July 1, 2002
Palestinian and Israeli Women Peace Activists
Addresses to the United Nations Security Council
May 7, 2002
(Received via Bay Area Women in Black)
Terry Greenblatt, director of Bat Shalom (an Israeli women's peace organization) and Maha Abu-Dayyeh Shamas, one of the founders of the Jerusalem Center for Women (a Palestinian peace organization which is formally linked with Bat Shalom) were invited to address a session of the United Nations Security Council. Gloria Steinem, member of the Advisory Council of Equality Now, an international human rights organization working for the advancement of gender equality, introduced the participants, who also included Jessica Neuwirth, the President of Equality Now. Ms. Steinem said the organization had brought together two women who were willing to sit on the same side of the table and put that historic and bloody conflict on the opposite side of the table. .This important occasion marks the continuation of a campaign by Equality Now and others to have women's voices included in all peace negotiations.
SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING/UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK 7 MAY 2002
STATEMENT BY MAHA ABU-DAYYEH SHAMAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF WOMEN'S CENTRE
FOR LEGAL AID AND COUNSELLING
First I would like to thank you and particularly Ambassador Kolby from Norway for giving us this opportunity to meet with you, and we would also like to thank Equality Now for making that opportunity possible. We come from two communities that have very much been shaped by action or inaction of the U.N. through its various resolutions and their implementation or lack of implementation.
The U.N. was created specifically to coordinate international efforts to promote world peace. It was created so that various nation states will take responsibility to ensure global peace and security and consequently stability. This body has translated the diverse human experience in conflict and conflict resolution into an intricate body of laws and related instruments for implementation to control behaviour of governments and ensure the much highly regarded global security. In the body of the U. N. there is no shortage of laws and regulations that deal with conflict and conflict resolution, and in the context of the Middle East there is no shortage of resolutions that have been adopted to guide the resolution of the conflict. What is left is really the political will of governments to undertake their responsibility according to their mandate within the body of international law and international humanitarian law.
The absence of political will has kept Middle East societies and particularly the Palestinian society lingering too long in a situation of perpetual fear and conflict that has and is still causing loss of dear lives, and the perpetuation of pain and suffering. The Palestinian society has been yearning for too long for peace and security. We have been yearning to be able to move around freely without having to ask permission from young gun-toting Israeli soldiers who are placed practically at our doorsteps. We have been yearning for too long for the time when we do not have to worry about our children and particularly our teenaged male children going back and forth safely to school. We have been yearning for too long to be able to run our political and economic lives without the constraints of occupation. We have been yearning for the need for security where we do not have to worry about being thrown in jail for exercising our right of self-expression and self-determination. All the things that are taken for granted in other societies we cannot even begin to dare to think what life would be like exercising those rights. In spite of all the constraints we have been living under due to the occupation, our hopes and aspirations did not stop us from trying to struggle for issues of social justice within our own society.
As a representative of Palestinian civil society and the women's movement, I can say that in spite of all the handicaps, with a lot of support from the various UN bodies and bi-lateral aid we have gone a long way in developing our various institutions in order to address social needs, from health, education, legislation etc. with the hope that whenever the Palestinian state that is much hoped for and talked about comes about we will be well set in the process of development of our various, political, economic, social and cultural institutions.
The Palestinian women's movement has succeeded in making inroads in addressing cultural values and attitudes particular to the Arab world that handicap the healthy development of girls and women. We Palestinian women were in the process of engaging ourselves in legislative development at the local as well as the international levels. Our representatives participated in the various U.N. conferences and other international conferences related to women. We were witnessing the development of a budding but vibrant young feminist movement, an essential sector for democratic development within the Palestinian society. However, the last so-called Israeli re-occupation of Palestinian controlled areas has manifested itself in the systematic destruction of all that we have been able to achieve in the last ten years at the level of infrastructure development with the aim to dash any hope for a coherent Palestinian state and identity.
