace Now] said at the conference that we need to talk to Balad. Of course we do. Arab citizens are our partners, and we need to say that openly and teach the party to say it too. This is a project of political education and renewal. I meet with a lot of candidates, and you can already see the change.”
“Two months ago, nobody wanted anything to do with the left. Now every candidate wants to go to the West Bank and take part in protective presence. The right created political rules under which going to the West Bank was a liability, while speaking the language of the right was rewarded. So candidates adopted that language. Now they’re learning that going to the West Bank can also pay politically.”
Doesn’t that simply turn a center-left party into Meretz?
“I don’t care about the brands. The political space occupied by all the different shades of the center is incredibly crowded. Every minute another Chili Tropper squeezes into it. It’s remarkable how many people are competing over half a seat in the political center.
“By contrast, saying something as simple as ‘End the war’ or ‘Jewish-Arab partnership’ leaves you standing in a huge, empty field. As they say in soccer, it’s like having half the pitch completely open. Talking about the occupation and about peace is an asset for the Democrats, not a liability.
“The public is exhausted by the war and filled with despair. When the Democrats say, ‘Enough with the war,’ they’re the most credible people saying it. That’s also the party’s opportunity to grow. If the peace camp returns to the Democrats, it will be doing the party an enormous service.”
What does Yair Golan think about all this?
“I don’t know. I haven’t met him. He revived the party. He jumped into the water. If he brings in 10 seats, good for him. I just hope he’ll do the right things afterward.”
The day after the conference, Uzan was elated. “It gave me a real boost. I was happy to see so many new faces in the audience, but what made me happiest was seeing the expressions on the candidates’ and MKs’ faces. They seemed genuinely surprised by how many young people showed up.”
Out of the forum’s 2,000 registered members, 100 ultimately voted on the group’s recommended slate of candidates: MK Naama Lazimi, MK Gilad Kariv, Maj. Gen. (res.) Nimrod Sheffer, Emilie Moatti, Yariv Oppenheimer, attorney Gaby Lasky, Moran Michel and attorney Nidal Masalha.
Sheffer was pleased with the outcome. “It’s exciting to see a group of young people with real political awareness who understand that if you want to change things, you need political power and you have to go after it. They’re 25 to 30 years old, and they’ve already figured out something I only understood at 65.”
Since then, in Monday’s primary election, few of the candidates the group supported secured prominent positions on the party’s slate. Lazimi and Kariv were elected to the slate’s second and third spots, respectively. Lasky is sixth on the ticket. Sheffer was elected to the party’s 11th spot, and Moatti to the 14th.
Moshe Radman Abutbul was not included on the forum’s recommended slate. He finished ninth in Monday’s primary. At the conference, he accepted the forum’s decision graciously. “Look, at the end of the day, this is politics. They’re good people, and I accept it with love. The important thing is that there are young people in the party.”
Why did you come to the conference?
“It’s important to talk to young people. I travel all over the country to meet them wherever they are. I’ve been talking about ending the war and returning to negotiations since around November 2023. The fact that the party now has a more dovish wing made up of young people is wonderful. That’s where I see myself.”
Can you bring yourself to use the word “occupation”?
“People get especially hung up on that word. In the end, whether you call it ‘occupation’ or ‘rule over another people’ doesn’t really matter. I have no problem using the word ‘occupation.’ But falling in love with that word doesn’t solve the problem. Ultimately, the party has to decide what its message is. The sharper and clearer our message, and the more distinct it is from the empty rhetoric of the center, the better it will serve us morally, ideologically and electorally. The public is tired of vague messages and endless hedging.”
Uzan, meanwhile, is already looking ahead. “We have a historic role to play. We have to make sure that the only remaining Zionist left-wing party pursues real policies when it enters a governing coalition. In the next government, we don’t want to serve as a left-wing fig leaf. We have to be assertive. We need to make sure that Bennett, Lieberman, Matan Kahana and the other right-wing politicians who may join the coalition don’t get a blank check to pursue right-wing policies.”
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