Sarai Aharoni
Posted on | December 2, 2008 |
Facilitator with Isha L’Isha-Haifa Feminist Center
Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security was accepted by the United Nations Security Council in October 2000 and is seen by the international women’s movement as one of the biggest achievements of the movement during the last decade. It officially recognizes the need to incorporate women in all peace negotiations and everything to do with conflicts—prevention, management, and resolution.
Is Resolution 1325 being implemented?
The debate goes on. Women’s groups at the grassroots and high political levels debate how the resolution should be interpreted and applied in practice, in actions, and in demands on the international community and local governments.
Women leaders need many feminist women standing behind them. Women in high politics cannot afford to speak for women unless the majority of women are ready to identify themselves as women in their politics, in how they see the world, and in what they believe. When women believe in women’s ability to make changes, then women leaders will be able to make changes.
Sarai, tell us about yourself.
I am an Israeli, and a Jewish-Mizrahi feminist activist. As my identity is a mixed identity with my being Israeli, Iraqi, and American, I also consider myself an international woman. I became an activist in the year 2000, after my first boy was born and the second intifada began. I am writing my PhD thesis on the Israeli women who participated in formal peace negotiations with the Palestinians up to the year 2000.
As a feminist activist, I have been involved in many, many projects and campaigns for women’s social, economic, and political rights. I’ve closely worked with the feminist health center, Isha L’Isha. We believe that since Israel is a multicultural society, we need to have representation of women from different parts of society: Israeli, Palestinian, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and lesbian.
Are you a “feminist woman”?
I am a realistic feminist, which is another way of saying I am a radical feminist! I have been involved in women’s rights—anti-violence, anti-trafficking, economic rights, work in the Parliament, in the streets with women, with girls—in every conceivable place and with all kinds of partners.
Women all over the world need to do whatever they can so that women’s voices, wherever they are, will not be silent. Never again. We need to work for women’s right to stand up and say anything they want without the fear of being silenced or beaten or murdered or deprived or fired. I hope every woman who hears me will identify her own power to change her life, and the lives of others, whether in her community, her family, or her country.
We women activists need to take care of ourselves also, to help each other in our work. The global women’s movement is trying to do this, as women from all over the world are meeting, sharing experiences, and creating networks. This is a good start for women to create places where there is sanity instead of the things that are happening in our very troubling reality.
Resolution 1325 is titled “Women, Peace, and Security.” Is peace possible here?
We should keep using the word peace. People don’t use it anymore, and someone has to remind everyone this concept exists. Someone has to hold the torch, even in times of great darkness and disillusionment and violence. Someone has to believe it is possible. And one day someone will come and take the torch from us and keep on going.
Regional war now is the worst thing that could happen. People don’t understand we have two options—either we try the peaceful way, or we go to a regional war. In my eyes, the peaceful solution is still the best solution.
What is Mizrahi? What is Ashkenazi?
The Israeli Jewish society is not homogenous. People who came from European and other Western countries are referred to as Ashkenazi Jews. Another part of the Jewish population in Israel comes from mostly Muslim majority countries: Asia, North Africa, and Ethiopia. They are identified as Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews and like the Ashkenazis, they constitute a religious group in one sense and an ethnic group in another.
The Mizrahi population in Israel, although very much assimilated in society, is still suffering from social and economic inequalities. They are perceived as an under-represented group in various spheres of the public, economic, and political life. Mizrahi women were prominent in the Israeli feminist movement during the late ‘80s and ‘90s, stepping forward as a group that wanted to speak in its own voice.
Tell us about your feminist outreach and what you learned about the reality of women’s lives in times of war?
In 2003 and 2004 we started hosting workshops for women in Israel, asking them to talk about the second intifada. More and more women started talking about a sense of disillusionment, catastrophe, grief, and pain. They discussed the fact that the reality has changed and that we need to readjust to this new reality of political violence.
Soon after, we conducted a survey about women’s life conditions during the second intifada. In the study, women reported that they felt a deep need to be strong for others. This shows that women have to function in very high levels of stress so that their families, their children, and everybody else they care for can feel more protected. Ninety percent of the women said that they were those who explained the political situation to their children, which was amazing since we know that 90%, or even more of the people who decide the policies are men.
Aharoni, whose mother is American and father is Iraqi, identifies herself as a feminist, political activist, and secular Mizrachi. She lives in Haifa and works with Jewish and Arab women in the Isha L’Isha Feminist Center. A PhD candidate at Bar Ilan University, Aharoni focuses on participation of Israeli women in peace negotiations and promotes implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security.
