Women Wage Peace

Interview Marwa Hammad en Angela Scharf, De Staandard, Dec. 28th 2024

Palestijnse en Israëlische vrouwen voeren één strijd: “Wij zijn beter in staat om het geweld in Gaza te stoppen dan mannen”

https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20241227_96699329

Translation: 

For Palestinian Marwa Hammad and Israeli Angela Sharf, 2025 should be the year when a  ceasefire is achieved under the impetus of their women’s organisations. ‘Women are better at  stopping violence than men. We do not think in military goals, we think about the happiness,  health and future of our families and our children.’ 

Koen Vidal 

October 4, 2023. 1,500 Palestinian and Israeli women gather in Jerusalem and by the Dead  Sea to reinvigorate flagging peace talks. Representatives of the Palestinian Women of the Sun  and their Israeli sister association Women Wage Peace are waving a joint manifesto on which  they have been working for nine months and for which they are calling for national and  international support. The essence of this The Mother’s Call: give women a full place at the  negotiating table and you will get a less polarising dynamic that will lead to a peace solution  faster. High time to heed the empathetic voices of women, is the reasoning. 

‘That happening was the highlight of our collaboration,’ says Angela Sharf of Women Wage  Peace. ‘Since 2022, we had grown closer and closer together. Initially, we proceeded very  cautiously and discreetly. But by talking to each other and meeting each other, a bond of trust  had developed. Thanks to those direct contacts, we were able to break through all kinds of  prejudices. Because Israelis and Palestinians have lived de facto separated by all kinds of  fences and walls since the early 2000s, enemy images grew on both sides. For many Israelis,  Palestinians are mainly terrorists, and many Palestinians see in every Israeli a hateful settler  or a dangerous soldier.’ 

Marwa Hammad of Women of the Sun explains why Palestinian and Israeli women bump  into the same walls. ‘On both sides, men hold political power and discussions between Israeli  and Palestinian rulers often end in disagreement and violence. Women pay a very high price  for this. For it is we who have to suffer the destruction of our homes, our families and our  children. We no longer want to sit idly by and want our voices to be heard. When peace is  negotiated, we demand our place at the table.’ 

Angela Sharf: ‘On 4 October, we proved that this hatred can be broken and that it is indeed  possible to talk about sustainable peace with mutual respect. It was a fantastic day. We were a  bit high on happiness. Three days later came the nightmare of 7 October.’ 

Hamas’ violent raid on Israel and the Israeli army’s subsequent murderous attacks on Gaza  could have meant the abrupt end of cooperation between the women’s organisations. Angela  Sharf: ‘We were completely in shock. All the more so because Viviane Silver, one of our  founders, lived in the Be’eri kibbutz and had gone missing. Only later would it become clear  that she was murdered that day. Viviane had always been our great inspiration: one of those  people who continued to help Gazans even in the darkest periods. For years, she was  responsible for transporting Gazans to hospitals in Israel. On 7 October, we realised that the  violence could well mean the end of our cooperation with Palestinian women. And then came  that phone call from Marwa: ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘We need to hold each other  tighter than ever. Whatever may happen in the coming days and weeks: we must not let go of  each other’. We felt miserable, but what Marwa said did incredible good.’ 

Marwa Hammad: ‘When I woke up that 7 October and heard about the Hamas attack, I could  not yet assess the situation exactly. But I felt not only that something terrible was happening  but also that much more doom was coming our way. I did not hesitate for a moment that day 

to call our partners in Israel. ‘This will be our big test,’ I said, ‘Now we have to prove that  even in the most difficult times we will not leave each other’s side’. We never deviated from  that conviction. Not even when violence within our organisations began to take a heavy toll.  In Gaza, we lost dozens of members of Women of the Sun, and the loss of women’s rights  activist like Viviane Silver is also our loss. We grieve and we mourn, but we still stand tall.  This massive and indiscriminate violence proves once again the need for our alliance.’ 

But inevitably, life has become more difficult and dangerous for Palestinian women’s rights  activists since October 7. Not only because of the large-scale violence by the Israeli army and  settlers, but also because of the great suspicion for Palestinians who continue to cooperate  with Israeli organisations. Marwa Hammad. ‘Some forces accuse us of ‘normalisation’: by  this they mean that our cooperation with an Israeli organisation would be tantamount to an  acknowledgement of the occupation of the West Bank or that we would understand the  attacks on Gaza. But the opposite is, of course, true. We work with Israeli women because we  have the right, as Palestinian women, to actively participate in all forums where peace and  our future security are decided. We want to change reality and therefore demand our place.  All the more so because the peace talks so far have always come to nothing which means the  violence keeps raging on.’ 

