Shir Nosatzki, you worked in journalism before becoming an activist for social justice in 2011.
How did you get involved? How did you and your partners come to found Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, and why do you focus on Jewish-Arab coexistence and cooperation?
In 2011, I was part of the group that initiated and led what became the largest social protest in Israel’s history — at least until the 2023 protests. It actually started from a personal housing crisis. My partner and I had to leave our apartment, and when we started looking for a new place, we realized just how deep the housing shortage was.
We were very young — I was 25 — and we came into it without much political awareness. It began with personal hardship, but very quickly turned into something much bigger. Within weeks, the movement grew to include over a million people, and the conversation expanded from housing to a broad call for social justice. Under the banner of social justice, almost every civic and political issue in Israel came to the surface — the cost of living, monopolies, economic inequality, racism, feminism, press freedom, and more. The only thing that was left out — that little "marginal" issue — was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One of the consequences of this powerful movement was that the center-left adopted this strategy wholesale: talk about everything except the conflict. To this day, I still feel that — without meaning to — we helped to create and reinforce that narrative.
In the years that followed, I stayed active in social movements and deepened my understanding of what was really happening in Israel. And gradually, I came to the conclusion that the most important issue — the one at the root of so many others — is the conflict. If there's one political issue worth getting up every morning to work on, it's this one. That realization is what led us to found Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?
Our focus on building Jewish-Arab political partnership comes from a very simple truth: the biggest distortion within Israel is also our greatest untapped opportunity. Arab citizens make up 20% of the population, and yet they’ve been excluded from national decision-making for decades. That’s not only unjust and undemocratic — it’s also politically self-defeating. For decades, the center-left has been trying, and failing, to return to power, and has failed to build the political strength to make that happen. In that context, it’s especially self-defeating that this camp — whether actively or passively — cooperated with the political delegitimization of Arab citizens, and for years avoided building a shared coalition.
What’s been missing is a clear, sustained effort to build a shared political bloc — a values-based alliance between Arab society and Israel’s liberal-democratic camp. Just like Netanyahu understood the power of a long-term alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, we believe it’s time to build that kind of alliance with Arab citizens — our natural partners in the struggle for equality and peace.
When we founded Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, no one in Israel was waking up every day with that mission at the center of their work. So we took it on — not just because it's the moral thing to do, but because it's the strategic path forward if we want to change the direction this country is heading.
Immediately after the Hamas terror attack on 7 October on Israel, you joined forces with Adv. Hannan Alsanah (Itach-Maaki) and, with the support of an NIF emergency grant, you set up the first joint Jewish-Arab relief center in Rahat. Tell us about that, and what happened since?
In the days after October 7, it was clear that Israel was not only reeling from an unprecedented act of terror — it was also on the edge of internal rupture. Fear, incitement, and suspicion between Jewish and Arab citizens surged. Hamas was calling out for Arab citizens of Israel to attack, Israeli extreme-right politicians were fanning the flames, and everything around us was trying to further pull us apart. There was a very real concern that this moment could undo decades of fragile coexistence. There still is. That’s why we knew we had to act — fast and visibly. Together with Adv. Hannan Alsanah, an inspiring woman, friend, and Bedouin leader, and with the support of NIF, we launched the first-ever joint Jewish-Arab emergency relief center, right in the heart of Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the world. What began as a humanitarian response quickly became something more: a living, breathing statement that this is not a war between Jews and Arabs — it’s a struggle between people who choose life and those who sow death.
Within days, the center became a hub for over 2,000 volunteers, Jewish and Arab, working side by side to distribute food, offer legal and emotional support, host shared dialogues, and even repair bikes and cook meals together. Every week, we reach around 500 families — both Jewish and Arab — including many in unrecognized Bedouin villages and underserved Jewish towns like Ofakim and Netivot. But just as importantly, the center became a platform for a new kind of public discourse. Journalists, diplomats, elected officials, and thought leaders came to see it — and talk about it. Stories from the center, and the videos we produced under the "Partners in Fate" campaign, reached millions. They amplified a message that desperately needed to be heard: that solidarity is not only possible, it's already happening on the ground. For us, it’s both a moral act and a strategic one. In a moment of darkness, it’s a way of insisting on light — and of shaping the kind of shared future we still believe is possible.
Israeli civil society has been under great pressure from many sides for years, but especially since the current Gaza war. What challenges do you face? Do you see any alternatives emerging to the deeply entrenched positions?
It may sound like a cliché, but it’s true: big challenges bring big opportunities. And we don’t even need to look far — we can simply look at our own history. In fact, we can look at what happened after the Yom Kippur War, which is the event we naturally tend to compare to October 7. Both were tectonic earthquakes in Israeli society, with consequences that will shape the future for generations. After the 1973 war, two enormous and completely opposing things happened: on the one hand, a peace agreement was signed with Egypt; on the other, the “Gush Emunim” movement was founded — a religious-nationalist social movement that pushed for and led the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories. These conflicting trends have already begun to emerge in the wake of the massacre: the far right is calling to reoccupy Gaza, while the left sees this as a moment to promote a regional agreement that could bring long-term security.
Our role, as civil society, is not only to strengthen and amplify the forces pushing for such an agreement — but also, and perhaps above all, to reach the silent majority in the center. For decades, they’ve believed the conflict could be “managed,” and have preferred not to engage with it at all.
Now, we’re at an even greater crossroads than after Yom Kippur. Israeli society can no longer avoid confronting the conflict and its impact on our lives. The choices we make now will determine what kind of society we become — and we have to choose. That, in my view, is the real opportunity.
The project Have You Seen the Horizon Lately is funded by the Israel Network. Israel Network was founded by Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienst e.V., Alfred Landecker Foundation, AMCHA Deutschland e.V., New Israel Fund Deutschland e.V. (NIF), the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation and the EVZ Foundation. The Israel Network sends a signal of solidarity from German society to Israeli civil society and supports democratic civil society actors in the country. The network is a link between people and organizations in Germany who want to provide help and projects in Israel that need support.
