List of Anti-War Organizations

“Anti-war organization” can describe a pacifist group opposed to all wars, a campaign focused on one war, or an organization advocating peace, disarmament, or a change in military policy. The America First Committee, for example, opposed U.S. entry into the Second World War but explicitly said it was not pacifist; the War Resisters League, by contrast, opposed all wars.[5][1] Organizations in this list therefore differ in both their scope and their methods, which include demonstrations, public education, lobbying, vigils, nonviolent action, and opposition to recruitment or weapons deployment.[1]

The available sources document selected examples, with particular emphasis on Israeli and Jewish-related peace activity and on organizations connected to U.S. and British anti-war campaigns. They do not establish a complete worldwide list or a uniform definition of anti-war activism. Some groups have been active across several conflicts; others emerged in response to a particular war or political moment. A peace-oriented organization’s appearance here does not mean it opposes every war, or that it is exclusively an anti-war organization.[1][2]

The groups’ positions on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are especially contested. Accounts from advocacy and policy organizations often use evaluative descriptions of groups, their political affiliations, or their relationship to anti-Israel activism. Where such characterizations are relevant, they are identified as the account of the cited organization rather than treated as a neutral consensus. This article distinguishes those evaluations from information about organizational origins, stated aims, and documented activities.[3][6]

Anti-war and peace organizations have taken different forms over time, from pacifist bodies founded around humanitarian or religious commitments to coalitions assembled to oppose a particular conflict. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), founded in Philadelphia in 1917 by prominent Quaker Rufus Jones in response to the humanitarian needs of the First World War, combined peace work with relief for people affected by the conflict. The AFSC and the British Friends Service Council assisted children and other vulnerable people, and the two organizations shared the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize for relief and rescue work.[7]

The War Resisters League (WRL), founded in 1923, was described in a 1986 directory as focused on pacifism, nonintervention, and feminism. Its work addressed the causes of war through education and action on disarmament, social justice, draft and counter-recruitment, nonviolence, war-tax resistance, and nonintervention. The same directory listed the AFSC as a pacifist organization whose work promoted peace, justice, and equality on the conviction that nonviolent solutions could be found to social problems. It also identified the AFSC and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objection as groups that counseled potential military recruits against service.[1]

The mid-twentieth-century peace movement included both broad coalitions and groups focused on particular weapons or conflicts. The 1986 Peace Resource Book was a historical directory describing 384 national peace organizations, 107 peace-oriented programs of study at colleges and universities, and thousands of local groups. Its purpose was to connect people and organizations working toward a more peaceful world; it is a snapshot of the period, not a current inventory or a list of groups opposing every war.[1]

In 1980, the AFSC, Clergy and Laity Concerned, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Traprock Peace Center were among the groups identified as launching a nuclear-weapons-freeze proposal. The proposal later became a centerpiece for organizations more narrowly focused on nuclear issues, including Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, the Council for a Livable World, SANE, Ground Zero, and Common Cause.[1] The example shows how a campaign can unite organizations with distinct broader agendas around a specific disarmament objective.

Anti-war coalitions also formed around the Vietnam War. A 1969 Congressional Record entry describes the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam as an umbrella for diverse anti-war groups. It records that a July national conference in Cleveland drew approximately 900 people and adopted the New Mobilization Committee’s name for the body responsible for planning fall demonstrations. The coalition sought to broaden the social base of anti-war activity by involving GIs, high-school students, labor, clergy, and third-world communities.[8]

The Congressional Record names a wide range of organizations represented at the July conference: the Cleveland Area Peace Action Council, Chicago Peace Council, Southern California Peace Action Council, Veterans for Peace in Vietnam, Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Youth Against War and Fascism, the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, Women’s Strike for Peace, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It also names the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), the Communist Party, U.S.A., and the National Lawyers Guild, among others. The Record reproduces a politically charged account of the conference; ideological descriptions and claims about participants in that passage belong to the report and speakers it quotes, rather than serving as neutral descriptions of the organizations.[8]

The committee planned a Washington march and rally for November 15, 1969, preceded by demonstrations in other cities and on college campuses. The Congressional Record reports that organizers and government officials were planning for at least 200,000 participants. That figure describes anticipated attendance, not a final count.[8] The same period also saw campus-level activity: a U.S. Department of State conference discussion recounts that a local high-school branch of SDS showed a North Vietnamese film at Bayside High School in 1966 to present another perspective on the Vietnam War.[9]

A separate account of Vietnam-era activism concerns the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. During a conference discussion, a speaker said Bertrand Russell and Ho Chi Minh were involved in creating the foundation, which then created an international war-crimes tribunal concerning U.S. conduct in Vietnam; the speaker also claimed Ho Chi Minh contributed 50,000 new francs. These statements come from a conference discussion, not a formal organizational history, and should be understood as the speaker’s account.[9]

