wfn.org | Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druse Women Seek "Just Peace"

[JerusalemRelOrgs@aol.com]

Contact: Adam Keller
GUSH SHALOM 
P.O.B. 3322, 
Tel-Aviv, Israel 61033 
Tel: (972-3) 522.1732 or
(973-3) 556.5804
Email: info@gush-shalom.org
http://www.gush-shalom.org/

JERUSALEM, December 30--Women came in droves from all over Israel -- Jewish, 
Muslim, Christian, and Druse.  And despite the "closure" that Israel had 
imposed on the Occupied Territories, Palestinian women and men also managed, 
by means only they know, to cross the Green Line and reach the meeting.

The day began in the Notre Dame conference center located symbolically on the 
border of Jewish and Palestinian Jerusalem.  The walls carried two huge 
banners in Hebrew and Arabic:  "Women Demand: No to Occupation - Yes to a 
Just Peace!" 

We opened with greetings from three international women peace leaders who 
flew in especially for the occasion: Luisa Morgantini from Italy, Simone 
Susskind from Belgium, and June Jacobs from the U.K.  

The co-moderators -- Hannah Safran from Women in Black and Nabeha Murkus from 
Tandi -- reported to the crowd about solidarity demonstrations being held 
throughout the world, and read greetings 
from organizations and individuals from a long list of countries.

Women then took the podium one by one, Palestinian and Israeli alternately, 
to speak movingly and passionately of both the suffering as well as the 
determination to end the bloodshed between our peoples.  

This was a conference "of the people", but the audience included three 
members of the Israeli Knesset or Parliament (Tamar Gozanski, Naomi Chazan, 
and Muhammad Barake) who expressed their support for the
grassroots work.  

The simultaneous translations into Hebrew, Arabic, and 
English allowed each woman to speak in her own language.  Michal
Pundak-Sagie, activist in New Profile: Movement for the Civilization of 
Israeli Society, called upon "soldiers to refuse orders that their conscience 
does not allow."   

Zahira Kamal, leading grassroots spokeswoman in the Occupied
Territories, declared that the principles of the Coalition of Women for a 
Just Peace "provide a sound basis for peace between our peoples."

^From the conference center, waiting buses moved the entire crowd to Hagar 
Plaza, the location of a vigil sponsored by Jerusalem's Women in Black.  An 
estimated 2,000 women filled the entire plaza and spilled over onto the side 
streets carrying the traditional black hand signs with "End the Occupation" 
painted in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.  

The silent one-hour vigil was even more dramatic sight than usual, and TV 
crews from all over the world -- even from Israel -- covered the 
demonstration.

On December 28th, hundreds of  Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals 
marched together demanding an immediate evacuation and dismantling of the 
Israeli military base near the historic Field of the Shepherds in Beit 
Sahour. 

The Shdema base was built during Jordanian rule.  Since 1967, when the 
Israeli army took over, the place has been a military base for the Israei 
Defense Forces.
With the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada, this camp--a visible symbol of 
ongoing occupation--was the center of repeated confrontations manifestly 
unequal in strength.  

Palestinian stones were answered by Israeli gunfire, and when the 
Palestinians started to use rifles as well the IDF responded by missile 
launchings and cannonades of tank artillery. 

Through the past three months, many Sahourian homes were damaged.  Four
were totally burned and eight suffered severe damage and need to be rebuilt. 
Though most inhabitants of the targeted houses fled in time, two mothers and 
a young man were killed, and ten people injured. 

The march which included Muslims, Christians and Jews was organized by the 
Municipality of Beit Sahour, the Beit Sahour Emergency Committee and the 
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement.  Israelis from Gush Shalom and Stop the 
Occupation, as well as internationals from the Italian Women in Black, the 
CGL Trade Union (also Italian) and the France - Palestine Association joined 
local Palestinians. 

The Israelis had a few adventures on the way to Beit Sahour. The chartered 
bus 
which brought them from Tel-Aviv stopped in Jerusalem. The Israeli driver 
didn't like the idea of driving over roads that had been the scene of 
shooting in the past months, all the more since he was evidently a 
right-winger who didn't like the whole enterprise. 

But a Palestinian bus company was fortunately ready to provide replacement 
transportation at very short notice, and took the impatient Israeli activists 
to the checkpoint in Beit Jalla. (A;hough Israelis are forbidden by their own 
government to enter the Palestinian-controlled areas, there were no soldiers 
to enforce this 
prohibition.) 

The march demanding the removal of this camp started from the Shepherds' 
Field 
and reached the military base.  To eveybody's surprise the main gate was open 
and unguarded, as were the watchtowers. A sign in Hebrew proclaimed: Welcome 
to Shdema Camp.

The crowd went in chanting in Hebrew and English: "Soldiers Go Back Home." 
A written demand for evacuation was delivered to an astonished Israeli major. 

The march ended by erecting a Palestinian flag over the watchtower as the 
crowds cheered and clapped.  The demonstrators then visited the most severely 
damaged houses  - some of them no more than burnt-out shells.

Gush Shalom used its press contacts and convinced the Israeli First Channel 
TV to broadcast video footage made by one of the demonstrators. The flying of 
the flag was shown again and again. The next morning, an embarassed army 
spokesman was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying that no flag was raised 
in a camp, that this site wasn't a camp and that the camp had just been 
evacuated and  moved 250 meters.

-End-