The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

Palestine
There are no secrets in this century-long conflict; the reasons for
open ing and closing doors for peace are known. (Lama Hourani,
Report, p. 209)
“For the Palestinian people, the core issue of the conflict has never
changed: The conflict is about land and the right to existence” (Hourani,
Report, p. 209). In the report by Lama Hourani, the conflict is viewed
from the start as being directly in the context of aggressive Zion ism and
imperialist Interests. By contrast, she sees such other factors as “the
retardation of the Palestinian social, political and economic struc ture, including
gender inequality, patriarchal society and the prevailing feudal
agricultural relations” (Report, p. 200) as secondary. She says, “The alliance
between imperialism and Zionism had a dual aim: the establishment
of a Jewish state in Palestine as a base to protect imperialistic
interests in the Middle East, and the engaging of the Arab countries in
a conflict that was doomed to defeat, in an attempt to deprive these
countries of their natural growth, control over their own resources, and
their destiny.” (Report, p. 201).
By proclaiming the land to be their property, the Zionists, “allowed themselves
to commit crimes of any kind and size, and to keep the people of
the land from living freely in their own land. The Palestinians, on the
other hand, have justified their violent resistance as a legal action against
British-Zionist, and later Israeli-American, double aggression. The violence
has flared up and escalated. There have been victims every time
Israel decided to expand – and has been confronted with Palestinian resistance.”
(Report, p. 201) Lama Hourani does not have a particularly
positive assessment of the peace process after the Oslo Accords. None -
theless, she says, the opinion in Palestinian society during this time predominantly
supported negotiations and non-violent resist ance as the
right way to convince Israel that international law would have to be recognized,
and to win them over to a permanent political solution of the
conflict. Their frustration in view of the stalled peace process and the
provocations ultimately led to a Second Intifada, which, according to
Lama Hourani, sparked an Apartheid policy by Israel.
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