Hope Is A Verb - Marwa & Peta - The Mother's Call

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Meet Peta & Marwa, two women from opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who are working together to create a shared and peaceful future for their families. Their sister organisations, Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, have received a joint Nobel Peace Prize nomination this year. This is a story of hope against all odds, and the bonds that unite mothers, regardless of background. The intention of this conversation is to widen the lens of media coverage and to share a story from within this conflict, that you might not have heard. To find out more: https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il/en/ https://womensun.org/

Hope is a reminder. It's the fuel of your soul. It's so much more infused with action. Ability to see a much better future. You really have to earn it to have it. Hope is happiness. Welcome to Hope is a Verb, a podcast about what it takes to change the world through conversations with the people who are making it happen.

I'm Amy. I'm Amy. I'm Gus. And in each episode, we shine a spotlight on the ordinary heroes who are stitching our social fabric together, mending our planet, and creating solutions to some of today's biggest global challenges. In today's episode, the powerful story about a group of mothers in Palestine and Israel who are working together to create a safer future for their families. Israeli and Palestinian women, there are bonds between us and many, many of us want to live side by side in peace with one another. The people that we meet every day that lives inside of this

conflict who still believe that there's hope in the future for our children. When we were planning this third season of the podcast, we knew that if we wanted to continue a conversation around hope, we had to go to the place where it feels the hardest to find. We came across a story about two female-led grassroots organisations, Women Wage Peace in Israel and Women of the Sun in Palestine, who have a joint nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize this year. This historic partnership began back in 2022 with an agreement titled The Mother's Call, which demanded an end to the bloodshed and a safe and peaceful future for their families. When we started researching

these two organisations, we were surprised by how much support and action there actually is on the ground. For all that's been written about this conflict and spoken about, the scale of peace activism in Israel and Palestine has been missing from the headlines. In this episode, you'll meet Mawa from Women of the Sun in Palestine, and Peter, an Australian-born Israeli who is part of Women Who Wage Peace in Jerusalem. We know this is a big topic and one that a lot of people feel really passionate about. This interview is not designed to add more fuel to the fire or to change your mind. We are simply widening the lens to share a part of the story that you may not have heard about.

Peter and Marwa, thank you so much for joining us today. We are really grateful to have you both here. Thank you for this opportunity and it's our honour to be here. Our first question is the same one that we have for all of our guests, but it certainly feels more potent here. What is giving you hope right now? Let's start with you, Peter. Well, I would say that hope is in short supply at the moment and we have to look for it. We have to seek it out. And I get my hope from the amazing women who are activists despite the horrible situation in which we find ourselves,

who hold together civil society, who give of themselves tirelessly, always for a bigger picture and those people who keep in mind a bigger picture. So my hope comes from amazing people whom I meet every day. I will join my voice to Petra, the people that we meet every day, that lives inside of this conflict, who still believe that there's hope in the future for our children. There are many people and organizations and governments that are interested in peace works, the grassroots movements that is working on the ground, that put their hands together to, you know, encourage people to invest in peace more than they are investing in war. This is a new story that has become part of people's lives all around the world. story that has become part of people's lives all around the world. And while we're all grappling with the big picture of this conflict between Israel and Palestine, what we don't usually have insight to is what it's like on the ground. Can you both paint a picture about what life is like

for you at the moment? Well, I'm in Jerusalem and Jerusalem's probably the safest place in this part of the world at the moment because we have a reasonable confidence that nobody is going to attack this holy city because of the holy sites that are here. But it doesn't mean that we in Jerusalem are not feeling what everybody else all around us is feeling. Today that we're recording is 300 days of war, unpredictability, constant deaths, constant news of terrible attacks, governments that seem totally disconnected from their people. And in Jerusalem, we have thousands of evacuees from around the country who are living in hotels and previously unoccupied buildings. No tourists,

and Jerusalem is a tourist city. And yet, with all of that, on some level, we go about our normal lives. We live in two worlds at once. We live in a completely abnormal situation and try and maintain some level of normalcy, which is extremely, I think, unhealthy psychologically. I think we are all going through some form of trauma. And I think it's going to take years to come out of this situation. Even when we do resolve this conflict and come to some sort of peace arrangement, it's still going to take years to recover from this abnormal situation in which we're living.

Yeah, for us, you don't know what becomes the next minute that soldiers can come to anywhere in Bethlehem. So there's no safe for us. There's no security in food, in water, or even the medical supplies. Each city has been separated from the others. So you are living like in a big prison. You can't cross from one city to another or even from the city to the village. The children are all at home

because there are no summer camps. As Peter said, we are living like a normal life. We eat, we live, we go to work, but it's really unnormal. And hearing the breaking news each day about people that you care about in Gaza, it's heartbreaking that everything is still going, it's not stopped, and there's nothing to support you in that. You've both spoken about how each day you wake up and you look at the news and you wait for the headlines.