In Britain, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) developed as a network of regional organizations, local groups, and individual members campaigning against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs report gives two different starting years—1958 in one passage and 1957 in another—so the discrepancy is retained rather than resolved here. The report says CND organized large marches in 1960 and 1961, campaigned for unilateral British nuclear disarmament, and opposed the deployment of Cruise missiles in Britain and Germany. It also describes CND as opposing a military attack on Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and joining the Stop the War Coalition and other groups in organizing more than twenty anti-war marches.[6]

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) was launched after a London meeting called “Stop the war before it starts,” held less than two weeks after the September 11 attacks. The meeting brought together groups through joint anti-war motions. Its stated principles included defending civil liberties and opposing racist backlash, and it attracted Labour-left activists, members of the anti-globalization movement, CND, and trade unions. These details come from a report that also advances politically evaluative interpretations of the coalition’s activities.[6]

The history of organized peace activity in Israel includes small political groups, broad public movements, religious initiatives, women’s campaigns, and reservist protests. The Jewish Women’s Archive describes peace activity before the emergence of a mass movement in 1978 as limited to the Communist Party and Matzpen, and identifies Mothers Against Silence, formed during the Lebanon War, as an early women’s peace movement.[2] The sources presented here document several distinct strands rather than a single shared platform.

Matzpen, also known as the Israeli Socialist Organization, was a small leftist, anti-Zionist group formed by students in 1962. It attracted public attention in 1967 by protesting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. The cited account says the group never had more than a few dozen members and that its members split over ideology in 1972.[10] Its scale and political character distinguish it from the broader movements that emerged later.

Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) was established in 1978 as an extraparliamentary movement. Accounts place its founding in the context of a letter from army reservists to Prime Minister Menachem Begin after Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel.[11] The letter urged Begin not to miss an opportunity for peace with Egypt; a Jerusalem Post editorial says 348 IDF reservists signed an open letter urging a more conciliatory negotiating posture and opposing the settlement enterprise.[12] A separate profile dates the movement’s official founding to April 9, 1978, and describes the appeal by 348 reserve soldiers and officers for Begin to pursue the peace process even at the cost of relinquishing Sinai territory.[13]

A study in the Jewish Political Studies Review describes Peace Now as advocating mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian state, and as opposing Jewish settlement in the territories.[14] Other accounts describe the movement as seeking broad cross-party support rather than becoming a political party; its activities included dialogue with Palestinians, demonstrations, and, after the peace process declined, public monitoring of settlement activity. A later profile describes its aim as historical reconciliation with the Palestinian people on a land-for-peace basis, and its then-leader characterized it as a defender of the two-state vision.[11][13]

Peace Now became prominent in public opposition to Israeli policy during the Lebanon War. It organized demonstrations against Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and protests over Israeli forces’ involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Encyclopedia.com reports that the movement’s largest demonstration drew more than 250,000 people, with some estimates reaching 300,000–400,000. In 1983, a grenade attack at a Peace Now demonstration killed activist Emil Grunzweig and wounded seven others.[11]

National Library of Israel archive records document Peace Now marches and demonstrations in 1983, including a march protesting government policy and a Tel Aviv demonstration demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. The archive also records demonstrations by Yesh Gvul, including a protest outside the Defence Ministry demanding the release of Yuri Pines, whom the archive entry describes as imprisoned for refusing to serve. These records document particular events, rather than a complete history of either movement.[15]

Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”) and Soldiers Against Silence emerged amid the 1982 Lebanon War as reservist movements that engaged in selective, organized disobedience. An Institute for National Security Studies article says their protests, alongside those of the older Peace Now movement, contributed to Israeli public debate and to Israel’s unilateral redeployment in Lebanon in 1985. The article quotes then-defense minister Moshe Arens saying, “We left Lebanon because of the reservists.”[16]

Women’s peace activism grew in several forms. Women in Black began in Israel in January 1988, when Israeli Jewish women held protests in Jerusalem against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Within months, more than 40 groups had formed in Israel, some including both Israeli Jewish and Palestinian women. The international network organizes silent public vigils against war, violence, and militarism, and has no central organization or official membership.[17]

A study of Israeli peace movements says Women in Black formed in early 1988 in response to the first intifada and became outspoken advocates of Arab rights. Its members held regular Friday vigils dressed in black for more than 300 weeks, ending after the announcement of the Oslo Accords. Afterward, the group shifted toward fostering contact and cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian women.[14]

Mothers Against Silence arose during the Lebanon War, while the Four Mothers movement was established in 1997 to demand an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The Four Mothers movement began after two military transport helicopters collided on February 4, 1997, killing all 73 soldiers aboard. Its members campaigned against what they called the “unending cost in blood” of the Lebanon conflict, kept vigil outside the prime minister’s residence, and played a role in Ehud Barak’s decision to withdraw in May 2000.[2][18]

