#32 FiLiA meets: Sarit Bloom - Women Wage Peace

Sara: Okay, so welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I am sitting here with Sarit Bloom from Women Wage Peace. Thank you so much for being here with us today and for doing this interview with the FiLiA team

 Sara: Could I ask you to please, maybe introduce yourself to start with? 

Sarit: I spend my time between London and Tel-Aviv and I'm very much involved in Women Wage Peace almost since it's founding time. 

Sara: Could I ask you to say a little bit about how you got involved with Women Wage Peace originally. Like what made you join the organisation or a little bit about some more background about the group and what it is that you do. 

Sarit:  WWP has been founded about four and a half years ago, following the Protective Edge Operation or the Gaza war as it is commonly called, there's a group of women, a nucleus group of women I think there were about 30 women who got together and said to themselves, enough is enough. We have all this kind of little wars or operations, and which didn’t lead nowhere and we just suffer losses and we really should look at something else, some alternative. 

And what they've done is they sort of got together sort of like-minded women really and they decided that the point of view of women is slightly different. and maybe that's something that might work. So they put a call out for women to join them and come on a train, they called it the Peace Train down to the south, which is the border with Gaza, to basically have an opening assembly, you know, to open this particular movement. 

They didn't anticipate very many women to come, but over a thousand women came. So they thought, well maybe there is something in it. And basically this is how it started. I joined the movement. In November was the Memorial for the Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabinwho was assassinated in November 1995 and we went to the Memorial ceremony to the Square that's called after him. 

And a group of women, a small group of women, some of them were Israeli Arabs, some of them mostly not. And they went all dressed in black and white on the stage and started telling us about what they are and something clicked in me. And I felt that this is probably the group that could make a difference and that possibly I can join in and make a difference too in my own little way. 

So I contacted them and there was a seminar weekend, which was partly financed by the EU. So I went to this seminar and basically I met most of the leading women at the time and I started getting involved in it. 

So I started by actually making and compiling an archive of information. That was my main job at the time. And then I joined teams, different team’s various teams.  At the time we weren’t such a big movement. So it was just the question of, can I join the team and they said yes, come along and that was it.

So that's how I basically started. Nowadays we are almost I think 50,000, maybe just a little bit less than 50,000 members. So it's a little bit more complicated and there's a whole structure of how things are going to be done and we are all volunteers, it has to be said, you know, we're all doing it in our own time. Once you’re involved, your life is taken over.

 I've done various things along the way, at the moment I belong to a few teams. I belong to a team that deals with the government, just as an example, there was the previous election, we had groups of women who went to various party’s meetings all over the country and sort of posed the question, you know, what are you doing for to advance peace? 

We go every Monday when the government is in session and we go up to the Knesset, which is the Israeli Parliament and people already know us because of our uniform, there's always somebody who says something about us, or we meet them in the corridors and we talk to them. 

There is some committees that we have members sitting on committees. If we have established a lobby for women there, which as well, we sort of to try and push towards what we believe.

Sara: Would you mind telling me a little bit more about the aims and the goals of Women Wage Peace as an organisation. 

Sarit: Yes. We have two main aims. The first one is to strive or convince the powers to be, or the government and all the people that have the power to do that, to sit down to the negotiation table and come to an agreeable and respectful agreement. So agreeable by both sides, that means the Israeli and the Palestinians. It's not good to have just the one side agreeing to something that the other side doesn't. 

The other thing that we say is we don't say what kind of agreement we don't say, what kind of solution, we just say, you sit down together and you come to a decision, a mutual decision together, which is very important.

This is something that causes sometimes people to question this, but we found that if we do not ask for a particular solution, then we can approach a wider audience. You know, more people can understand what we're striving for. 

The second aim, which is very important to us is that, around the negotiating table, women should be involved according to the UN resolution 1325.

