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<\/p>\nWWP Diversity Team is instigating a series of thinking sessions in order to explore complex issues as part of the movement\u2019s activities. The sessions will take place in different parts of the country. The first session dealt with the following questions: Why are the participation and visibility of Israeli Arab women so limited within the movement? How can we develop Israeli, Arab, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Palestinian participation? What are the challenges and what are the possibilities?<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, 17.1.2017, about fifty women, twelve of whom were Israeli Arabs, (about ten women could not attend because of financial reason and\/or because the meeting took place in the evening), met in \u2018Beit Hagefen\u2019 in Haifa to have a heart to heart discussion. The discussion was moderated by Nurit Hajjaj and Ulfat Haider (a Jew and an Arab).<\/p>\n
The meeting proved to be loaded with complications. Harsh words were uttered, words such as: \u2018Where were you for the past 70 years? What do you want of us? We are suspicious of you. Arab women did not wish to come.\u2019<\/p>\n
On the other hand, we heard warm words too: appreciation and excitement about the meeting; hope and the understanding that, as women, we can work together; excitement and curiosity about women working towards peace.\u00a0 Arab women asked us not to make a distinction between Arabs and Jews \u2013 we are all Israelis, they stressed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There was some misunderstanding as to the aims of the movement and what is happening within it.\u00a0 This hampered the discussion and brought about disagreement concerning the issues raised, issues such as the movement\u2019s direction and activities on the ground, the construction of a smaller Arab\/Jewish thinking group. Often, we had the feeling that we are talking in \u2018different languages\u2019 and that the gap between the past and present, old and new is extremely wide.<\/p>\n
It was an evening of many expressed thoughts and emotions. There were suggestions for activities in order to learn to know each other better, for local co-operation and even for a gigantic art project. We came to various conclusions concerning discussions in large groups versus smaller groups and of the need to fight for the aims and needs of the women who have come.<\/p>\n
To summarise the evening, most Arab women I spoke to have a great wish to work together with us. Some said that it was a wonderful evening and that they had not believed so many Jewish women will arrive. Some suggested that we are all pieces in the same puzzle and that cooperation is only natural. Others felt that the movement seemed to be created for them. There seemed to be a need to find a way to know each other better and to express our women\u2019s solidarity. Almost all the Arab women wished to get used to and understand the movement\u2019s ideology. But, others are already cooperating with Jewish women and work locally.<\/p>\n
One participant, Hiyam, summed up her experience this way:\u00a0We\u2019re here to find out what\u2019s going on and will act on it with love.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0Translated from Hebrew by Sarit Bloom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WWP Diversity Team is instigating a series of thinking sessions in order to explore complex issues as part of the movement\u2019s activities. The sessions will take place in different parts of the country. The first session dealt with the following questions: Why are the participation and visibility of Israeli Arab women so limited within the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,9,65],"tags":[390],"yoast_head":"\n