Three Women Three Faiths, One vision, sponsored by Partners for Peace

Hagit Ra’anan, Israeli Jewish Peace Activist
Abir Kobty, Palestinian/ Christian Peace Activist
Wejdan Jabr, Palestinian/Muslim Peace Activist

The Three Women, Three Faiths, One Vision presentation has been a mainstay at the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.  Although it’s been presented each of the nine years the conference has been held, it is always a popular presentation.

Three women of different faiths from the Holy Land speak about the hardships and frustrations they encounter living with violence in their homeland while they try to incorporate peaceful resolutions amongst their neighbors.

Sponsored by Partners for Peace, the women, Hagit Ra’anan, who is Jewish; Abir Kobty, a Christian; and Wejdan Jabr, a Muslim, are all peace activists with their own unique story.

Hagit Ra’anan – Jewish Israeli

Ms. Ra’anan told her story of how personal tragedy eventually led her to become a member of several reconciliation organizations and founder of Bridges of Peace.

In just three generations, Ms. Ra’anan’s family tree has undergone many transformations. Her grandparents were Zionists who left Lithuania for Palestine in the 1920s to escape impending calamity in Europe.  Both of her parents were members of the Jewish underground movement to end the British Mandate and create the state of Israel in the late 1940s; and after her husband was killed by Palestinians while in combat with the Israeli military in the war in Lebanon in 1982 and losing her baby four weeks later, Ms. Ra’anan eventually found healing through involvement in reconciliation and healing programs between Israelis and Palestinians.

“For several years I was very confused because I didn’t understand how come I stayed here and the two of them left me within like four weeks,” she said of her husband’s and baby’s death.

It took her several years to realize that pain and suffering can paralyze one’s life. 

“You can put it on your chest and allow it to pull you down and anger you,” she said, “or you can put it on your back and allow it to be the engine that can push you and pull you forward and find a way to save suffering for others.”

Ms. Ra’anan became involved with the Bereaved Families Forum in the year 2000. It is an organization that brings together Palestinians and Israelis who’ve lost loved ones to the conflict and helps them promote reconciliation and peace to reduce further bereavement between the two peoples.

This group of about 500 families goes to meet Israelis and Palestinians with a message that despite the pain and loss they’ve suffered, they still have hope for peace and never tire from looking for ways to find reconciliation and understanding.  That’s affected many people, she said.

Another project Ms. Ra’anan is involved in is “Hello Shalom, Hello Salaam” (Hello Peace), which allows Arabs and Jews to meet over a toll-free phone service. They get to know people they’d never have a chance to meet otherwise and hear their stories and thoughts.

Wejdam Jaber- Palestinian Muslim from Gaza

Ms. Jaber looks back on her family’s life growing up in Gaza as regular family life. She was awarded a USAID “Clinton Scholarship” in 2000 and graduated in 2002 with a masters in public administration and international management from the Monterey Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California.

She enjoyed her time as a student in California – she was able to convey the Palestinian’s message of wanting to live in peace; she had homework, smoke breaks, international breaks, and even her special boyfriend, George Clooney, she says joking. She was even elected to speak for her class at graduation.

But reality struck on her way home to Gaza when it took a full week from the day she flew from California to the day she was allowed to cross into Gaza and reunite with her family – after denials, rerouting and police escorts.

“Now in 2007, the situation is even worse for my family,” Ms. Jaber said.  They still live in Gaza, whereas she now lives and works in Ramallah. 

It is so bad in Gaza.  “Everyone is responsible for the suffering in Gaza – not just Israel,” she said, “everyone who keeps quiet.”

She told of how her sister, who still lives in Gaza, has to rearrange her day according to the whims of the Israeli military.  Her electricity is cut off, then at 2 a.m. it’s turned back on, so she wakes to do the wash for two hours and fill in the water while the pumps are working.

She asked the women to try to plan their day when they don’t know when they’ll be able to do their jobs, to wash and clean.

To prevent trauma to the children they tell them the gunshots they hear are because of weddings.  The three-and-one-half-year-old doesn’t buy it anymore – she now wets the bed because of stress, fear and trauma.  For the two-year-old, they pretend it’s a birthday party with all the candles when the electricity is cut off.

“I want you to think of us as humans,” she said “as women with children, with dreams and needs – not as terrorists.”

Abir Kobty: a Christian from Nazareth

Ms. Kobty represented the Christian Palestinians who live within Israel.  There are over 1,200,000 Palestinians who are citizens of Israel proper. 

“We comprise 20 percent of the Israeli population; we’re the minority,” she said.  “It’s very important for me to be here and speak for them.”

She feels as though she is a combination of the other two women, the Israeli and the Muslim Palestinian, but that she has fewer problems than the Muslim (Wejdan Jaber) because she has an Israeli ID card.

Although, legally she is an Israeli citizen, she never calls herself an Arab Israeli.  She always refers to herself as Palestinian.

We can’t have peace as things stand now, she said. 

Speaking of the refugees she said, “I always pass through the former Palestinian villages and think of them uprooted in their refugee camp – holding their house keys.”

She believes there is room for everyone and she wonders why Israel ignores Resolution 194, implemented in 1948, calling for free access to Jerusalem and a return of refugees to Israel.  “Why is Israel not implementing it?” she asks.

Ms. Kobty was a bit pessimistic about the upcoming Annapolis talks if it was going to be just another meeting to take pictures of men shaking hands.

There are a lot of rights we’re demanding, but not getting, she said.  In the Israeli state budget, 20 percent is supposed to go to the Arab Israelis, but we only receive 3 – 5 percent of it – for education, etc., she said.

In a question asked from the audience about the privileges Israelis receive by serving in the army, she responded, “A major contradiction is that the Jewish State calls itself a democratic state,” but Arab Israelis are treated as second-class citizens.

For obvious reasons, they are not allowed in the Israeli army.  Having served, one receives many benefits, but if you don’t serve you don’t receive the benefits.  That’s just one way of denying the Arabs equal treatment.

“My cousin dreams of being a soccer player, but he’s stuck in Israel, so it’s hopeless.  As an Arab he would never get to play for an Israeli team.

“My dream is to fly without being labeled a security threat,” Ms. Kobty said.

“I do believe Israel should be a place Jews can live,” Ms. Kobty said, but she believes it should also be a place all Palestinians are welcomed.

She said one of the turning points was the second Intifada in October 2000.  We identified with them and went to protest, but 13 men were killed by Israel; this was shocking.  In the last seven years, 30 Arab Israeli men have been killed by the Israelis.  I used to work to document the murders, she said, but rarely were the soldiers prosecuted.

In closing, Ms. Kobty said that in order to resolve the conflict, all the walls need to be removed, not only cement walls, but psychological walls … between rich and poor … and others.  “The conflict can’t be removed until all kinds of walls are removed.”

The HCEF conference was the first of 60 speaking engagements for these three women of the “Jerusalem Women Speak” program with Partners for www.Peace.org.