So the reason for that is of course, that women basically take the brunt of suffering of any war, suffering really on any war consequences. And they have to bring to the negotiation. We are 50% of the population, so our voices should be heard, but also they can bring in a woman's point of view, which sometimes is different to a man's point of view because men are fighting the war while women are actually back home and they, as I say, deal with the consequences. 

So these are the two main aims of the movement. And we try to adhere to it in any activities that we take. 

Sara: And would you mind telling us a little bit more about those activities? Cause I understand Women Wage Peace have been involved in a number of events and organising a number of actions to try and promote peace

Sarit:  As I said before, we have been active for the last four and a half years. 

Over these years we had obviously marches, which were very successful and attended by really tens of thousands of people, not just women, men as well, and also supporters from abroad. 

The first March we had was actually led by a woman from Liberia, Leymah Gbowee who is a great supporter of ours. We had a few marches, since we had Trains for Peace, we had lots of events that we called Israeli salad, which means that we bringing people from different sectors, different backgrounds and walks of life, which is one of the things that we strive to is really to absorb within our movement, women from various backgrounds and from various political affiliations, various religions. So we have women who are very religious or nonreligious, young or old. We have Israeli Arabs, who sometimes call themselves Palestinians as well, we have women from the settlements, from all over the country, really.

That's really one of our goals, is to get together, all this kind of variety of women. 

Sara: Does that pose any sort of challenges though, if you're trying to encompass quite a number of different women? 

Sarit: Yes, well, there’s challenge anyway, as you grow, you know, what they say about Israelis, if you have three Israelis in the same group, you probably have four opinions, so many various kinds from different walks of life and different political affiliation within the group. You have many opinions and sometimes these opinions, clash. Obviously.

 We have an ethical team as well, which set out the way ethically we should deal with things and within which framework.

 We also have a team that deals with how to converse with each other and how to resolve conflicts within the group. So they give us workshops and we can turn to them in case there is a conflict. They talk about how language should be. We also came to a decision that when there is a conflict, we should come to a consensus, which means that, a consensus of the majority, but not everybody.

So once we come to a decision it's binding for everybody, whether you agree with it or not. 

As far as projects were concerned, to begin with, when we were not so many, then we had a slogan saying ‘you offered exactly you do it’. 

Nowadays it's a little bit more complicated because obviously, if everybody decided to do something and there would be chaos, so you have to put in a project card and it has to be approved and bring to a vote and only then it can take place. 

Many times it's also involved some kind of financial support. So that has to be also ratified, obviously. 

Sara: It sounds like there's a lot of kind of learning and a lot of developing and growing as things are going on.

Do you have any particular kind of like highlights or anything from your time and being involved with Women Wage Peace?

Sarit: My personal highlights, yes. I was involved in all the marches and all the marches are very emotionally involved, you know, you feel that you are actually doing something and there is a fantastic atmosphere and so many people and, and so on.

Another highlight that I think was fantastic. 

We had a Congress last year. the Congress for removing barriers to middle east peace. And it was aimed at young people under 40. It was, it took a different kind of structure, which was unusual for Congress.

It wasn't just meeting and panels talking or whatever. We had lots of things going on at the same time, including all kinds of creativity things. And because we have this quilt that we are doing and for the world, we had all this kind of actions around and different lectures or debates taking place at the same time.

We didn't expect it to, to be so popular. And I think there were about 900 people, 60% of them were under 40, which was really good. So that was really a fantastic thing.

 I think one of the highlights is really for me was within the march was a meeting in the desert. An area called Area C in the West Bank where, where you don't need the license to come. And there were buses, loads of buses of Palestinians from the West Bank women came. And that was really something else. 

Sara: Would you mind expanding a little bit on that in terms of what sort of work it is that Women Wage Peace do with Palestinian women, as you've mentioned kind of geographical areas. And obviously the question is also what sort of work is done with women of the West Bank and Gaza or the refugee camps. 

Sarit: I'll try to give you some information about that. 

The Women Wage Peace is an Israeli based movement. Only if you're an Israeli you can become a member of the movement.

