Middle East Women for Peace

From a Women's eNews story:

Little noticed among the vast media coverage of the latest Middle Eastern crisis were a couple of dispatches by journalists highlighting the actions of an admittedly few women in Israel.

Given that it is an act of considerable bravery to protest in the streets at a time when their fellow citizens were so up in arms about the Hezbollah rocket attacks, I knew the sentiments of this handful of protesters would be shared by many more Israeli and Palestinian women who could not be there. After all, I had spoken during the past 30 years of covering the Middle East to many of these women -- Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, rich and poor alike -- who have told me again and again how appalled they have been at the seemingly endless number of wars in the region.

Tamara Traubman and Ruth Sinai-Heruti, both correspondents for the leading Israeli daily, Haaretz, pointed out at the bottom of their July 17 article "More Than 500 Protest in Tel Aviv Against Israeli Defense Force Raids in Lebanon, Gaza" that a "woman's protest was also held Sunday morning next to the central Haifa train depot where a Hezbollah rocket landed early Sunday, killing eight people." The women, they added, "said that in the coming days they would be assembling a new group of Arab and Jewish women against the war."

Rory McCarthy of the United Kingdom's Guardian daily, in a dispatch the same day entitled "Israeli City Shaken by Hezbollah Rocket Attack," noted that "as the sirens continued to sound, a small group of women stood outside the entrance to the train depot to lodge a small protest against the fighting. Yana Knoboba, 25, a psychology student from Haifa University, sat on the pavement holding a banner that read in Hebrew: 'War will not bring peace.'"

"We don't want a great war in the Middle East," McCarthy quoted Knoboba as saying. "We want Israel to negotiate to bring back our soldiers and stop the re-occupation of Gaza. It isn't about showing strength," she went on. "I think strength is making peace, not war."

The Madison Area Peace Coalition will be holding a picket against the bombing of Lebanon next Thursday, August 3, starting at 4:30 pm outside Senator Kohl's office at 14 West Mifflin Street (next to the Veteran's Museum on Capitol Square). The picket will call for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and Gaza, negotiations with all parties, and reparations and humanitarian aid for displaced civilians. After presenting these demands to Sen. Kohl's office, the protest will proceed to Representative Baldwin's office (at 10 East Doty Street).