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In this issue:

- Our world has changed beyond recognition
- How to support WWP/WOS in these challenging times
- How WWP and WOS spent Oct. 4th
- Diplomatic activities and support for WWP and WOS
- Harnessing hope: a tour for international guests
- What comes next

our world has changed beyond recognition

Surely all of us have an anguished new way of marking time: before and after October 7th. Just three stifling hot days before that date, representatives of WWP and its Palestinian sister movement Women of the Sun (WOS) gathered on a Jerusalem hill in a garden dedicated to tolerance, taking shelter together from the blazing sun under large white umbrellas. Only three days before that Saturday, while plans for a brutal attack on Israeli civilians were being finalized by Hamas, delegates – distinguished women from over twenty-seven countries, among them Iran, the US, France, and Ireland – declared their solidarity with WWP and WOS. Only three days before that appalling day, while Jewish Israelis were anticipating the combined holidays of Shabbat and Simchat Torah, thousands of WWP and WOS members and supporters came to the Dead Sea to share an evening meal together on its placid beach and re-affirm that peace is possible. Peace is possible, we declare, when women speak up, find ways to make their voices heard in their own communities and in the halls of power, and lead the way.

Enough bloodshed! Enough! was our cry then and it remains our cry now. More than ever. From our beginning nine years ago in the aftermath of the 2014 Gaza War, we have understood hope in the same way as Czech hero Vaclav Havel – the ability to work for something, not because its chance of success is imminent, but because it is good.

Even though we are now at war, caused by the single most terrifying, shocking and brutal slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, we will never surrender our role as agents of this kind of hope. Only through peace will we be able to prevent the death of countless more Israelis and Palestinians. We demand peace!

how to support WWP/WOS in these challenging times

We at WWP have received so many expressions of empathy and support during the past weeks; thank you all so much. It took us a week to write the position paper we published on Oct. 15, and another few days of thought as to how you can help and support us in this horrendous crisis, this terrible war. Here are a few suggestions:

- Engage your politicians, community leaders, social influencers in a discussion about the hostages. Tell them about our citizens, babies, children, women, men, elderly, who were abducted from their homes.
- Organize a march or a gathering in your community, calling to bring the hostages home now!! Send us your pictures.
- Make our voices heard! We are Israeli and Palestinian mothers wishing to build a future for our children and grandchildren here. Sign our Mothers’ Call.
- Tell the world about Women Wage Peace and about our work.
- Follow us on social media and share our messages on all your social media outlets
- Donate. We face so much more peacebuilding in the days to come.

We at Women Wage Peace continue and remind our leadership of the necessity of the diplomatic process and political negotiations as the ultimate means to end the conflict and restore safety and security to all people living in this region.

We also demand from Hamas to immediately grant the Red Cross access to all hostages.

how WWP and WOS spent Oct. 4th

As noted in the Jerusalem Post, United States Chargé d’Affaires Stephanie Hallett stated “empowering women in all aspects of society, including in peace negotiations, is central to our foreign policy agenda. Women are absolutely at the forefront of these efforts, and I commit to you that I, and my colleagues at the Embassy and our Office of Palestinian Affairs, will continue to champion your essential role in building a better future for us, for you, for me, for our sons and our daughters.”
Hallett was joined at our October 4th gathering in Jerusalem by the Ambassadors of Ireland, Spain, and Sweden as well as Deputy Chiefs from Austria, Finnland, Norway and the EU. Viviane Teitelbaum, MP in Belgium, and Eva Biaudet, Member of the Finnish Parliament, expressed their support for WWP and WOS and the strong involvement of women at the negotiation table. Kristin Lund, Major General of the Norwegian Army and the first woman to serve as commander in a UN peacekeeping force, was a key speaker at our closing Dead Sea event.

diplomatic activities and support for WWP and WOS

The diplomatic communities strengthened our Mothers’ Call event on Oct. 4, and in addition organized two events in support of the partnership of WWP and WOS.

The office of the European Union Representative in Jerusalem held a festive event at the Holy Land Hotel in Jerusalem on Oct. 2^nd. Thirty diplomats from various EU countries, Brazil, Mexico and others took part. The event was organized by EU Representative and Ambassador Alexandre Stutzmann and Maria Velasco, the Deputy EU Representative. Watch Stutzmann’s brief speech, full of encouragement for our two movements.

At a reception on Oct 3rd for WWP and WOS hosted by the Norwegian Ambassador Per Egil Selvaag, twenty ambassadors and various key diplomatic staff from countries all over the world, as well as the ambassador of Bahrain, and diplomats from Jordan, Egypt and Morocco came to lend their support. “It is so easy to choose violence or apathy, and so important to become active,” said Jette Christensen, a former member of the Norwegian parliament.

harnessing hope: a tour for international guests

The Foreign Relations team of WWP organized a two-day tour for supporters traveling to Israel for the central event of the Mothers’ Call on Oct. 4th. This diverse group of mostly French-speaking social and peace activists came from France, Morocco, Iran, Ukraine, Xinjiang Turkestan], Senegal, Russia, and the US. After meeting with our Palestinian partners WOS in Beit Jala, where Reem Hjajara, founding director of WOS, shared the movement’s challenges and hopes, our guests visited Netiv HaAssara, an agricultural community bordering the Gaza strip. There they heard from Roni Keidar from the NGO Other Voices/Aswat Acherim along with WWP activists Vivian Silver and Zilpa Joos. The communities of all three women were attacked six days later by Hamas. Roni Keidar and Zilpa Joos are safe; Vivian Silver’s fate as a hostage is still unknown at the time of writing this. Learn more about our remarkable and much beloved Vivian here , here, and here.

After a day of bearing witness to borders, fences, violence, and suffering, the group traveled north to Beit HaGefen, the Arab-Jewish Cultural Center in Haifa where Nawal Abo Essa, its Community Outreach Coordinator, joined by WWP members Mazal Renford, Hyam Tannous and Samia Armush, described shared life in this mixed city and the complex identity of those who consider themselves Palestinians, Arabs, Christians/Muslims, Israelis. In nearby Akko, the Deputy Mayor and Dr. Janan Falah, a WWP member, presented a shared society project now in its twentieth year. A young Druze woman emphasized the need for women’s leadership in creating shared space for all communities. The day ended at the Wall of Tolerance, a neighborhood project planned as one of 120 eventual Peace Sites throughout Israel.

what comes next

The following excerpts are from a speech given at the Dead Sea on Oct. 4th by Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat, WWP’s co-director.
“Today is the culmination of joint efforts between WWP and WOS that began two years ago. Until now we have been building the infrastructure needed to support this first shared initiative, The Mothers’ Call. Now we are excited to establish an Israeli-Palestinian women's task force with the support of women from around the world. We are ready to change existing reality by strengthening partnerships, expanding circles of connection and cooperation, holding major events together in public spaces, and demanding with a united voice that our leaders stop the cycle of bloodshed and return to the negotiating table.
Read more……..

in the media

Many things have been written and spoken these days. We post just two links here:

A recent interview at CBC, with Yael Braudo-Bahat (October 22, 2023)

An article on the Oct. 4th event, in the Jerusalem Post

Picture credits: Tamar Matzafi, Gal Mosonson, Miri Schenfeld, Dov Gazit, Batia Holin.