They are afraid. Activists from the Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun organizations fear that the ultra-conservative Israeli government will provoke a new war against the Palestinians to finally subdue them. “We are fed up with the wars that men make,” says the pacifist Hyam Tannous. the other women and the other mothers”.
The institutional crisis that is shaking Israel these days and the violence that is spreading through the West Bank, with more than 200 Palestinian deaths in the last year, do not seem the most appropriate framework to reconsider a peace process, but these activists believe the opposite. .
“The conflict is permanent and the moment never seems to be the right one,” says Reem Alhajara. “It doesn’t matter. It’s time to act. For great evils, great remedies.”
Reem Alhajara and Samah Salaine, from Women of the Sun, as well as Hyam Tannous and Hana Deganit, from Women Wage Peace, have visited Barcelona, ​​invited by El Born Centro de Cultura y Memoria, to highlight Israel’s authoritarian drift threatens to put an end to the peace process once and for all. The JCall Barcelona platform, made up of progressive Jews, has accompanied the four pacifists.
The singer Achinoam Nini, better known as Noa, has shared this concern by publishing a manifesto stating that “the (Israeli) government has declared war on peace, eliminating all hope of a two-state solution and leaving Palestinian people exposed to horrific acts of violence with no one able to come to their aid.”
The events in Hawara are on everyone’s lips, an example of settler violence against the Palestinian civilian population. At the end of February, a Palestinian shot dead two settlers in the West Bank and the settlers, with the support of the army, took the law into their own hands, storming the Palestinian town of Hawara, terrorizing the population, burning houses, shops, trees and vehicles. They killed one man and injured dozens of people. It had been decades since such a widespread and unpunished attack had been seen.
“After what happened in Hawara -says Samah Salaime- we can no longer hide behind the mask”. This Arab-Israeli woman, a resident of a mixed community, that is, Israeli and Palestinian, close to Tel Aviv, laments that this rematch “we have all paid for with our taxes.”
He believes that Hawara has not been an accident but rather an example that “there are ministers in the government who intend to provoke a new war. They want to force the final surrender of the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
A survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Polls reveals that 71% of Palestinians support the killing of the two settlers and 75% believe that Hawara’s revenge would not have taken place without the support of the Israeli government and army.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said a few days ago that the Palestinian people does not exist, while Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has managed to get Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu to create a national guard, that is, a force paramilitary that the opposition and the Arab minority fear will act against them.
Israel is a militarized country. Every citizen, with the exception of Arabs and Orthodox Jews, is required to serve in the armed forces. This is the basis of your security. There is no institution with more prestige than the army.
Now, however, hundreds of soldiers have denounced Netanyahu’s authoritarian drift. They oppose the judicial reform that will submit the Supreme Court to the will of the executive branch. In a country without a Constitution and without a second legislative chamber, the Supreme Court is the only institution that can control the Government.
Women for Peace lament that it is men who have put Israel in this blind alley. “The time of men has passed -says Hyam Tannous-. We will do right everything they have done wrong”.
“Men have had their chance for 75 years and they have failed -adds Hana Deganit-. We are going through one of the most critical moments since the founding of the State of Israel. It has been men who have made one mistake after another. They say that we women do not understand politics, that we do not understand security, but it is not true. We not only understand these issues, but we speak the language of women and mothers, which is very different from that of men. We can understand each other”.
Palestinian Reem Alhajajra lives in Dheisheh, a refugee camp south of Bethlehem, and feels the same way as her Jewish partner. She is also the victim of a male-made policy that excludes women, and she thinks that if her voice could prevail things would improve quickly. “We want Israeli women to understand that we Palestinian mothers don’t want our sons to become martyrs,” she says.
Palestinian martyrs are viewed by much of Israeli society as terrorists. Reem Alhajajra doesn’t care. For her they are young people with no future. “They were born locked up behind a wall,” she explains. So we can help them if we have the means to do so.”
There are no educational or cultural means that favor integration. The two towns grow turning their backs. “There is no political interest in promoting knowledge that leads to understanding and respect,” laments Samah Salaime. Her community of Neve Shalom is one of the few with a mixed school where children learn Hebrew and Arabic.
“There is the future of coexistence and women can achieve it. I am convinced,” says Salaime.
