Palestinian women visit Tel Aviv to promote peace
Official peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have reportedly reached a dead end, while robust grassroots efforts continue to flourish. For example, the Parent’s Circle Family Forum (PCFF) is engaging people from both sides who lost a family member in the conflict. Women are at the helm of these peacemaking initiatives.
Last Saturday around 1,500 people, including over 200 Palestinian men women and children, attended an all-day event in Tel Aviv, “Neighbors: Women Creating Reconciliation.” The PCFF’s women’s group, established eight years ago, facilitated the event and showcased creative projects that women from both sides had completed together including homemade jam, a photography exhibit, handmade books, embroidery and more.
For many of the Palestinian attendees, this event marked their first journey past the green line. “After 14 attempts to get a permit to visit the beach, today, for the first time the Israelis let me visit the beach,” said 21-year-old Aseel Jafari from Bethlehem. “It was a lifelong dream of mine to see the sea.” In the past, Jafari was against her parent’s involvement in the PCFF. Meeting Israeli civilians, who were not as dangerous as she expected, has radically changed her mind. Her experience is reflective of many others.
“At first even I could not hold myself back, when I first met with Israelis,” said Bushra Awad, a mother of eight from Hebron. One of her teenage sons was killed in 2008. “I couldn’t look at their faces. It was extremely hard, exhausting.” But Awad did not give up, because she believed her children’s future depended on reconciliation. “After I continued to meet with Israeli women, I was able to convince a few family members to visit the forum. Not all of them, but a few, slowly.” Awad said she gained two things from the PCFF’s women’s program: a network of mothers that share and understand her experience, “and the idea that there are humans on the Israeli side.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4436077,00.html