Israel has always been close to my heart. Not only was I born there and hope one day to live there permanently, I also follow all that is happening there very closely and get upset and sometimes moved to tears when things are going wrong. The political situation over the last few years has made me depressed and dismayed. In the last 20 years something has happened to Israeli discourse. Israel stopped talking about peace. Consecutive governments have convinced the people that we have no partner for peace and that, at best, we can aspire to maintain the status quo – “manage the conflict” – rather than solve it.
However, in November 2014, at a memorial rally for the assassinated Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, I was touched by hope. A small group of women stood on the stage, all dressed in white, and sent a message which I could relate to, a message which I thought could gather strength and influence what is happening in Israel. So I joined the embryonic movement to try to spread this message.
Women Wage Peace (WWP) has started in 2014 whilst Operation Protective Edge was taking place. It is a non-political movement, encompassing women from all over the country – Jews, Arabs, and Palestinians, religious and non-religious, women from the settlements and from the peripheries, women of all political inclinations. The aim is to restore hope and to work towards a peaceful existence for ourselves, our children and the future generations. In a small country, it is hard to avoid funerals at war time. It is the goal of the movement to try to prevent the next war, to raise public awareness and to make people recognize that the status quo cannot be allowed to continue, that there is a need for change. The idea is to recruit more and more women to the movement in order to put pressure on and influence politicians and opinion makers to work towards achieving a political agreement; to find a resolution for the conflict we are in, a resolution which is non-violent, is respectable and agreeable to all sides and we aim to try and achieve this within four years.
Why a women’s movement? Michal Barak, one of the founders, explains: “Women entail doing, initiating, determination, hope, listening and communicating. Women signify an alternative.” It is hard, she maintains, to persuade anyone by using only logic. A consciousness shift is possible only through connections and relationships built on identity. Here, it is the gender identity – being women. “Women”, she says, “connect on the basis of their gender, of their being mothers and sisters and wives. It is a shared identity that crosses the deep divisions. Not as a gimmick or a tactic – it is very deep. We share so much as women and we connect very easily. This connection opens a possibility of finding more common grounds; it encourages each of us to look for her real drives beyond the automatic.” Michal believes that “seeing the complexity in yourself and in others is the key for breaking stereotypes and for resolving disputes. “
Michal Barak is an educationalist and a lawyer involved in social organisations. She and Irit Tamir – also a lawyer who was a counsellor for civil societies- had the same vision of creating a women’s movement. The inspiration came from ‘The Four Mothers’ movement – a protest movement which was founded by four women from the north of Israel, mothers to soldiers who were serving in Lebanon, with the aim of bringing about the withdrawal of the Army from there.
The idea was to stop the cycle of violence and to have no more bloodshed. The first meeting of the movement took place in Jerusalem where around thirty women attended. Most of these women are still active in the movement. It was decided not to be another “Left” movement, but to try to encompass women from all walks of life and every possible political nuance, to become an irritant, a stubborn buzzing fly which will not go away until ‘peace’ will become part of the general debate and no longer would be a “dirty word”.
The launch of the movement took place on November 25, 2014 in Sderot, following the ‘train for peace’ action, which saw women dressed in white boarding the same train from different parts of the country to arrive at Sderot. Like many other women, I found in the movement something reassuring. It seems to be a movement which manages to give the thousands of women following it the opportunity to be part of political conversation, and to try to influence the country’s future. It gives us the feeling of empowerment and the motivation to go on until we reach our goal.
In May this year, I joined a weekend seminar lead by three movements – Women Wage Peace, ITACH مَعَ كِ – Women Lawyers for Social Justice who work to advance women’s rights and to encourage women’s voices in the public and legal domains – and the ADAM Institute – a national educational organisation working towards the advancement of democracy, peace and respect of human and citizen rights.
Since, two other similar seminars were held with the intention of organising, all together, nine seminars over two years. This is a unique project where some 500 women in all, from diverse Israeli groups and sectors, women of different backgrounds presenting a variety of voices, aim to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas concerning peace and security. The organisers hope to stimulate a discourse from which women are usually excluded. The objective is to allow this dialogue to continue long after the seminars have ended by initiating public and communal activities in order to stimulate women’s participation.
For me, it was an exceptional encounter and a special experience of meeting women from the north and south of the country, from cities, villages and kibbutzim, secular, religious and Arab women, from the left, the centre and the right of the political spectrum, women who brought with them an array of professions and knowledge. Our discourse was earnest, open and encompassing. The workshops introduced us to new information, historical events, information on the conflict and its origin, on peace and equality. Mainly, though, it presented us with different points of view, some original, some fascinating and sometimes challenging. The feminine perspective took centre place, highlighting the need to think about those different to us, about civil rights, freedom of movement and freedom of choice and to understand what issues need to be tackled when the discourse is around the subject of Peace.
The expectations from us, the participants, and from the organisers were high and the will to act even higher. The subjects discussed were weighty, such as the end of the occupation, the improvement of Israel’s democracy, healthy sex education, bringing together Israelis and Palestinians, the lack of tolerance towards opinions which are not the accepted norm, citizens’ rights and the need to abolish racism. It was an inspirational event from which, I believe, we came out with the knowledge that each of us is not alone, that there is much willingness to improve our lives and the lives of our neighbours. This weekend increased my motivation to act. I have been trying hard since to do just that. I do believe that the Women Wage Peace’s message of the need to change, the need to go out into the public domain and voice our wishes can work and I hope we can rally as many women and men as possible to act towards this goal too. In October a March for Hope is planned. This will see women (and men too) from all over the country, marching towards and in Jerusalem. The March will culminate in a rally outside the Prime Minister’s home, where we will demand from the government to strive for change, to try for a political agreement. I will certainly be there.