I think a lot of people around the world do something similar, although it doesn't mean the same thing for them. At the same time, what we're not hearing about in the rest of the world is the united fight for peace that's taking place in Israel and in Palestine as well. When we started researching both the organizations, Women Who Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, and we learned about how much support there has been and how much activity and how much activism, that came as a huge surprise. That was not a story that we had seen before. Can you share the scale of the peace rallies and the projects that are happening on the ground and maybe why we're not seeing that in Western media? For me, I will say that they are very interested in wars, not in peace,

because there are many peace-building organizations that dance together. In the first of July, they were like the peace camp, the Israeli peace camp, and many Palestinian organizations participated, because we need all the people to support us, because raising the awareness, especially for us women, is something very important because we want to change our community mentality. We want them to walk in the peace path,

to believe in it. And we can do that through the grassroots, through working with the people living on this ground, not with the governments. We should work from the bottom up so when we have the peace agreements, we will have people that believe in that. And this is the most important, to have all the segments

of the Palestinian-Israeli people involved in those agreements so they will be part of it and they can implement it on the ground. You mentioned, Gus, when you questioned the media, one of the things that's happened since this terrible war is an international awareness of our two movements. We have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, the two movements together. And in Israeli media, it's hardly been covered, the mainstream media. And all around the world, they don't want to tell that story of the peacemakers. We had this, and again, as Maro mentioned, this fantastic rally on the 1st of July. Thousands of people filling a sports stadium in Tel Aviv, one after the other, speaking about peace and the need for peace.

And we had viewing parties around the world. And yet hardly a word. If you were just reading the media, you'd almost feel it didn't happen or it was insignificant. And every single week, if not every single day, it's at least now, I used to spend my Saturday nights in demonstrations. Now it's Thursday nights, Saturday nights and other nights in between as well, supporting the families of the hostages, but also calling for peace. In the streets, thousands of people, gradually more and more people have realised that the only way out of this is a negotiated peace settlement. And that is the best thing

for the hostages as well. And yet, and this is the dissonance, our governments are finding ways to escalate while the population is calling for ways to de-escalate. That's the terrible tension and we question whether that is actually the way to solve anything in the long term. I feel it's worth pointing out that your shared commitment and vision for peace actually began before October 7 last year. Can you tell us about the agreement that binds your two organizations, The Mother's Call? For us, we are first two separate organizations. The thing that brings us all together is The Mother's Call, which is that all the mothers all around the world take care of their children. We don't want them to be murdered.

We don't want them to be in the prison or to be injured. We want them just to live in a safe world, in a peaceful world. So this is what brings us all together. This is such a powerful idea. And I want to ask about the peace demonstration that was around the Mother's Call that Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun co-hosted on October 4th last year. Can you give us a few details and also maybe share how much things changed for you both just three days later? We have a big peace demonstration with around 1,500 Palestinian, Israel and international

women. It was from Jerusalem to Neve Shalom. Then we went to Jericho. It was about stop the bloodshed because we were seeing how much the situation was going to worse. And we didn't imagine that after three days we will have the war on Gaza and what happens. You know, it was an incredible event. And the last time we were physically in the same space. I don't know, Marawati, you agree with me, but we felt very hopeful on the 4th of October for Palestinian and Israeli women gathered together with a commitment to build peace. And then three days later, we found ourselves in this horrible situation. And one of the things that emerged from the 7th of October was proof of our commitment

to one another, Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, supporting each other as much as we could in those initial terrible days. And I cannot let any talk of the 4th and the 7th of October go by without mentioning Vivian Silver, one of the founders of Women Wage Peace, who was tragically murdered. And for many weeks, we thought she was a hostage in Gaza. And when we thought she was a hostage in Gaza, all of us, Palestinian and Israeli together, peacemakers, because Vivian was friend of all, we would all talk about her and even jokingly say, well, she must be telling them how to get about making peace. And we were devastated to discover that she'd actually been murdered.

But our work over the years, because we're nearly 10 years old now, our work has been mainly standing on corners with signs saying to motorists and to passers-by, join, and we do have thousands of signatories to our petition, join our movement to make our governments reach a peace agreement, a negotiated peace agreement. It doesn't matter what political strand you're from. We all want peace. Help us. Join us.