As the death toll rises day by day, Hammad and Sharf’s organisations are mounting an  international diplomatic offensive to increase support for their demands. Sharf: I crisscrossed  Europe, travelled to the US, had talks with ministers, parliamentarians and diplomats. Thanks  to the help of well-known stars like Meryl Streep and George Clooney, our initiative became  increasingly well known and, meanwhile, 4 million people have already signed our ‘Mother’s  Call’ including Pope Francis. We have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, for the  European Sakharov Prize and we won the Albie award from the Clooney Foundation for  Justice.’ 

All this time, those in charge of both women’s organisations remained in almost daily contact  with each other. Sharf: ‘For the sake of security, mainly via Zoom, but in February we were  able to meet physically for the first time. That reunion took place at the Swedish  ambassador’s residence in Israel in the presence of seven other ambassadors. A very  emotional moment: we fell into our Palestinian friends’ arms crying, holding hands  throughout that meeting.’ 

One of the concrete actions that came out of those meetings, meetings and political contacts  was the creation of a female shadow cabinet to closely monitor and criticise the decisions and  actions of the Israeli government. Sharf: ‘We have our own shadow prime minister, our own  defence minister: the idea is to put as much pressure as possible on Netanyahu and his  ministers and come up with alternative proposals that can speed up a peace solution.’ 

Sharf and Hammad realise that convincing the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and  Hamas is no easy task. Sharf: ‘In Israel, we are bringing together 50 peace organisations  under the slogan It’s time now. Meanwhile, that peace bloc has the support of thousands of  people and the idea is that we will send negotiators to the government and parliament to press  for the ceasefire. 

Hammad: ‘Of course, this is a difficult struggle, but in the end it will prove that only alliances  like ours can break the spiral of hatred and violence. Sharf: ‘This is because we use a very  different language and narrative than the warring parties. We are not into blaming and 

shaming because that just comes down to always blaming the other side for the bloodshed.  We start from empathy and concern for the other party. As an Israeli organisation, we feel for  the terrible fate of Gaza’s civilians. Just as Hammad mourns the death of Viviane Silver.’ 

Hammad: ‘In the end, no warlord will stand up to the simplicity of our message. You can  only break the cycle of violence if you pull out all the stops to make peace. That means we  have to break the cycle of hatred on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. Also, don’t be too  quick to think that this is an impossible task. If you talk to ordinary people in Gaza, they only  want one thing: an end to the violence, an end to the killing. And then I am convinced that  women are better at stopping the violence, than men. We don’t think in military goals, we  think in the interest of the happiness, health and future of our families and our children. Yes, I  think we are more empathetic than men. And as I said, women and children are paying the  highest price for this conflict. We have had enough.’ 

Both Hammad and Sharf stress that their common struggle for a quick ceasefire need not  mean they have to agree on everything. Hammad: ‘Of course we move into a minefield when  we talk to each other. Do we define the violence in Gaza as genocide or not? Should we  move towards a two-state solution or not? Do we support the International Criminal Court’s  decisions to arrest the leaders of Israel and Hamas or not? What is essential is that we  maintain our focus: we want to work respectfully for a quick ceasefire and lasting peace that  will end indescribable human suffering. That means we will leave the discussion on the term  genocide to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court for now.  We will, however, speak in very direct language about the high number of deaths, the many  members we lost and the huge lack of emergency aid. I realise that many will not agree with  our diplomatic restraint but we definitely want to continue cooperation with our Israeli  partner. In recent years and months, we have seen numerous alliances between Palestinian  and Israeli organisations die because of disagreements and bickering. A huge loss. We do  want to work together, and that means focusing on what you have in common and not on  what divides you. We owe this not only to ourselves, but also to the young and future  generations.’ 

‘In times of disaster, you can do two things,’ Sharf and Hammad say when asked whether  their soft peace initiative can withstand the crushing reality of war. ‘You can despair and then  everything will have expired in advance. Or you can fight with hope and then you have a  good chance of bringing about change.’ Sharf: ‘We opt for hope and those who think that is  naive should consider how other bloody conflicts in the recent past have come to an end.  Look at Northern Ireland. And certainly look at Liberia: that country had a terrible civil war  but it was initiatives by women’s organisations that brought peace. During the peace talks,  women demanded and got their seats at the negotiating table. Liberians too undoubtedly  despaired at the bloody height of that civil war. But thanks to the energy of courageous  women, there is now peace there. That courage inspires us. Those who lose hope lose  everything.

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