Just peace
Wars are not fought on battlefields
May 13, 2002
The Iranian
Speech by Terry Greenblatt, director of Bat
Shalom, to the UN Security Council on May 7, 2002.
I represent Bat Shalom (Daughter of Peace), an Israeli feminist peace organization.
I also represent Israeli women and mothers who are famished for peace. We are women
working for a genuine peace grounded in the just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, respect for human rights, and an equal voice for Jewish and Arab women
within Israeli society.
Since 1994, Bat Shalom has been part of a bi-national institution called The Jerusalem
Link, and the joint declaration that I will read at the conclusion of my talk was
developed with our sister partner, a Palestinian women's NGO, the Jerusalem Center
for Women. We work in coalition with more than one hundred women's peace and anti-
occupation initiatives around the world that have mobilized in response to the insufferable
situation in our region.
I stand before you this afternoon, in the presence of the enormous power you represent,
and with the terrible awareness of how dangerous that power can be. As a woman I
know that anyone, with even the smallest advantage over another, is capable of abusing
or misusing that power. I stand here as an ally and advocate of those women in Israel,
Jewish and Arab, who ask of you to use your power wisely and with a moral compass
whose needle is uncompromisingly pointed toward justice. We ask that you fulfill
your responsibility as set out in the United Nations Charter.
You are mandated to save succeeding generations from
the scourge of war - for until you do, we women living in a militaristic society
are destined to continue raising our children to perpetrate war and become messengers
of hatred, and of racism, and of destruction.
You are mandated to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights - for until you
do, the soul of our society will never heal, neither from our fear of global anti-Semitism,
nor from the inhumanity of our subjugation and dehumanization of the Palestinian
people. For until you do, the extremists on both sides will rejoice, both those who
talk of the transfer of indigenous populations and an eternal occupation, as well
as those who walk into a coffeehouse or a supermarket, and blow themselves and others
up, leaving our joint future smoldering in the rubble. For until you do, those of
us who are struggling to promote a human rights agenda inextricably embedded in an
effective political solution cannot possibly further our mission.
You are mandated to establish conditions under which justice and respect for international
law can be maintained. This includes ensuring the security and well being of Israelis.
But is also includes insisting on a standard of behavior and compliance to international
law on the part of Israel, be it a fact-finding mission to Jenin or the dismantlement
of illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. For until you do, we Israelis will
continue to be driven by our fear and mistrust, and insist that this war we are waging
is for our very survival as a nation, even though it is not.
And lastly, you are mandated to promote social progress and better standards of
life, for until you do, until there is the degree of humanitarian aid for the rehabilitation
and reconstruction of the devastation of Palestine and her people, until the Israeli
people can fully trust that international bodies are committed to ensuring our survival,
neither nation will be able to begin to address the ultimate challenge of creating
a culture of peace in our region.
Next year we will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Oslo Accords. Few remember
anymore the exhilaration of daring to believe that we could possibly be nearing the
end of this hundred-year conflict. For us, Israeli and Palestinian women, and the
international community of hundreds of thousands of women who along with us have
remained steadfast in their solidarity for and commitment to a just, comprehensive
and lasting peace in the Middle East, there will be no celebration of this anniversary.
There will be no candles lit in jubilation - rather, a collective global mourning
for a region that is burning, wreaking destruction on a magnificent land and her
2 peoples, and leaving the most dangerous ashes in its wake - ashes of profound fear,
hopelessness and despair.
This month Israeli and Palestinian women have once again jointly declared what
a just and sustainable peace must look like. I look around this room and, but for
ourselves, I do not see any women/see too few women. And I cannot but be aware of
the failure of both our local leadership as well as you, the international community,
to productively navigate our peoples on a path towards peace.
How much of the reason for this is the absence of women in this room, in the countless
rooms where decisions are made that affect the daily lives of Israeli and Palestinian
men, women and children? I cannot help but be aware that the slim glimmers of hope
in this terrible situation have consistently been provided by the grassroots women's
peace activists on both sides. Given this dismal history of past performance, it
is unthinkable not to include women, large numbers of women, in the upcoming peace
process.
You need us, because if the goal is not simply the absence of war, but the creation
of a sustainable peace by fostering fundamental societal changes, we are crucial
to everyone's security concerns.
You need us, because wars are no longer fought on battlefields. You have brought
the war home to us. Many more civilians than soldiers are being killed in ours and
other conflicts around the world. The wars are being waged now on our doorsteps and
in our living rooms and in our sacred houses and ceremonies of religious worship,
and women have a vested interest in keeping families and communities safe.
You need us, because to honorably comply with your own legislation, Resolution
1325, we must be included. You need us because we continue to hold human rights and
the sanctity of life as paramount values, and unfortunately today, they are too easily
being bartered away as either obstacles to security policies or as incongruent with
national liberation aspirations.
You need us because we have developed a process and socio-political fluency that
keeps authentic and productive dialogue moving forward, even as the violence escalates
and both sides continue to terrorize one another. Women's characteristic life experience
gives us the potential for two things: a very special kind of intelligence, social
intelligence, and a very special kind of courage, social courage.
We have developed the courage to cross the lines of difference drawn between us,
which are also the lines drawn inside our heads. And the intelligence to do it safely,
without a gun or a bomb, and to do it productively. And most importantly, we are
learning to shift our positions, finding ourselves moving towards each other, without
tearing out our roots in the process. Even when we are women whose very existence
and narrative contradicts each other, we will talk - we will not shoot.
