Standing Together (; ) is an Israeli grassroots movement that aims to bring together Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli communities in the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace, equality and social justice. Known for its purple branding, it is the largest Arab-Jewish grassroots movement in the country. Standing Together first became active in 2015, and had about 7,000 members as of December 2025.
The movement opposes neoliberalism and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It aims to further LGBT rights, women's rights, workers' rights (including disability benefits) and full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, the movement has played a role in the anti-war and pro-ceasefire protests within Israeli society.
Organization Standing Together founders have cited Podemos, Momentum, Syriza, and the Democratic Socialists of America as inspirations but have stated they do not want the movement to become a political party. The movement's focus on both economic and social justice has been called a strength.
The movement has nine chapters, called "circles", across Israel: in the Sharon, the Triangle, and in the Negev, in the major cities of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, and in the college campuses of Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, the University of Haifa, and in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The movement aims to ensure equal treatment for Arab and Jewish-Israelis. The leadership has roughly equal representation of each group, and the movement publishes all material in Hebrew and Arabic. However, as of 2018, the movement had more Jewish-Israeli members than Arab-Israelis.
Alon-Lee Green and Rula Daood are the National Co-Directors of the movement, Uri Weltmann is the movement's national field organizer, and Sally Abed is the head of the resource development department. They are all elected leaders with the movement's leadership. Funding Standing Together is registered in Israel as a non-profit organization rather than as a political party, and funds its activities through a combination of small domestic donations, membership contributions, and grants from overseas donors and foundations. As a civil society organization, it is subject to Israel’s non-profit disclosure requirements but is not regulated under the campaign finance and donation limits that apply to registered political parties during election periods.
Financial disclosures published by Israeli authorities indicate that Standing Together has received significant funding from foreign entities over multiple years. According to filings submitted to the Registrar of Non‑Profits, the organization received grants from the German-based forumZFD (now ProPeace) totaling several hundred thousand shekels in both 2022 and 2024. The same disclosures show that in 2020 and 2021 the movement received additional overseas funding in the range of tens of thousands of shekels from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, a Germany‑based political foundation.
Standing Together has also been a recipient of funding from US‑based philanthropic organizations. Analysis of New Israel Fund grant data indicates that between 2015 and 2020 the movement received approximately US$750,000 in cumulative funding from the New Israel Fund, which supports Israeli civil society organizations engaged in political and social advocacy.
Additional overseas support has been documented from European and North American foundations. Public grant disclosures list Standing Together as a grantee of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, a UK‑based human‑rights foundation, as well as the Blaustein Philanthropic Group, which reported a grant for general support in 2024.
Alongside these institutional grants, the movement reports ongoing fundraising from individual donors in Israel and abroad, including monthly small‑donor contributions that constitute a portion of its operating budget.
Campaigns
Minimum 40 In 2021, Standing Together's "Minimum 40" campaign, supported by over 40 Knesset members from various parties, successfully advanced a bill to raise Israel’s minimum wage to 40 shekels per hour, which passed its preliminary reading in June 2022.
Kulanu Kan In early 2023, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed dissolving the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan), prompting public backlash. In response, Standing Together launched a campaign against the proposed dissolution. On 2 February 2023, Karhi froze the proposal, which the movement regarded as a victory. In English, kulanu kan means "all of us (are) here".
The Humanitarian Guard HaMishmar HaHumanitari, also known as The Humanitarian Guard, is a campaign against Tsav 9, an Israeli right-wing organization that blocks humanitarian aid to Gaza.
On 14 June 2024, the United States State Department officially added Tsav 9 to its list of sanctioned entities for impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, categorizing it as a "violent extremist" group.
History
Standing Together was founded in late 2015, primarily by individuals who had also been active in Israel's 2011 social justice protests. Many of the founders were members of the political coalition Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel. They have protested political arrests, evictions in East Jerusalem (including Sheikh Jarrah), the Gaza border protests, during which the IDF killed 223 people, and the planned demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev.
By 2018, the movement had about 2,000 registered members, and between 20,000 and 30,000 people participated in Standing Together events that year. Before the October 7 attacks, membership had dropped to a few hundred members, but by the end of 2024 it had more than 6,000 members, almost 4,000 of whom were making monthly donations.
