A “revolutionary” new movement bringing together influencers in Israel and the Diaspora with the aim of shifting Israel back to its roots in the Declaration of Independence was launched in the UK this week. And one of the founders accused the right-wing of “duping” world Jewry into staying silent, in the face of an increasing departure from democratic values.
The London Initiative is the brainchild of two Britons who are also Israeli citizens — Mike Prashker and Sir Mick Davis. Their ambitious plan is to recruit 360 global leaders and influencers — primarily Jewish but including Palestinian and non-Jewish thinkers — who will brainstorm in a series of three-day retreats over the next several years. The first one begins in London this week.
Speaking to Jewish News before the launch, Prashker and Davis acknowledged that apart from the Democrats Party leader, Yair Golan, there was almost nobody in Israeli politics addressing the issue of a “secure and stable peace” for Israel and its Palestinian neighbours.
Davis, a former UJIA and JLC chair, and former chief executive of the Conservative Party in the UK, said: “The Overton Window (a political term to measure what is reasonable to say in society) has moved to such an extent that anybody who attempts to debate that is out of sync with what is considered to be the view of the body politic”. He added: “You can’t have liberal democratic values if you have to manage the consequences of an unresolved conflict.”
Sir Mick Davis
Both Davis and Prashker said they did not think of the London Initiative as merely “a think-tank”. Rather, said Prashker, an educator and social entrepreneur who founded Merchavim, the Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel, it was “a think and do tank”. There was the opportunity, they said, “to create a partnership between Israelis and Jews in the diaspora, to create a different narrative”.
Prashker said: “Hamas and Hezbollah, our enemies, did the greatest possible damage to the peace camp on 7 October 2023. But it is also true that the peace camp over the years has been subdued and intimidated and put on the back foot… we were told that ‘we’re not going to deal with peace because it’s too controversial’ and that first we had to deal with the internal issues.”
But, he said, “as liberal Zionists we felt there were very large numbers of like-minded citizens of Israel, of all backgrounds, extremely diverse…and above all we felt as Zionists that world Jewry had been silenced, and its views on Israel had been suppressed, with its very broad allegiance with the liberal democratic values that Mick and I share”.
Figures from the Molad polling company, commissioned by the London Initiative, bore out this claim, Prashker said. “North American Jews, who are 80 percent of world Jewry, broadly speaking share our concerns and values around democracy , fairness and a secure peace. We therefore feel that this is an unprecedented opportunity for a liberal alliance between like-minded citizens of Israel, world Jewry, and other international allies.”
Prashker and Davis say they want the 360 members of the London Initiative “to go about their business differently on the personal, organisational, strategic and network level”. That meant, perhaps, flexing their financial muscles differently, or expressing themselves more openly. “We are not a small minority,” Prashker said. “We are an endangered majority. We feel that can no longer stand.”
Davis added: “[The aim] is to drive a set of beliefs across the political spectrum in Israel that they need to respond to. Right now, if I speak to the Israeli president or [opposition leader] Yair Lapid, they say, you’re not wrong, but now is not the time. [We say] that now is the time, and politicians will only get sense of that if they hear from the citizens of Israel, supported by those from the outside”.
Mike Prashker
In an impassioned speech at the formal launch of the London Initiative at JW3 on Thursday, Sir Mick Davis attacked those who had remained silent in the face of incremental attacks on democracy and fairness in Israeli society. He told an audience, which included leaders of the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies: “We have seen 15 years of wasted time while those on the far-right of our communities have worked tirelessly for the sort of outcomes and positions that we now see represented at the heart of government in Israel.
“It seems that Jewish leaders’ and institutions’ failure to speak up about Israel’s direction of travel has not improved the circumstances facing Israel and the Jewish people…What is our excuse?”
Pulling no punches, he said those speaking up for liberal Zionist values had been “hectored, accused of ‘derangement”, and so easily bullied into silence by an overbearing right-wing.
He said: “The right has managed to impose one of the most effective self-censorship regimes in history to stop people from voicing their opinions. Somewhere along the line, we have been convinced – duped you might say – into believing that for Israelis and Jews around the world, fairness, democracy and the pursuit of a secure peace are marginal, minority opinions, no longer relevant. We have been passive, sometimes because we do not want the hassle or sometimes in the name of ‘unity”’ while the right has decisively and divisively shifted the Overton Window”.
Denouncing President Trump’s recent comments about Gaza, Davis added: “How many Jewish Israeli political leaders, other than Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats Party, have spoken against Mr Trump’s suggestion? How many Jews in a leadership position in the diaspora communities taken issue with this proposition?
“A paltry few; because most would not dare! Instead, some, who do know better, have buried their principles and given this idea currency by their support, when they did not have to”.
Exhorting the audience to support the London Initiative, Davis declared: “We have agency. We are not powerless. We are not without influence. And, contrary to what those on the hard right would want us to believe, we are not alone”. He urged supporters to “shift the Overton Window back to an equilibrium which tolerates sensible and pragmatic debate, but which excludes the sort of narratives of bigotry, discrimination and hate that enabled the pogroms that blighted Jews for centuries and denied them self-determination after they were driven out of Judea/Israel by Hadrian, as he stole their country and called it Syria Palestina.
“Our aim is to use our agency to build partnerships between like-minded Israelis, world Jewry and our allies to advance the belief that what we call the triangle of interconnected goals: of liberal democracy, fairness across society and the truthful pursuit of secure peace are in the universe of the possible and that the attainment of any of them requires the pursuit of all of them.
“And we believe that these propositions need to be not just embraced, but demanded, by the people that we can influence, such that it becomes an inevitable direction of travel that political leadership is mandated to follow”.
The London Initiative was launched with a panel discussion including some of the 61 leaders taking part in the first retreat. The panellists, reflecting different input into the debate, and moderated by Dr Jeff Solomon, senior adviser to Chasbro Investments in the US, were: Pnina Pfeuffer, founder and chief executive of the New Haredim group in Israel; Hanna Veiler, president of the German Union of Jewish Students and vice-president of the European Union of Jewish Students; Dr Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and Shahira Shalaby, co-executive director of the Abraham Initiatives in Israel, a former deputy mayor of Haifa.