You need us because we women are willing to sit together on the same side of the
table and together look at our complex joint history, with the commitment and intention
of not getting up until - in respect and reciprocity - we can get up together and
begin our new history and fulfill our joint destiny.
There is much talk now about an International Peace Conference. Colin Powell has
already prepared us for the outcome, when he saidthis week that no one should have
high expectations from the conference. Women in the peace and anti-occupation movement
in Israel are recommending that expectations must remain higher than ever before,
because we cannot afford them not to be.
We suggest now just might be the moment to realize how critical our contribution
is. We have never had a voice or power at these tables, and quite possibly we will
get it wrong the first few times. But we would come with what we believe are innovative
and creative strategies, grounded in democratic and feminist ideology and experience,
and exemplified by what women have managed to accomplish in civil society with little
resources and insignificant power.
We would change the discourse from the 'for or against' model, pro- Israeli/anti-Palestinian
or pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli. This kind of inadequate and restricted thinking
would be appropriate if we were rooting for a football team, but we are not playing
a game any more. More than 2000 people have been killed during the past 20 months,
and countless more disabled. Positions, conditions, policies, and decisions must
be evaluated as being pro-justice, pro-life, and pro-dignity.
Participating partners must be challenged to conduct a moral impact analysis of
their positions, and a new and critical dimension of transparency must be introduced
into the negotiation process. What gets said and decided upon in the sessions gets
documented, and what gets documented gets disseminated to both peoples, to be discussed
and debated in uni-nationally in town meetings, and then to serve as a the basis
for civil society bi-national dialogue.
The upcoming peace conference, if it is to be held, must be international, not
regional. The international community shares responsibility for the deterioration
of the situation, and must be our partners in fashioning and implementing a solution.
My country, Israel, has a long-standing fear of international intervention, because
we Jews have had a long and bitter experience of suffering as the world stood by,
not noticing. Now the Palestinians, unfortunately, have come to share that kind of
experience. My government fears that international intervention will prevent it from
carrying out its agenda. We, the peace activists of Israel, are insisting that you
do just that.
We women would determine that the ultimate goal of the peace conference is a final
status agreement and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A long-term intermediate
agreement can translate into only one thing - continued occupation and prolonging
the status quo. Both sides must commit to a series of meetings, with the understanding
that while 100 years of conflict cannot be satisfactorily resolved immediately, each
stage of the agreement gets implemented without delay.
Changes in the realities on the ground will serve as "acts of honor",
each side demonstrating to the other that while each is most certainly paying a "price"
for peace, each also most certainly has a trustworthy partner for peace. These "peace
facts" on the ground are a necessary condition for re-building trust, for creating
the climate in which the people on both sides will choose and support leaders who
can bring them to peace and not to war.
We in the Jerusalem Link don't have all the answers. In fact, all we have is the
next step, a step that might potentially move us forward rather than backward, one
that comes with demonstrated efficacy, durability, and integrity. But at this point,
that does seem to be a lot more than your various governments have. So, if this body
is genuinely committed to bringing some sort of peace and security to the Middle
East, you need to bring us women to the center of all your deliberations.
Should we continue to be ignored (which is quite different than ignorance, because
one really has to work at it), we shall all be held responsible for the evil we may
have prevented.
I thank you for your time, and your attention. I would like to leave you with
the Bat Shalom & Jerusalem Center for Women Joint Declaration, published 3 weeks
ago in Israel and in Palestine.
Palestinian and Israeli Women Demand Immediate End to Occupation
Israel has launched a war against defenseless Palestinian communities. The terrorization
of innocent civilians, the unlawful killings and arrests, the siege imposed upon
President Arafat, and the destruction of property, infrastructures and institutions,
can only lead to further escalation, prolonging the sufferings of both nations and
destroying any prospects for peace. The climate of fear and the obsession with reprisals
that grips our two peoples obscure the true cause of this cycle of violence - the
continued and unlawful Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and their land.
It is our role, women on both sides, to speak out loudly against the humanitarian
crimes committed in order to permanently subjugate an entire nation. Right now, in
the face of uncontrolled military turmoil, we jointly ask the international community
of states to accept its duty and mandate by international humanitarian law to prevent
abuses of an occupying power, by officially intervening to protect the Palestinian
people.
Beyond the immediate crisis, we know that there is one future for us both. The
deliberate harming of innocent civilians, Palestinian or Israeli, must not be condoned.
By working together we improve our chances for a better future. We believe that women
can develop an alternative voice promoting effective peace initiatives and sound
approaches. We undertake to work for this goal together.
Women have already begun to give substance to the recognition that a just peace
is a peace between equals. When we call for a Palestinian state (on the territories
occupied on 4th of June 1967) alongside the state of Israel, we envision true sovereignty
for each state, including control over land and natural resources. We envision a
settlement based on international law, which would endorse sharing the whole
city of Jerusalem, the dismantling of the settlements, and a just solution to the
question of refugees according to relevant UN resolutions. In continuing our joint
work together, we want not only to achieve an end to the occupation; we want to help
create the conditions for a life of security and dignity for both peoples.
We call upon all women and men, young and old, to join us in our sincere quest
to preserve life, human dignity and freedom in our region. Dehumanization, hatred,
revenge, and oppression contribute nothing to the resolution of a century of conflict.
Mutual recognition and respect of each other's individual and collective rights will
pave the way for peace making.
April 2002
The Jerusalem Center for Women and Bat Shalom
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