And we're standing on corners and our signs vary depending on the mood, on the weather. Now the signs that we're carrying say we won't let Vivian's work be incomplete. We're going to carry on for her name. Peter and Marwa, this conflict is not only devastating, it's really complicated. Can you tell us how you found a way to create this partnership? When each organization has such different narratives, what does it feel like to have the support of someone in the other camp, so to speak?

It wasn't easy. The first year or nine months of developing the mother's call, it wasn't that easy. But finally we found this language that brings us all together. Because we are speaking as humans, we have many common things to build, like a future together. Because if we don't have this talk and this dialogue between us nothing will change and we are waiting since 75 years something to change and nothing changes so women should be there to change

everything. You know as an Israeli peacemaker one of the biggest challenges is people were always saying to us oh yes it's all very well you want to make peace, but who are your partners? And we are now able to say, here are our partners. They are real women. And the women of the sun are my heroes, are our heroes. Because in Israel, being an activist maybe puts you a little bit on the edge of society, but we're not threatened. There's no danger involved. But to be a peacemaker in the Palestinian society,

it can be threatening. And so these women from Women of the Sun who stood up and said, we are your partners, we are mothers too, we care about the future too. This idea that we have partners is the most important thing for Women

Way to Peace, to be able to say to the world, there are partners in the Palestinian camp who want to make peace with us. And that has been doubted in Israel until Women of the Sun really raised their voice. Listening to Marwa speak about how hard it was in the beginning for the two organisations to find common ground, I think that's what gives me hope. Knowing that it wasn't easy, that they persevered and stayed open to listening to each other in the most impossible of circumstances

and creating a shared story. I mean, this shows really extraordinary resilience on both sides. And what strikes me is that within this shared container of Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace are these small but incredibly powerful interactions that have built a foundation for these two groups not only to coexist but to actually work together on this common goal. It feels like a blueprint for mending so many of our conflicts, not just these big global ones but the really small personal divides that we

experience as well. There is so much power in this idea of the mother's call and it really speaks to this natural connection that women and mothers tend to have, whether it's across your neighbour's fence or, in your case, across different borders. Why do you think women are so critical to the peacekeeping process? And why aren't we seeing more of them in the rooms where these decisions are being made? Women are half the population.

And yet, in terms of decision making, this country, Israel, is in many ways a highly developed first world country, but in politics, the voice of women is so restricted in the senior levels. And because in this country, we do have a war cabinet, but we don't have a peace cabinet. And the war cabinet now, there was one woman involved, but that party pulled out. So it's all men in this part of the world. Politics and war making is men's business. And despite Golda Meir and a few outstanding women, I'll mention Sipi Livni because she's still around as a, you know, women who've taken some active role, we have a dearth of women who are engaged in politics, which is terribly sad. I believe that a genuine female voice, a voice of mothers, a voice of looking to the future, a voice of compassion, I do believe that

adding that extra perspective would change things and has to change things. And we have to find a way. So Resolution 1325 of the United Nations says that women should be, must be involved, and that vote, that decision was based on firm research which shows that wherever women are involved in peacemaking, peace is far more sustainable. And we don't want a peace treaty to be signed and then broken two weeks later. We are looking for a sustainable future. And if the research, the science shows that in order to have that, you need women, well, that would be a good enough answer. If not also to say,

listen, we're here, we are part of society. We're half of society. We have to be involved. Yeah, for us, you know, they always told us that women is not for politics, but we live in politics. So if I don't raise my voice and explain what challenges

we are having, nobody will hear about that. We want women to have their own voice because we take care of the family. So we know exactly how to take care of the community. And I think with a different perspective, it will be more comprehensive and sustainable agreements for us. How is this going to happen? I mean, you've both spoken about politics. And whenever we hear about a political solution or a ceasefire, people always talk about roadmaps.

But both of your organizations have been very specific about not defining a roadmap. Can you talk a little bit more about that decision and what lies behind the reasoning? The conflict is complex. You know, because the situation has changed day by day. We want a peaceful solution for both sides. And we want to be sure that it will be long-lasting peace and we can build on it to build our both communities. I think that, Gus, your question actually relates to what I was saying before about a different way that women work.

We have a tremendously different view about how negotiations have to be done jointly and with a determination not to leave the negotiation table until you have something. And if it takes a long time, that's good because it means it's right. And Marwa described the process of building the call of the mothers. And to some extent, that process where women from the two organizations worked through slowly, patiently to reach something that both peoples felt very passionate about. And this is what we need in peace building. We don't need a compromise. You know, you've put a line on the map here and we want to move it to there. We need to start and build together slowly a vision for the future. And my personal

view, it doesn't reflect the movement's view because we don't have a position, but my personal view is we're going to have to be very creative. We need to think differently. We need to open our minds to different ways of having two peoples who share the same geographic area living so that each of these peoples feels their full expression of their cultural, which adds another layer of complexity to the things Amaro correctly said, you know, we have to take into account all the components, and that's one of them. We need to be tremendously creative, and we need to do that creativity together, because one side doing it separately from the other, and then bringing them together, that's never going to work. I'm listening to everything you're talking about here. And there's just this one question that it's right there for me.

