 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
Israel
- The fighting between Israeli's and Palestinians goes back ages. A UN partitioning of Israel and the Palestinian Territories into Arab and Jewish states by the UN after WWII was never accepted by the Arabs, leading to continued conflict. Today, Israel continues to control the entry and exit to the Palestinian Territories, which it has done since the 1967 war.
|
|
| |
| |
Virtually everyone I meet, on both sides, is desperate to make peace. So why are we at each other's throats? I believe that it's because our leaders fan the fear of each other in order to stay in power. They announce that the other side can't be trusted, and that if we don't get them first, they'll get us. It's a bluff! These so-called leaders have never shared coffee and good books with each other, held each other's babies, helped harvest olives, or trembled with fear as their own children go out to make war.
…The real conflict in the Middle East does not pit Israelis against Palestinians, but is actually between Israelis and Palestinians who long for peace, and Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to compromise. Often the political leaders on both sides are egging on those who refuse to compromise.
How
You Can Help >
More
Photos of Israel>
Back
to Women and War Overview >
|
|
|
|
| “I didn't
begin life as a peace activist. In fact, when I think about
my views today and my involvement in a wide variety of peace
activities, it amazes me that I got into this at all, considering
that I was raised by
a mother with very different views.” |
This is an excerpt of Gila's story as written
for the Women and War Project. |
|
| |
|
|
...My initial wake-up moment came when a friend, an Israeli woman, invited me to her home to meet her Palestinian friend. I vaguely expected to meet…the primitive Palestinians who starred in my mother's worldview--which is the stereotype held by Israelis in general. I was flabbergasted to meet a bright, articulate, and warm university professor, a woman who had children, like me, and whose predominant concern was their well being. Like me!
This story seems so simplistic that it embarrasses me to tell it - but it's the truth. The segregation of Israelis from Palestinians is so complete that we never meet each other in circumstances outside violence. And ignorance breeds terrible, racist stereotypes of each other.
...Both sides are guilty of brutal crimes against each other. And they won't end until Israel ends its 36-year occupation of territory not rightfully ours. Ending the occupation will not only benefit the Palestinians, but it will also lift an enormous burden from the shoulders of Israel; moral, military, and economic. Once Palestinians have a state of their own, terrorism, now viewed by some as the only tool of a powerless people, will diminish. Ending the occupation of Palestine will actually spell the liberation of Israel!
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