Honorable representatives, our society is a vibrant society. We have managed to sustain ourselves and survive extreme hardships for over fifty years. The last onslaught has done nothing but to strengthen the determination of the national collective not only to survive but also to overcome the present hardships. Survive as a nation we will, however, the short and long term consequences of the last military onslaught is yet to be evaluated and assessed. The negative consequences of the prolongation of this conflict will not only be felt by our society, but by the Israeli society as well because we are living at such proximity to each other.
In the eyes of the average Palestinian, our society was effectively left at the mercy of a hostile state that continually violated, and with impunity, almost every law in the book regarding the behaviour of states in armed conflict throughout the Israeli illegal and endless occupation. They did that through the continued confiscation of land, building of settlements, transfer of their own civilian population into the occupied territories, willful destruction of property, illegal removal of prisoners from their own territories, and the list goes on. You probably have long detailed reports of the various systematic abuses and violations. Having no effective Palestinian state to defend our interests, nor an effective international third party to ensure the respect of the law, desperate elements in Palestinian society felt they had no choice but to resort to their own means for self-defense. The continued violations of every principle and law that deals with the conflict by the state of Israel have resulted with a likewise violent and illegal response by Palestinian non-state actors. This cycle of action and reaction has allowed the Israeli state in the name of self defense to use formal state military strategies and means against non-state actors, leading to a level of violence that must be contained if not to preserve life, at least to ensure regional and global stability, because the Palestinian community feels at present that it has nothing more to lose, besides the clear understanding that the political objectives of this military campaign is to break the spirit of the Palestinian community and accept an imposed agreement which is not an agreement at all.
In the face of the high cost to life, and the concern of even worse scenarios of blood letting and destruction, to the point of concern that the extreme right wing elements within the existing Israeli Government will seize the opportunity of a regional conflict to carry out their widely spoken-about transfer of the Palestinian population to Jordan, strong elements in both our societies some of which we represent urge you to take immediate action to save life and give hope to the young generation. Tomorrow the U.N. will be undertaking the Children's Summit and children of the Middle East have the right to hope for a better future. Young Palestinian teenagers are increasingly turning their bodies into walking bombs believing that this will advance the cause of their community, and in the same token we also see one generation after the other of young Israelis having to serve in the army because their consequent governments have lead them to believe that holding on to the territories, maintaining the illegal occupation and controlling the lives of the Palestinian population is necessary for their own security. Young people should not be subjected to an environment like this, which makes them feel they have no future and no alternatives.
The Security Council in its mandate has a responsibility for direct intervention, and has responsibility to ensure the enforcement of the various U.N. resolutions. By acting on its mandate, the Security Council will give some hope for a better future, some hope to lead towards constructive dialogue. For the sake of preserving life, and for the sake of making political negotiations possible, it is essential to create an environment of hope by sending immediately international peacekeeping forces with a mandate of protection. Any future negotiations must remain under international auspices to ensure the respect of the international frameworks. The two parties, Palestinian and Israeli are not equal, and should not be left on their own, otherwise the imbalance of power will dictate the process, which characterized the Oslo negotiation process that we are now witnessing the bloody consequences of.
Honourable representatives, peace is made between peoples and not between leaders. A process that should lead to a political solution that is sustainable and consequently permanent should be just, and should not be left to the confines of the generals, and should be transparent to the relevant societies. We have to address and understand each other's history with an open mind. If we leave it only to men we get Israeli generals and Palestinians who will not be defeated and there is no room to negotiate. Our leaders have a responsibility to educate as a matter of policy each other's societies about the other. Through the suggested forthcoming peace conference, the U.N. must take an active role to ensure that there is sufficient representation of civil society and particularly representatives of peace groups within both societies as they will have a vested interest in thinking of creative means to overcome obstacles. The participation of women in any future peace process is essential to maintain connection to the realities of the relevant societies and their yearnings for peace and security. Women have proven themselves to be more dedicated to the process of reaching out which is essential to peace making. However, women need to be empowered to be able to participate in such processes, and frameworks must be developed to ensure their participation.