We have supporters but from outside, but the movement itself has to be Israeli members, but we do have a relationship with the Palestinian women on the other side. And we had quite a lot of nice encounters with them. 

As I said this march, where actually Abu Abbass paid for the buses to move those women. And they came and, you know, and it was a nice interaction because it was face-to-face. At the end of the day, we are women and we face the same kind of problems, everyday problems. 

We have a very great supporter with Huda Abuarqoub who is the head of the Middle East Peace Alliance and she comes quite often to our events.

She's a great speaker, she tells us that there are over 120 kinds of peace organisations in the West Bank. 

So we are not alone. 

Sara: Is that something that you would be looking at, like to partner with those sort of organisations? 

Sarit: We have a team actually working to create a relationship with the other side. I'm not completely familiar with it, but we had a few meetings with them and obviously just to create trust and to create some kind of relationship. So this is a work in progress and we do try and meet with them. 

There was a very nice project, they stood by the border, I think it was in the north and members of our groups stood on the borders and Palestinians stood on the other side of the fence and we sang peace songs and that was all but it was amazing. They were poor and that was created. 

One of the things in the Congress, by the way, was something called hackathon, which was 50 young people, for 24 hours, sat and try to find, with experts and tried to find a solution to the Middle East barrier for peace. 

There were three teams and one of the teams has created a website in which you can actually contact likeminded people on the other side. In order to, to make that work, they actually did it live and they created contact with some people in Gaza.

There was another ceremony. We had a ceremony for support. I don’t know if you know, but there were lots of fires in the south, in the border with Gaza and they sent these balloons that catch fire air, the fields catch fire, lots of fires. And so we had a ceremony or an event in which we came to support the south. 

While this was taking place, we had contact with a woman in Gaza who was speaking to us and said basically how she wants the same thing as we do. You know, they want peace. They want to bring up the children in peace and quiet and, and so on.

So this kind of contact exist all the time. And hopefully, this will create a vibe on the other side. Because one of the things, of course the people come and say to us, yes, but who are you going to talk to? And here we are, people are willing. People want to live in peace.  and that's exactly what we are trying to, to show that there are people there who prepared to talk.

Two more things that I want to tell you about our work. One is that we have this law that we are trying to initiate in the government, which is Alternative First, or Political Alternative First, which means that we want it to turn into a law, this has been taking a long time that we did an awful lot of research.

We have a support abroad, support along all sorts of parties. So, and before the previous government disbanded before the previous election, we actually had some members of parliament who said that they're going to bring it forward because somebody has to bring it forward in order to make it into law.

Unfortunately, things have changed since because of the election. So we'll see what happens. There was a Conference in which it was completely dedicated to our law. And so people talk about it and supported it. 

Basically its asking to have into the law, which actually not only forces the government to think about alternatives, but also to be transparent about it and to report it to the public.

So one member of the public has to be on the committee or whatever it is that is going to have to do this kind of research. And we very much hope that in the next government, somebody will bring it up and it will turn into law because it, as I said, it has a wide support across the parties.

This, which we are very proud of, and this has actually support even of non-members. So it's not just members that are supporting it. And one of the way we recruit members is we have two things. We have tables that, you know, sort of stalls that take place almost every week, in certain places and we try to convince people to join us and what we all about and so on.

So that's one way. Another way is really, we have once a month, we are all over the country at the same day. At the same time. We stand in intersections with banners and signs, to give us a little bit of visibility. So people do know about us a little bit more. So that's another way of actually bringing in members. 

Part of my job as one of the editors of a newsletter, that we send information of what took place during the month, every month we send it to members and we send the equivalent of it every three months to supporters abroad. 

But we have now a new project called it ‘1325 in Practice.’ This is the UN resolution that asks for women to be involved in anything to do with security and defence of the country.

We have a set of lectures. That is going to take place sometime next year. We have lectures all over the country of well-known experts in the field who are talking about all the issues concerning women and obviously how to implement 1325 into our own life and how to support it. How to go about him being involved and bring it to the fore. So that really, women will know what it is all about, but also be able to maybe put it into practice at various stages and various places. So that's quite an exciting. We just had the first lecture. 