Religious peace initiatives also developed. Oz ve Shalom was founded in 1975 by religious intellectuals opposed to Greater Israel policies and seeking moderation and compromise in the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the 1982 Lebanon War, younger Zionist-Orthodox activists formed a separate religious peace movement, Netivot Shalom; the two groups merged in 1984 as Oz ve Shalom/Netivot Shalom.[19] New Profile describes itself as a feminist organization seeking to change Israel from a militarized culture to a peace-seeking one, with particular attention to educating children for peace. A Jewish Virtual Library account places its work within feminist peace activism that developed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.[20]

Several organizations formed around Israeli-Palestinian peace, women’s participation, or joint activism. Women Wage Peace was formed in the wake of the 2014 Gaza conflict. A 2015 report says lawyers Irit Tamir and Michal Barak helped establish the grassroots organization to bring women into public discussion of security and peace and to build support for a peace agreement; at that time it had 7,000 registered members and more than 10,000 Facebook supporters.[21] A 2024 profile identifies Dr. Marie-Lyne Smadja as a co-founder and describes the group as having more than 55,000 members from the political left, center, and right, including Jews and Arabs. That later account does not provide a founding date or a detailed formal program.[22]

Combatants for Peace is described as a movement formed jointly by Palestinians and Israelis who had participated in the conflict—Israelis as soldiers and Palestinians in the armed struggle. Its stated aims include reconciliation, nonviolent struggle, dialogue, and ending the cycle of violence. The account quotes participants describing their change of approach: “we have decided to put down our guns, and to fight for peace.”[4]

The Coalition of Women for Peace was founded in Israel in 2000 and described itself as a feminist organization against the occupation and for a just peace. It announced its closure in December 2020. The organizations identified as constituent groups included New Profile, Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch, and Women in Black.[23]

A 2024 report identified Women Wage Peace, Standing Together, Peace Now, Rabbis for Human Rights, Breaking the Silence, and the Anti-Occupation Bloc as Israeli nonprofits and NGOs that jointly organized a Tel Aviv rally calling to stop the war and make peace. The New Israel Fund and Shatil were also partners. The report does not establish that every partner shared an identical position or was an anti-war organization in all contexts.[24]

Standing Together is described as a grassroots peace organization seeking to mobilize Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality, and social justice. After the Israel-Hamas war began, it protested and ran online campaigns calling for the return of hostages, a ceasefire deal, and an immediate end to the war.[25] These reported activities illustrate how contemporary organizations may address a particular war while also advancing broader civic or political goals.

U.S.-based and international organizations in the sources range from pacifist associations to coalitions responding to particular wars. The American Friends Service Committee’s work began in the context of the First World War, while the WRL’s program addressed war resistance and its broader social causes.[7][1] The AFSC was also among the organizations involved in the 1980 nuclear-weapons-freeze campaign, illustrating the overlap between humanitarian peace work and specific disarmament initiatives.[1]

The America First Committee (AFC), founded in 1940, was an influential isolationist organization opposing U.S. entry into the Second World War. It grew to more than 450 chapters and approximately 850,000 members, then dissolved in December 1941 after the United States entered the war. Its position concerned U.S. involvement in that conflict, not opposition to all wars; the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum explicitly notes that the committee said it was not pacifist.[5]

The AFC’s history is also contested. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum documents accusations of antisemitism and describes controversy over antisemitic statements made by prominent member Charles Lindbergh and the committee’s response. The available account therefore distinguishes the group’s stated opposition to U.S. entry into the war from the surrounding controversy over antisemitism; those issues are part of its historical record, not a basis for treating every anti-war group as similar.[5]

The ANSWER Coalition—Act Now to Stop War and End Racism—was founded in 2001 by the International Action Center to organize against the U.S. war in Afghanistan. It has since organized anti-war demonstrations nationwide and has more than a dozen chapters. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that ANSWER’s demonstrations have often incorporated anti-Israel messaging; this is the ADL’s characterization of the coalition’s activities.[3] In a 2007 interview, ANSWER national coordinator Brian Becker described the group’s approach as: “You hook into a movement that exists — in this case, the antiwar movement — and channel people who care about that movement and bring them into political life, the life of political activism.”[3]

The ANSWER Coalition has also organized demonstrations related to the Gaza conflict. A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs report describes it as a U.S. anti-war umbrella group established soon after the September 11 attacks and says the organization reported tens of thousands of attendees at its August 2014 Washington rally protesting the Gaza war and U.S. policy. The attendance figure is attributed to ANSWER, and the report uses politically evaluative language about the organization.[26]

The sources conflict on CODEPINK’s founding chronology. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies describes it as an anti-war organization founded following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs account describes it as a women-led nonprofit founded in 2002.[27][26] The latter account quotes its stated goals as ending U.S. wars and militarism, supporting peace and human-rights initiatives, and redirecting public funds toward health care, education, green jobs, and other programs. It describes the group’s tactics as including demonstrations and interruptions of congressional hearings.[26]

