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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2007, pages 59-60 Waging Peace Jerusalem Women Speak on 12th National Tour
AS PART OF their nationwide tour, three inspiring women—Ghada Ageel of Khan Younis, Palestine, Shireen Khamis of Beit Jala, Palestine and Rela Mazali of Herzlia, Israel—stopped in at Washington, DC’s Busboys and Poets Restaurant on Oct. 7 and on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24. Audiences appreciated the theme of their talks: “Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision.” Ghada Ageel, a Muslim Palestinian, was born and raised in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Her family was expelled in 1948 from their homes and lands in the village of Beit Daras in what was then mandatory Palestine and is now part of Israel. Although Ageel’s family had lived in Beit Daras for more than 10 generations, family members have never received any compensation for their homes or the 75 acres of land that they owned. Ageel currently lives with her family in Gaza, where she works as an academic counselor for the Academy for Educational Development (a USAID organization) while pursuing her doctorate in Middle East politics from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Shireen Khamis is a Christian Palestinian whose life has been shaped by occupation and two Palestinian intifadas. Born in Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, where her family has lived for centuries, she grew up during the first intifada and is now living as a Palestinian youth during the second uprising. During this time she has witnessed the siege and shelling of her city and its ancient neighborhoods. Israel recently confiscated much of the Khamis family’s land in order to build illegal settlements or for undefined “security reasons.” In 2003, Khamis recalled, she watched as Israeli bulldozers uprooted her family’s olive groves in order to build its annexation wall on their land. The 25-foot-high wall now surrounds Beit Jala as well as Bethlehem and the adjacent villages and lands, cutting Palestinians off from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. Many members of her extended family lost their jobs in Israel as a result of Israeli policies in the Bethlehem region, Khamis said, and the majority of her relatives are now living in Jordan or Latin America. Her family history thus parallels that of many Christian Palestinians who have been forced to leave their homes in search of better opportunities for their families. Rela Mazali, a Jewish Israeli professional writer and translator, is a major figure in Israel’s peace and feminist movements. She was born in 1948, the year the state of Israel was founded, on Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch in the Galilee, at the intersection of the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli borders. In 1952, due to her father’s psychology studies, the family left for the U.S., where Mazali spent some of her formative years. After graduating from high school in Israel in 1966 she was conscripted, and served in the Israeli military during the 1967 war, doing intelligence work in the Galilee. She later obtained both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature and Literary Science from Tel Aviv University. Now a mother of three, Mazali lives with her partner in Herzlia, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. She is one of the founders of New Profile, a grassroots organization started in 1998 which focuses on challenging militarism in Israeli society and raising consciousness to the militarization embedded in Israeli culture while providing support for Israeli youth who resist military service. Since its founding in 1998, Partners for Peace has sought to educate the American public about key issues in the effort to secure peace and justice among Palestinians and Israelis. Their major projects include the Jerusalem Women Speak tours, which highlight the nonviolent efforts of Palestinians, Israelis, and citizens of other nations to end the occupation of Palestinian territories; and in-depth advocacy with the media. Partners for Peace brings Palestinian and Israeli women’s voices to American audiences and the media. For more information visit <www.partnersforpeace.org> —Marwa Rifhahie |
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