As war rages between Israel and Hamas, it is hard to imagine an enduring end to the conflict. For decades, though, a growing movement of Palestinian and Israeli women has both envisioned and demanded peace.
Three days before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, thousands of women from two peacebuilding groups gathered at Jerusalem’s Tolerance Monument and began a march to the Dead Sea. Israelis from Women Wage Peace carried blue flags, and Palestinians from Women of the Sun flew yellow ones. Women from both sides pulled up chairs as a symbol of a good-faith resumption of negotiations to reach a political solution.
Women Wage Peace formed in response to Operation Protective Edge, as Israel called its 2014 invasion of Gaza in the wake of then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed effort to restart final status negotiations.
“We, Palestinian and Israeli mothers, are determined to stop the vicious cycle of bloodshed,” reads the preamble to the women’s joint campaign, titled the Mother’s Call, which demands a political solution within a limited time frame.
They set the table to show the importance of dialogue