A 2013 news report summarizing an ADL assessment describes CODEPINK as a feminist anti-war organization and attributes to it goals that include reducing U.S. support for Israel and ending U.S.-led wars and military campaigns in the Middle East and elsewhere. The same report says the ADL included CODEPINK among what it called the most influential and active anti-Israel groups in the United States; that label is the ADL’s characterization, not an independent classification.[28]

One of CODEPINK’s campaigns focused on Ahava products. In 2009, the organization launched “Stolen Beauty” to protest their sale; its members later demonstrated at stores carrying the products, including department stores and the company’s London store. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies presents this campaign in a report focused on political activism and Israel-related campaigns.[27]

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996 by three University of California, Berkeley undergraduate students. Accounts document its later expansion to staff and an Oakland office; another report gives more than 60,000 active members and 70 chapters in the United States. JVP’s stated goal, as quoted in that account, is to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem and ensure security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians.[29][30]

The ADL describes JVP as anti-Zionist and as participating in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns, and reports that it has organized or co-organized rallies calling for an end to U.S. support for Israel. Those labels and characterizations are the ADL’s account; other reporting presents the group’s own stated aims and its reported membership and chapter figures. The descriptions should not be conflated with a neutral consensus about the organization.[29][30]

IfNotNow was established in 2014 by young American Jews following Operation Protective Edge. Accounts say its founders objected to what they viewed as Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas rocket fire. The group has focused historically on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and, in its own description quoted by Ynet, on organizing Jewish Americans to end U.S. support for what it calls Israel’s apartheid system and to demand equality, justice, and a prosperous future for Palestinians and Israelis.[30] The ADL describes its later activity as seeking pressure for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after October 7.[31]

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies describes IfNotNow as a group of mostly young Jewish activists that criticized American Jewish institutions’ support for Israel during the 2014 Gaza war. It reports that the group takes no official position on BDS, while co-founder Simone Zimmerman said she supported “economic and diplomatic action and pressure against the occupation.” These accounts present both the group’s position on BDS and a co-founder’s statement; they should not be treated as identical claims.[27]

The Stop the War Coalition and CND illustrate coalition-based campaigning in Britain. The JCFA report says StWC and the Muslim Association of Britain jointly organized more than twenty marches. It describes their first joint march as opposing the forthcoming Iraq war and using the slogan “No war in Iraq…Free Palestine.” The report characterizes the relationship as tactical rather than strategic and describes later slogans and cooperation in politically charged terms; these evaluations belong to the report, rather than constituting an uncontested account of the organizations’ relationship.[6]

CND’s campaigns, as summarized in the same report, ranged from nuclear disarmament to opposition to military action in Afghanistan and participation in anti-war marches. Its network structure—regional organizations, local groups, and individual members—differs from that of a single-purpose campaign committee. Because the report gives both 1957 and 1958 as its starting year, the available source does not support selecting one date as definitive here.[6]

The breadth of these coalitions is significant because a list of anti-war organizations is not simply a list of pacifist bodies. Some participants unite around opposition to a particular war, others pursue nuclear disarmament or civil-liberties goals, and still others combine anti-war campaigning with political advocacy on Israel or other issues. The sources provide examples of these connections but do not establish that every coalition member shared the same ideology or program.[1][6]

Descriptions of organizations involved in Israeli and Israel-related activism vary substantially among the sources. Advocacy organizations such as the ADL and FDD make evaluative claims about political groups and their activities; those assessments are attributable to their authors and should not automatically be read as neutral consensus.[3][27] NGO Monitor and JCFA likewise combine organizational information with politically evaluative analysis.[4][6] Conversely, a group’s stated goals, as quoted in a report, do not by themselves resolve wider disputes about its political significance or impact.

Several examples show why distinctions matter. Accounts differ in how they characterize JVP, IfNotNow, CODEPINK, ANSWER, and their relationship to Israel-related activism; some also quote the organizations’ stated aims or specific leaders’ comments.[29][30] The StWC report uses politically charged descriptions of joint campaigning, while the Congressional Record’s account of the 1969 Vietnam-era conference reproduces characterizations attributed to its speakers and reports.[6][8] In each case, the article reports the available claims as attributed accounts, not as findings that all groups, participants, or coalition partners share a single position.

The list is not exhaustive, and inclusion does not imply that an organization opposes every war or that all peace-oriented groups are anti-war organizations in the same sense. The America First Committee’s non-pacifist position is a clear example of opposition to one country’s participation in a particular war.[5] Similarly, organizations appearing together at a rally may have distinct platforms, and some organizations documented here are better described as peace, disarmament, or political advocacy movements than as exclusively anti-war groups.[24]