AMY GOODMAN: We now go to Tel Aviv, where we’re joined by Yonatan Zeigen, Israeli peace activist whose mother, Vivian Silver, a 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist, was killed in the Hamas attack, October 7, 2023, on Kibbutz Be’eri. Silver had co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment, and Cooperation and was a member of Women Wage Peace. Yonatan Zeigen is a board member of Parents Circle Families Forum, one of thousands of Israelis who have signed a petition to the U.N. supporting Palestinian statehood.

Yonatan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response to this historic moment yesterday, Portugal, Britain, Australia and Canada recognizing Palestine as a state? And talk about the Israeli position on this, from the activists to the government.

YONATAN ZEIGEN: Well, I think — thank you for having me, first of all.

I think that this is a belated but blessed step forward, because we need to level the field. In order for us, Israelis and Palestinians, to be able to shape the only viable future for us, which is a shared future, we need to be able to look each other in eye level. And in order to do that, the Palestinians need to be elevated and to be granted basic rights. And in the world, people, they are granted basic rights through the mechanism of nation-states. And the Palestinians shouldn’t be excluded from that. So, this is the first step.

Now needs to come implementation, because it can’t be just a symbolic gesture. It needs to be accompanied by the rights that states have globally and obligations. So, I think this is a step forward, and it should have been done a long time ago. All the world always supported the two-state solution while only recognizing one state. So, now this is a rectification of that, and it needs to be implementable on the ground.

What we see, reactions in Israel, in terms of activists, in terms of the peace movement, the human rights movement, I’ve only heard blessings and good reactions and support. And as you said, at least 9,000 people signed the petition.

In the political sphere or in the mainstream Israeli society, I hear hysteria, because this is a zero-sum game for our government. We either — the government, this government, and a lot of governments in the past, wanted to expand Israel, wanted to kill and die for exclusivity of the whole Promised Land. And this is a step forward, a very strong signal from the international community that that is not acceptable, that the future of Israelis and Palestinians is shared, is our ability to share the land.

So, they will do whatever they can to oppose this geopolitical momentum, and countries, states shouldn’t back down. They should now continue to — with implementation, that includes incentives, on the one hand, for diplomatic processes, for humanitarian etiquette, and sanctions, on the other, isolation, diplomatic, economical, cultural, if we continue on this murderous status quo that we created since October 7.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli government, the Foreign Ministry, says, “Recognition is nothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas.” I’m going to end with this question. Your mother, Vivian Silver — and our condolences on her death almost two years ago — killed in the Hamas attack on her kibbutz, on Kibbutz Be’eri, and yet here you are deeply committed to peace and a Palestinian state. Can you respond to what your government is saying?

YONATAN ZEIGEN: We saw, in fact, Hamas thrived. It didn’t come from nowhere. It didn’t — it wasn’t established on October 7th. It thrived in the environment of statelessness for the Palestinians, of oppression of the Palestinians. If we want to change reality that we don’t encounter monstrous resistance groups from the Palestinian society, we need to offer a sustainable life, a future, a prospect. I saw, in a historical analysis, in ’48, when — after the state of Israel was established, the militias, the armed militias, that used terror to forward their missions, were dismantled. They were assimilated into the general political mechanism of the state, the new formal state of Israel. That will happen, as well, in Palestine. Militias thrive in statelessness, in chaos, in oppression and they die out in — under the light, under a formal mechanism of obligations and rights towards other peoples.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Yonatan Zeigen, I want to thank you for being with us, Israeli peace activist, his mother killed October 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Be’eri. He’s board member of Parents Circle Families Forum and is one of thousands of Israelis who have signed on to a petition for Palestinian statehood.