In the planning of the forthcoming peace conference we call upon you to ensure the participation of representatives of civil society as well as women' s groups at both the parties of the conflict level as well as the third party level. We cannot afford to waste any more time, or any more lives. We need to think of a new approach. We as women want to bring a new understanding to the situation in the Middle East. We want to approach peace-building in a way that will promote long-term stability. We want to explain to each other what it is like to live in Israel and Palestine, to develop transparent procedures so that any peace will be one between individuals and not politicians. But we cannot do it alone. We are asking for your help and the help of the international community both to give us a chance to contribute our expertise and our knowledge and to support us in our efforts. Women are a strong and resourceful people. We want to use our strength and resourcefulness to help bring peace to the Middle East.
Finally, I would like to conclude that despite all the disappointments and setbacks experienced lately, it is important not to give up on the region and to capitalize on the strong desire and need that exists in both societies for security and stability to take bold actions that give hope. We have witnessed even in our recent history societies that were bitter enemies, who were able to work out their relationship and live with each other or next to each other in peace and harmony. If peaceful co-existence has been successful in other societies it should be possible in the Middle East as well. The rule of law is essential for this peace and harmony. We have to replace the rule of force, which has governed our region for too long, with the rule of law, and this is your challenge. Women know instinctively that the use of force will never lead to peace, justice or even security.
We hope you will think about creative ways in which you can bring women in to the process. 50% of the representatives of all parties to peace negotiations should be women, and we urge you to explore other means as well as perhaps the creation of a women's commission, for example. We leave it to you as there are many ways in which this could be done.
STATEMENT BY TERY GREENBLATT, DIRECTOR OF BAT SHALOM
I represent Bat Shalom (Daughter of Peace), an Israeli feminist peace organization. I also represent Israeli women and mothers who are famished for peace. We are women working for a genuine peace grounded in the just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, respect for human rights, and an equal voice for Jewish and Arab women within Israeli society. Since 1994, Bat Shalom has been part of a bi-national institution called The Jerusalem Link, and the joint declaration that I will read at the conclusion of my talk was developed with our sister partner, a Palestinian women's NGO, the Jerusalem Center for Women. We work in coalition with more than one hundred women's peace and anti-occupation initiatives around the world that have mobilized in response to the insufferable situation in our region. I stand before you this afternoon, in the presence of the enormous power you represent, and with the terrible awareness of how dangerous that power can be. As a woman I know that anyone, with even the smallest advantage over another, is capable of abusing or misusing that power. I stand here as an ally and advocate of those women in Israel, Jewish and Arab, who ask of you to use your power wisely and with a moral compass whose needle is uncompromisingly pointed toward justice.
We ask that you fulfill your responsibility as set out in the United Nations Charter.
You are mandated to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war - for until you do, we women living in a militaristic society are destined to continue raising our children to perpetrate war and become messengers of hatred, and of racism, and of destruction.
You are mandated to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights- for until you do, the soul of our society will never heal, neither from our fear of global anti-Semitism, nor from the inhumanity of our subjugation and dehumanization of the Palestinian people. For until you do, the extremists on both sides will rejoice, both those who talk of the transfer of indigenous populations and an eternal occupation, as well as those who walk into a coffeehouse or a supermarket, and blow themselves and others up, leaving our joint future smoldering in the rubble. For until you do, those of us who are struggling to promote a human rights agenda inextricably embedded in an effective political solution cannot possibly further our mission.
You are mandated to establish conditions under which justice and respect for international law can be maintained. This includes ensuring the security and well being of Israelis. But is also includes insisting on a standard of behavior and compliance to international law on the part of Israel, be it a fact-finding mission to Jenin or the dismantlement of illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. For until you do, we Israelis will continue to be driven by our fear and mistrust, and insist that this war we are waging is for our very survival as a nation, even though it is not.