In the summer of 2017, Standing Together protesters blocked several major highways to protest disability benefits being less than minimum wage. They also subsequently helped raise money for protesters who had been fined. On 11 December 2017, it held its first National Assembly, during which they voted on the movement's leaderships and on suggested proposals.
In 2018, Standing Together worked to spread awareness of, and protest against, Israel’s deportation of African (specifically Eritrean and Sudanese) asylum seekers. The movement was able to organize a 20,000 person strong protest in South Tel Aviv against the planned deportations. In May 2018, they protested the IDF response to Palestinian protests at the Gazan border, which had resulted in the deaths of more than 60 protesters. That month, they also organized protests against the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
In 2019, a small group of activists from Standing Together protested a policy of Barzilai Medical Center that required Arab bus passengers to be questioned before they could enter the hospital. Although the policy exempted Arab-Israeli citizens, anecdotal reports had reported Arab-Israeli citizens had also been singled out over the policy.
In September 2020, the group organized a protest against the Israeli government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic - which the group deemed ineffective - in Tel Aviv. The group filled Rabin Square with 1,019 empty chairs, each representing an Israeli death from COVID-19.
In January 2023 Standing Together organized a 20,000-30,000 person strong protest in Tel Aviv against the new government; later that year, they participated in the 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests against the 2023 Israeli judicial reform enacted by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In August 2023, a radio show hosted by the movement's national co-director, Alon-Lee Green, was censured after a right-wing pressure campaign. A week later, the show was leaked and published online. In late September 2023, the movement held a protest at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv to bring attention to the Arabs killed under the policies of security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Work during the Gaza war (2023–present) Following the onset of the Gaza war in October 2023, Standing Together collected aid for communities affected by the October 7 attacks. They organized the Solidarity Convention, which spearheaded anti-war and pro-ceasefire rallies in Israel. They also created a hotline for Arab-Israelis, particularly university students, who were affected by anti-Palestinian sentiments. Standing Together leadership also traveled to the United States to speak to synagogues and other organizations about their work.
In March 2024, some activists from the group organized a 30-car convoy in an attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to the Kerem Shalom border crossing into the Gaza Strip. Police forced the convoy to turn around about three kilometers from the crossing.
In May 2024, the group announced they would be forming a group to protect humanitarian aid trucks bound for the Gaza Strip from attacks by "far-right [Israeli] activists and settlers" while they were moving from Jordan through the West Bank. According to Standing Together leadership, the presence of the Standing Together activists allowed all the aid trucks "to pass without the settlers stopping or attacking them".
Since 2024, the movement's Humanitarian Guard has been activated around the annual Jerusalem Day Flag March in the Old City of Jerusalem, protecting the Palestinian residents of the Muslim Quarter who frequently face attacks by Israeli settlers.
In April 2025, the Standing Together chapter at the University of Haifa held a demonstration holding photos of Palestinian children killed in the war. This was met by harassment from right-wing students, some of whom defaced the children's photos with stickers that said "Kahane was right." The university later suspended all on-campus events for the group for the rest of the semester.
In November 2025, during their annual convention, the movement adopted for the first time a vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on a variation of the two-state solution put forward by A Land for All.
Formation of a political party
In order to run in the 2026 Israeli legislative election, the leadership of Standing Together decided to form a party, Makom LeKulanu (). There had long been rumors that Standing Together had been trying to become a political party since their founding and especially since the Gaza war protests in Israel. Their self-stated goal was to promote a "truly equal" Jewish-Arab political party, with an equal number of Palestinian Israelis being represented on the list as Jewish Israelis. Upon the founding of the party, Rula Daood proclaimed that "We are being abandoned, murdered, our future is being burned," arguing that efforts to replace the government must be accompanied by a positive vision. Referring to the prime, national security and finance ministers, she added, "Not only will we be part of the struggle to replace Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, but we will also lead the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace, national and civil equality, and social justice." At a press conference in Nazareth, party members stated that their main issues were peace, social justice, soaring violence and crime in Arab communities, the cost of living, and climate justice. Party members have argued about their importance in this election, with Daood proclaiming "this is the last moment to save our society."
The party has also sought to boost its feminist credentials, emphasizing the role of its specifically Palestinian women leaders, with Standing Together organizer Uri Weltmann stating that "There is no political party in today's Israeli politics that is led by a woman,...We know that only 40 percent of Arab women intend to vote for the Knesset,...That's due to various causes, but I think that the lack of representation is one of them."