The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

REPORT ON WOMEN’S PEACE
INITIATIVES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
SIMONE SUSSKIND, BRUSSELS
Give peace chance – women speak out:
The fight of women for peace in the Middle East
Peace activism has been a central pioneering precursor and often a substitute
in official attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during
the past forty years. Women have played a central role in these efforts,
both in mixed-gender organizations and, since 1987, in a variety of Israeli,
Palestinian, and joint women’s peace initiatives. Only recently, how ever,
with the creation of the International Women’s Commission for a Just
and Sustainable Palestinian-Israeli Peace, established in July 2005, have
these activities undergone a conscious strategic re-conceptualization
with the objective of strengthening their impact on the formal process
and its outcomes.
Israeli-Palestinian women’s peace action has developed in three distinct
phases. The initial phase, which coincided with the First Intifada (1987-
1993), witnessed the emergence of separate grassroots women’s organizations
(such as “Women in Black”) and the convening of the first
Palestinian-Israeli women’s meeting held in Brussels in May 1989, under
the title: “Give Peace a Chance – Women speak out”. Phase Two devel -
oped around the Oslo process (1993-2000), and was accompanied by
the emergence of a number of Israeli and Palestinian women’s groups
dedicated to supporting gender-based encounters, but also by the consolidation
of a common framework for political action, the Jerusalem
Link: A Women’s Joint Venture for Peace. It was founded in 1994, following
a second encounter between Israeli and Palestinian women organized
in Belgium in September 1992. The third phase started in 2000
and has been accompanied by the creation of additional grassroots
wom en’s groups such as Mahsom Watch or the Coalition of Women
for Peace, and by a renewed effort to revive the diplomatic process.
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