And lastly, you are mandated to promote social progress and better standards of life, for until you do, until there is the degree of humanitarian aid for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the devastation of Palestine and her people, until the Israeli people can fully trust that international bodies are committed to ensuring our survival, neither nation will be able to begin to address the ultimate challenge of creating a culture of peace in our region.
Next year we will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Oslo Accords. Few remember anymore the exhilaration of daring to believe that we could possibly be nearing the end of this hundred-year conflict. For us, Israeli and Palestinian women, and the international community of hundreds of thousands of women who along with us have remained steadfast in their solidarity for and commitment to a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, there will be no celebration of this anniversary. There will be no candles lit in jubilation - rather, a collective global mourning for a region that is burning, wreaking destruction on a magnificent land and her 2 peoples, and leaving the most dangerous ashes in its wake - ashes of profound fear, hopelessness and despair.
This month Israeli and Palestinian women have once again jointly declared what a just and sustainable peace must look like. I look around this room and, but for ourselves, I see too few women. And I cannot but be aware of the failure of both our local leadership as well as you, the international community, to productively navigate our peoples on a path towards peace. How much of the reason for this is the absence of women in this room, in the countless rooms where decisions are made that affect the daily lives of Israeli and Palestinian men, women and children? I cannot help but be aware that the slim glimmers of hope in this terrible situation have consistently been provided by the grassroots women's peace activists on both sides. Given this dismal history of past performance, it is unthinkable not to include women, large numbers of women, in the upcoming peace process.
You need us, because if the goal is not simply the absence of war, but the creation of a sustainable peace by fostering fundamental societal changes, we are crucial to everyone's security concerns.
You need us, because wars are no longer fought on battlefields. You have brought the war home to us. Many more civilians than soldiers are being killed in ours and other conflicts around the world. The wars are being waged now on our doorsteps and in our living rooms and in our sacred houses and ceremonies of religious worship, and women have a vested interest in keeping families and communities safe.
You need us, because to honorably comply with your own legislation, Resolution 1325, we must be included.
You need us because we continue to hold human rights and the sanctity of life as paramount values, and unfortunately today, they are too easily being bartered away as either obstacles to security policies or as incongruent with national liberation aspirations.
You need us because we have developed a process and socio-political fluency that keeps authentic and productive dialogue moving forward, even as the violence escalates and both sides continue to terrorize one another. Women's characteristic life experience gives us the potential for two things: a very special kind of intelligence, social intelligence, and a very special kind of courage, social courage. We have developed the courage to cross the lines of difference drawn between us, which are also the lines drawn inside our heads. And the intelligence to do it safely, without a gun or a bomb, and to do it productively. And most importantly, we are learning to shift our positions, finding ourselves moving towards each other, without tearing out our roots in the process. Even when we are women whose very existence and narrative contradicts each other, we will talk - we will not shoot.
You need us because we women are willing to sit together on the same side of the table and together look at our complex joint history, with the commitment and intention of not getting up until - in respect and reciprocity - we can get up together and begin our new history and fulfill our joint destiny.
There is much talk now about an International Peace Conference. Colin Powell has already prepared us for the outcome, when he said this week that no one should have high expectations from the conference. Women in the peace and anti-occupation movement in Israel are recommending that expectations must remain higher than ever before, because we cannot afford them not to be. We suggest now just might be the moment to realize how critical our contribution is. We have never had a voice or power at these tables, and quite possibly we will get it wrong the first few times. But we would come with what we believe are innovative and creative strategies, grounded in democratic and feminist ideology and experience, and exemplified by what women have managed to accomplish in civil society with little resources and insignificant power.
We would change the discourse from the 'for or against' model, pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian or pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli. This kind of inadequate and restricted thinking would be appropriate if we were rooting for a football team, but we are not playing a game any more. More than 2000 people have been killed during the past 20 months, and countless more disabled. Positions, conditions, policies, and decisions must be evaluated as being pro-justice, pro-life, and pro-dignity. Participating partners must be challenged to conduct a moral impact analysis of their positions, and a new and critical dimension of transparency must be introduced into the negotiation process. What gets said and decided upon in the sessions gets documented, and what gets documented gets disseminated to both peoples, to be discussed and debated in uni-nationally in town meetings, and then to serve as a the basis for civil society bi-national dialogue.