It was very well attended, but you can actually listen to it live. And also it's going to be on YouTube, which I'll put a link to that. 

Sara: I wanted to circle back a little bit and ask you what the connection is between the organisation, Women Wage Peace and the peace movement initiated by women in Liberia, because you mentioned, Leymah Gbowee that she was a supporter. 

Sarit: She has been asked and agreed to come for our first Peace March. I can't remember what it was called, The Peace March or The March of Hope, one of them was that, and she came and it was a march that lasted a couple of weeks and it took place all over the country. It culminated in the big March to Jerusalem. And again, meeting with the Palestinians beforehand. And so she actually led the march

I think it's following her and movement in Liberia that we also decided to wear white, if I'm not mistaken. but they certainly did wear white there and white is a symbol of hope and peace and so on.

She's a staunch supporter of ours and her speech or part of her speech is often repeated and encourages us to continue and keep on fighting. She says, if you're not prepared to keep on to the end, don't do it. You have to keep on until the end, something to that effect.

And her words is also part of the song Prayer for the Mothers, which we adopted as our kind of anthem.

and she actually released the rights for the film I think it's called Predative or Back to Hell. And what we do with this film of hers is we show it at meetings that we have regularly to again, recruit women.

We showed the film to women in kind of parlour meeting, if you like, and then. following that, it raises lots of questions and we can say what we think and what our movement is all about following that. 

So, it was thanks to her that we have this opportunity to show these films all over the country, really, to many, many women.

It's a very powerful film. So if you have a chance to watch it, you should. It's about the fight of the Liberians for the peace, which they achieved at the end. And it was a very incredible story. 

Sara: What has the reception to your group been like in Israel and then further field do you think?

Sarit: I think we certainly are more well known. And especially as I said with the Member of Parliament, they certainly know who we are and certainly following the last election, when we came in groups, we came with our white shirts and turquoise scarves, and they immediately recognised us.

So from that point of view, you can say that it is a kind of success because the people who matter do know who we are. And as far as the public is concerned, we have support of 45,000, at least 45,000 women and men as well. We have 50% men, which somebody actually made the statistics as in relation to the March for Me too in America and they said that the percentage is not bad, relating to the population of Israel. 

But having said that we are not enough of a News to actually catch the attention of the media. And although they do report on us and certain events, we invite them. And if you go on the website, you'll see all the media coverage that we did get. We feel that it's not enough. 

One of the things we are now rethinking is how we can, where, where to go from here, because originally the movement was supposed to be for 4 years. We were hoping that within four years we will achieve our aims. We haven't. So therefore we continue, but we want to rethink about the way forward. And some of us think that we should be a little bit more, I'll put it in a in a negative way although we try to be very positive when we're talking, less gentle okay. So some of us feel that we really ought to be more provocative and then have more attention, because if you are more provocative, you might get more attention.

Not everybody agrees. And that's meetings we are going to have in the near future about deciding which way to go. 

So although we have some media attention, it's not enough. Whilst the abroad, funnily enough, we are very popular. We get lots and lots of coverage. We get lots of invitations to come and represent our movement. 

Just now we have actually a tour representative in America. And so we are invited, we had an exhibition of all our pieces for peace in Germany, which is still going on and is very popular.

We were invited to lots of various events that want to hear about us and want to support us.

Sara: And on that note, actually how could women for example, listening to this podcast, support Women Wage Peace, and what sort of actions could they take? 

Sarit: We have Facebook for supporters. So you can join the Facebook. You can go onto our own website, which appears in a few languages.

 Financial support is always welcome. So you can donate. 

Invite us, publicise us and come and join us when we have a large event like a march and things like that.

Sara: I just wanted to say, thank you so much for speaking with us, for the FiLiA podcasts, we have so enjoyed this conversation and we wish you Women Wage Peace the best of success in the future.

Sarit: Thanks.