This is such a terrible time. And the situation is so awful. And for so many people feel so hopeless. And both of you are right at the front lines of trying to think about this, what to do about it. How do you keep on going? It must be so hard. Because I don't want anyone, not only my children, to come through what we are going through.

What is going on in Gaza, there are still people that need our help, that need us to stand by each other and stop the killing of each other. It gives us the hope that, okay, we lost a lot of people and a lot of life, but there are still people that we care about, and with our grassroots organizations. So we can achieve the peace, and after that we can say, okay, this is how we want to live,

as a normal country that has its own boundaries, that can have all sorts of water, of electricity, internet, of media, of expressing even ourselves. And this is how we can change it. Wow. You know, I listened to Marwen. She just reinforces my admiration for the women in Palestine who are struggling. In Israel, it's slightly different. And I have to add

religion or my Jewish faith or Jewish Christian faith as part of the ingredients or the recipe for what's going on. Because I can't help saying that I do believe in the words of the prophets. I do believe in the words of the prophets. And the prophets foretell that there will be a time of peace. And as a religious woman, I'm a minority in women wage peace. Most of the women are secular women or traditional women. And recently, we had a similar discussion in the movement about where do you get your hope and where do you get your energy? And it was fascinating to me to see how many of the secular or traditional women also had this view that we are destined to peace. Peace will be the outcome. For those of us who are active in a peace movement, we say we're not going to rely on divine intervention. God put us on this planet to do the work ourselves.

We have to work for it. If we pray for it, we have to work for it. And my Muslim colleagues feel the same way, that there is a destiny for peace, that our religions tell us that peace is coming. And I emphasize women wage peace and women of the sun. Then we're not religious organizations. But in the background, in our cultural background, is this confidence that peace is the ultimate destiny. What is coming up listening to you both is that you can't work

toward peace without hope. It's an essential ingredient. What does hope mean to you day to day? And have there been any moments where you could pinpoint where it sparked an interaction, a conversation, something you've seen or heard? It's easy to lapse here into lack of hope, here into lack of hope. Very easy. And then you meet an activist or a woman and I'll give you one example. Working in Women Wage Peace and this project of building bridges where my co-moderator is a Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian woman from Haifa. We feel like sisters. The minute we met, we felt this deep connection to one another. Technically, you'd think, oh, we've got nothing in common. But what we have in common is a determination. And just every time I work with her, I'm inspired. And every time I work with this group of women from four different religious traditions who are coming to explore how religion

can be used for peacemaking, I'm inspired. It's the other women who inspire and uplift me. For me, you know, one of our participants in the peace building programs, she's from Gaza and she lives here in Hebron and she lost 30 members of her family. One of them is her brother. She told me, okay, we lost enough of my beloved ones. I don't want to lose the other people that I care about. We should stop it. We should stop killing each other. There are many Asian women that want all of that to stop because for them they are the ones who are paying the price of the world. There are no food, no water, no place to live there.

But they are still believing in peace or at least in changing their reality. So if women from this darkness that they are living in still have this light of hope, we should have it. It should be the opposite, we give them the power. But for me, they are the one who gives us the power. As we said at the beginning of this conversation, we are not hearing the story of the fight for peace. What is one thing that you wish people around the world knew that perhaps we're not hearing? That we exist, that we Israeli and Palestinian women, there are bonds between us. To be pro-Palestinian, you don't have to be anti-Israeli and vice versa, that you can recognise that we have two peoples here and many, many of us, probably

the silent majority, want to live side by side in peace with one another. And that's the story we struggle to get out. What about you, Marwa? I want them to understand the human aspect of this conflict. It's not just a political issue. It's about people with hopes and dreams. We share the humanity and the suffering also, and that can foster empathy and support for peaceful solutions.

So for us, I want them to recognize our resilience and our courage and our unwavering commitment to have a just and peaceful future for our children and all of us. It's hard to wrap words around the end of this episode because it's a conversation that kind of speaks for itself. When a conflict is this endearing and complicated, there are no easy solutions. But knowing the story that Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun are creating together

helps you believe that a safe and shared future, regardless of how probable, is at least possible and worth fighting for. If you want to find out more about the work of Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, you can check out our podcast notes for details.

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