The upcoming peace conference, if it is to be held, must be international, not regional. The international community shares responsibility for the deterioration of the situation, and must be our partners in fashioning and implementing a solution. My country, Israel, has a long-standing fear of international intervention, because we Jews have had a long and bitter experience of suffering as the world stood by, not noticing. Now the Palestinians, unfortunately, have come to share that kind of experience. My government fears that international intervention will prevent it from carrying out its agenda. We, the peace activists of Israel, are insisting that you do just that.
We women would determine that the ultimate goal of the peace conference is a final status agreement and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A long-term intermediate agreement can translate into only one thing - continued occupation and prolonging the status quo. Both sides must commit to a series of meetings, with the understanding that while 100 years of conflict cannot be satisfactorily resolved immediately, each stage of the agreement gets implemented without delay. Changes in the realities on the ground will serve as "acts of honor", each side demonstrating to the other that while each is most certainly paying a "price" for peace, each also most certainly has a trustworthy partner forpeace. These "peace facts" on the ground are a necessary condition for re-building trust, for creating the climate in which the people on both sides will choose and support leaders who can bring them to peace and not to war.
We in the Jerusalem Link don't have all the answers. In fact, all we have is the next step, a step that might potentially move us forward rather than backward, one that comes with demonstrated efficacy, durability, and integrity. But at this point, that does seem to be a lot more than your various governments have. So, if this body is genuinely committed to bringing some sort of peace and security to the Middle East, you need to bring us women to the center of all your deliberations.
Should we continue to be ignored (which is quite different than ignorance, because one really has to work at it), we shall all be held responsible for the evil we may have prevented.
I thank you for your time, and your attention. I would like to leave you with the Bat Shalom & Jerusalem Center for Women Joint Declaration, published 3 weeks ago in Israel and in Palestine:
Palestinian and Israeli Women Demand Immediate End to Occupation
Israel has launched a war against defenseless Palestinian communities. The terrorization of innocent civilians, the unlawful killings and arrests, the siege imposed upon President Arafat, and the destruction of property, infrastructures and institutions, can only lead to further escalation, prolonging the sufferings of both nations and destroying any prospects for peace. The climate of fear and the obsession with reprisals that grips our two peoples obscure the true cause of this cycle of violence - the continued and unlawful Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and their land.
It is our role, women on both sides, to speak out loudly against the humanitarian crimes committed in order to permanently subjugate an entire nation. Right now, in the face of uncontrolled military turmoil, we jointly ask the international community of states to accept its duty and mandate by international humanitarian law to prevent abuses of an occupying power, by officially intervening to protect the Palestinian people.
Beyond the immediate crisis, we know that there is one future for us both. The deliberate harming of innocent civilians, Palestinian or Israeli, must not be condoned. By working together we improve our chances for a better future. We believe that women can develop an alternative voice promoting effective peace initiatives and sound approaches. We undertake to work for this goal together.
Women have already begun to give substance to the recognition that a just peace is a peace between equals. When we call for a Palestinian state (on the territories occupied on 4th of June 1967) alongside the state of Israel, we envision true sovereignty for each state, including control over land and natural resources. We envision a settlement based on international law, which would endorse sharing the whole city of Jerusalem, the dismantling of the settlements, and a just solution to the question of refugees according to relevant UN resolutions. In continuing our joint work together, we want not only to achieve an end to the occupation; we want to help create the conditions for a life of security and dignity for both peoples.
We call upon all women and men, young and old, to join us in our sincere quest to preserve life, human dignity and freedom in our region. Dehumanization, hatred, revenge, and oppression contribute nothing to the resolution of a century of conflict. Mutual recognition and respect of each other's individual and collective rights will pave the way for peace making.
NGO Press Conference of Middle East Situation, May 7, 2002
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