When Doves Try:
Israel’s Peace Now Movement 1978-1983
With an Epilogue for the Post-October 7 World
A new book from Micah L. Sifry, October 2025
When Doves Try: Israel’s Peace Now Movement 1978-1983 tells the story of how a handful of young Israeli reserve officers helped ignite the country’s largest grassroots peace movement. In 1978, their open letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin struck a chord that mobilized hundreds of thousands of Israelis, pressed for the Camp David accords, and forced Israeli leaders to reckon with the human and moral costs of occupation and war.
Journalist and organizer Micah L. Sifry first encountered Peace Now as a college student, researched its rise while living on a kibbutz during Israel’s 1982 Lebanon War, and has followed its trajectory ever since. Blending memoir, archival research, interviews with its founders, political history, and fresh reporting, he traces how an all-volunteer movement reshaped Israeli politics—and what its struggles reveal about the possibilities and limits of democratic activism.
At a time when Israelis and Palestinians remain locked in cycles of violence, When Doves Try shows what it means to stand as a loyal opposition in the face of nationalist fervor, and why the lessons of Peace Now still matter today.
What people are saying about When Doves Try
“I’ve known Micah Sifry and admired his work for more than 40 years. His history of Peace Now’s early days tells the story of how the peace movement midwifed the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and took on the settlement movement and the1982 Lebanon war. As important, he delivers an important message in dark and challenging times: brave leadership and serious movement building can change the course of history.” Jeremy Ben-Ami, President, J Street.
“When Doves Try is more than a history of Israel’s biggest peace organization. It’s a reminder that there have always been brave people fighting for peaceful coexistence in Israel-Palestine, and that the future can be better.” Hadar Susskind, President and CEO, New Jewish Narrative (formerly Americans for Peace Now)
“When Doves Try offers a beacon of hope–that there have always been and still are many people in Israel-Palestine who understand there is no military solution to the conflict. We need to lift them up, for it is long past time to permanently end the war, get all the hostages home, and ensure that people across Israel and Palestine can live in peace with dignity and thrive without the constant fear of violence.” Sara Hagdoosti, Executive Director, Win Without War