The Women Wage Peace movement ended a 50-day protest fast Wednesday with a rally outside the prime minister\u2019s official residence in Jerusalem, where they urged Benjamin Netanyahu to obtain a peace agreement.
\nHundreds of women from throughout the country attended \u2014 Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, native Israelis and new immigrants.
\nFor 50 days, the length of last summer\u2019s war in Gaza, the women staffed a protest tent outside the residence. They took it down every night because the municipality did not let them sleep there.<\/p>\n
They fasted in shifts of 25 to 50 hours each. Organizers said some 300 women and men from 114 localities took part.
\nDuring the vigil they were visited by politicians from across the political spectrum \u2014 from Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) on the right to MK Dov Khenin (Joint Arab List) on the left \u2014 as well as authors, artists and ordinary people. But not Netanyahu.
\nZohara Antebi, a leader of the Four Mothers movement that successfully advocated for an Israeli pullout from Lebanon in the 1990s, was one faster. \u201cPersistence is women\u2019s secret, and it\u2019s what will crack the intolerable reality,\u201d she said. \u201cA woman can\u2019t stand a situation where they tell her there\u2019s no solution.\u201d<\/p>\n