"coexistence" or "life in common") is a grassroots volunteer movement established in the fall of 2000 by a joint network of Palestinians and Jewish-Israelis to counter the nationalist reactions aroused by the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
[1] Its members are Arabs and Jews who engage in non-violent collective action and civil disobedience to eliminate and redress segregation, dehumanization, and apartheid by constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership.
"[2] Working to decelerate and ultimately halt rapidly increasing land dispossession and displacement, they engage in a set of practices termed "protective presence."
This is a distinctive form of resistance that involves documenting violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, as well as intervening to cease and prevent assault.
[1] The group began performing regular weekly protective presence missions to communities in the Occupied West Bank facing state and settler violence and attempted displacement.
This unique form of resistance focuses on documenting violations of international human rights and humanitarian law while actively intervening to stop and prevent assaults, contributing to data sets on state and settler violence.
[7]In 2011 Two Jewish settlers suspected of involvement in the beating of Midhat Abu Karsh, a 30-year-old Palestinian teacher and resident of as-Samu, were arrested as a result of a video recording of the incident that released by Ta'ayush which appeared on YouTube and in Israeli television.
The organization's activities, which, like Machsom Watch, Yesh Gvul and Women in Black are focused on specific issues, rather than an inclusive approach embracing all problems,[16] are ignored or ridiculed by the Israeli mainstream but find support among Arab Palestinian parties and the extreme left.
[17] Ta'ayush has no formal ideological criteria for involvement (attempts to form a constitution failed) and its members restrict their work to concrete activities of solidarity.
They recognize that armed resistance is a tactic colonized peoples have historically used to liberate themselves, while believing that the most moral and durable path forward—and one that respects the unique nature of this case—is a decolonization that preserves human life above all else while working to eliminate social hierarchies and violence.
While it recognizes that Israeli state practices befit the threshold for apartheid across all historic Palestine, most of its work is in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It openly opposes the measures taken by the State of Israel in the Occupied Territories, policies that lead to 'isolation, poor medical care, house arrest, the destruction of educational institutions, and a lack of water and food for Palestinians'.
Gideon Levy criticized Uvda's presentation, writing that it systematically ignored the crimes of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, and noted that Nawi was being likened to the perpetrators of the Duma arson attack.