Huda Abu Arqoub is Director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), a network of civil society organisations working in conflict transformation, development, and coexistence in the Middle East among Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, and Jews. A Palestinian, she is also a leading supporter of Women Wage Peace (WWP). Fathom assistant editor Sam Nurding spoke to her about the challenges faced by a Palestinian feminist engaged in conflict-resolution activism.
SN: Reading an article at Women Wage Peace I came across this intriguing reference to ‘the politics of acquaintance’: ‘Huda has embarked on a journey of meetings and forged connections with Israeli women with the goal of creating another language, the Politics of Acquaintance.’ The article went on: ‘The goal is to take leave of the slogans that bog us down again and again, and create a language based on sincere curiosity that strives to reveal what we share and what is possible … Huda says that the politics of acquaintance particularly serves women’. What is the ‘politics of acquaintance’? Who have you been meeting and what has been discussed?
I said a new women’s movement for Israel must innovate in two ways. Most anti-war movements inside Israel are branded as ‘Leftist’ and that closes them off to many people. So, first, it should be a feminist-inclusive movement, meaning it has to talk to all of Israeli society, including people who are supportive of a war and have an occupation mentality. Second, it has to challenge the idea that ‘we don’t have a partner on the Palestinian side’ because once that myth is accepted, those who campaign for peace can be considered ‘traitors’ and ‘peace’ itself can be turned into a dirty word.
It is important to change the language that we use as women if we want to be inclusive. To many Israelis the word ‘occupation’ compromises Israeli security, or represents the Left. So instead of using the phrase ‘ending the occupation,’ we decided to use the phrase ‘ending the conflict’ – the occupation is part of the conflict but there are other things that need to be addressed to end the conflict once and for all. I offered to speak with the Israeli hardliners, bringing the Palestinian narrative to them, under the auspices of WWP. I live in Palestine and I cannot tell you how many times I heard from those Israelis that I was the first Palestinian they had spoken to.
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Women Wage Peace
SN: What impact has WWP had? What should be its next steps?
HAA: There are two contexts to look at when we speak of impact. The first is the Israeli context. These women have changed the discourse about war and peace, and about women’s involvement in peacebuilding. When it comes to rallying huge numbers, they’ve also been much more successful than any other organisation I’ve worked with or studied, and this is because they have not used language that shuts out any groups, and because they are talking a new language that is inclusive, empathetic and addressing the real needs of women for security.
I also helped WWP to take the language of ‘political positions’ and turn it into the language of needs, a language with meaning to people who are struggling to live and to raise their children in a better environment. By talking of human needs and using narrative theory, we redefined ‘security’ from their perspective. All of this was within the framework of the UN Resolution 1325. (See the discussion of UN 1325 by Sarai Aharoni in this issue).
Because WWP reached out to the ultra-Orthodox community, the Russian-speaking community, and the Ethiopian community, they brought authenticity to their work and created space for many different people within the movement. For the Palestinians, WWP represents a serious effort to end this conflict because they are not talking in a bubble; they are doing work with all the stakeholders of this conflict. And that’s why in two years WWP has managed to have more Palestinian women come to their events than any other organisation. In 2016 we had 1,000 Palestinian participate in Jericho and in 2017 we had 3,000. (They cannot go to Jerusalem without a permit). I have Palestinian women from different walks of life in Palestine telling me that they want join and be supportive.
WWP has been successful amongst Palestinian women because there has been no attempt to build an ‘Israeli-Palestinian WWP’. The Palestinian women who support the Israeli women of WWP are a support group; we provide funding, bring their voice to the Arab world, and help them to forge connections in Europe and the US. If it wasn’t for the Palestinian women, WWP could not have projected their voice in Palestinian society. And, in turn, this gives WWP legitimacy, because it answers the question ‘is there a partner for peace?’
