Noemie Nalbandian
Deputy Head Nurse at Hadassah Medical Center-Mount Scopus
People ask if I hate the Turks. I do not hate the Turks, I hate what they did to my grandparents. They have to recognize what they did and apologize. I live in a world where the Arabs and Jews fear each other and can’t depend on each other. The wounds and the sorrow are continuous—the way my ancestors were treated and the way Jews, Christians, and Muslims treat each other. It goes on and on. I teach my children, “If you strike the person who hit you, you are no better than he is.” We can’t get out of this mess if we strike back.
What if your arms and heart are open and the other person has a knife?
This is a risk you take. Otherwise you can’t go far. It is like someone who hides his money instead of making use of it. He is not helping himself or others. Everything is a risk. Going into the street is a risk. Driving a car is a risk. But it is our life, we have no choice.
You remind me of the first commandment.
Maybe it is the way I was raised—Armenian, Gregorian Christian, third-generation Israeli whose grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide. My parents read the Bible to me, and I learn from each person I meet, in the hospital or outside.
I am proud of being a Christian and I am proud of being an Armenian. These two things go together. There is no Christian feast or Armenian celebration that our patriarch or archbishop, and our people, including women, are not part of. I believe in Jesus and God.
Tell us more about yourself and the work that you do.
I am the Deputy Head Nurse of the Rehabilitation Department in charge of wound care at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. I look at each person in a holistic way, valuing each person, from a one-day-old baby to a 100-year-old person. I like to give quality of life to each person. I am also the Chairwoman of the Armenian Relief Society in Israel. We help Armenians worldwide with education, poverty relief, and disaster relief.
Can ambulances from the West Bank get through?
Yes. Each ambulance, whether Jewish or Arab, must be checked at the entrance. But, everyone gets the same treatment.
What is the difference between forgiving and forgetting?
Forgetting is running away. Forgiving is facing reality and trying to live with it in peace. We live only a short time, a year or a hundred years. Nothing, not a stone or any land is worth strife where man cannot live beside man and enjoy life, family, happiness, and nature.
Jerusalem is the holiest place in the world, but it is full of conflict and hatred. When I walk down the street, I see the tension between people. If someone does something wrong while walking or driving, I don’t see love or forgiveness, only hatred, anxiety, anger. I see priests spit on by the very fanatic Jews and Muslims—not only on Armenians, but other Christians.
Why can’t we live in peace? Terrible! If Jesus were walking through Jerusalem today, He might try to die again.
How can people come to honor each other out of bleakness?
I joined Women’s Interfaith Encounter to find people who still believe in love and kindness. All people here do not hate or fear, but it is like when a fly falls in your soup, you can’t eat the soup. It’s a very little thing, but it spoils the soup. Thank God for people who try to make peace. I hope together we can paint the city a color other than black.
I think that if people are very extreme and they think only their way is the right way, they cannot compromise on anything. They say, “This is my way and I don’t accept anything else.” If that’s the case, how can we find peace? How can we go forward and communicate?
Communication is a key word that we are missing today. Communication is the key to getting out of the mess we are in. My definition of communication is reality and transparency. People say that the three most difficult things to say are ‘Sorry’, ‘I Love You,’ and ‘I Need Help’. People must learn to say these three words if they want to get anywhere.
Isn’t fear part of life?
In the Rehabilitation Department I see people after accidents, head trauma, stroke, and illnesses. They fear these things may leave them handicapped. When people are well, they take life for granted. It is a pity they didn’t think about these things when they were running around. We must thank God for everything—love, food, our health, especially our health.
When will peace come?
It is naïve to think that peace will come after a day or a year. It will take a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of tears and a lot of valuable time. But, yes, it will come one day. I believe in it.
But if we don’t use all our strength to bring it about, we will continue living in this strange world, waiting for the rain to come. So, as you never know when the rain will come, so will the women remain on the sidelines, waiting for peace and not knowing when it will come.
Nalbandian identifies herself as an Armenian, a Gregorian Christian, a mother, and a nurse. She is chair of the Jerusalem branch of the Armenian Relief Society, a worldwide organization founded in 1910 to provide educational and humanitarian assistance to Armenians. A third-generation Israeli, Nalbandian is Deputy Head Nurse in charge of wound care in the Rehabilitation Department of Hadassah Medical Center at Mount Scopus.
Dima Aweidah-Nashashibi
Deputy Director of Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling
Women suffer. There’s an increase in domestic violence because of the political violence and poverty. And women cannot come to our Centers because of checkpoints. The Jerusalem area is completely closed off by the Wall, and the villages around are isolated so women cannot move easily from one place to another.
Describe your work with the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling.
We help women suffering from domestic violence through counseling services and legal aid. Most of our cases deal with the Shari’a courts, which follow interpretations of Muslim law related to marriage, divorce, custody and so on. In cases involving rape or incest, we rendezvous with the civil court. We also lobby the Palestinian Authority to pass laws for gender equality and women and children’s rights.
How many women’s shelters are in Palestine?
Three. Because of what’s happening between Hamas and Fatah, we plan to have a fourth in Gaza. Our shelter at the Center is for emergencies. A woman can stay there for one month, and then we refer her to other shelters. We prefer for her to go back home because it’s safer for her. If she’s in a shelter, a stigma is placed on her. This is a threat. She may be killed in the future.
Unfortunately, many religious scholars believe that in Islam there is no marital rape. Anytime a man wants to have sex with his wife, they support it as his right. She cannot go to the court and say she was raped by her husband. The problem is not only the law, but the attitude of the judges—and sometimes the male lawyers.
How does a woman get a divorce?
There is no civil law for divorce. As Palestinian women, as Muslims under interpretations of Shari’a law, we are guests in our homes. Anytime, any husband can say “Go back to your family, you are divorced.” For him it’s easy, for her it’s not easy. She has no power to divorce unless there’s a very critical issue and she gives him her children, custody, everything. Sometimes it takes years and years to get her freedom.
Fear and dependence is definitely a big factor in women’s lives. Only 12% of women are working. Besides, in our culture, when a woman is divorced she has to go back to live with her family. The other anxiety they have is the issue of what will happen to the children after the divorce? Because of these pressures, many times she’s forced to obey her husband and keep on living under violence.
How do you stay optimistic?
Perhaps because I still have the vision of a Palestinian state built on equality and justice. Maybe it will never be more than a dream for me, but at least my grandchildren will have it one day.
Don’t you need female lawyers and judges?
We train female lawyers. We also train female judges. There are eight of them. We did a workshop in Jordan for both female and male judges and they recommended that they will help us with the law because we showed them how difficult it is to judge these cases.
We have a draft of a law built on civil law and civil rights shared between husband and wife—not one belonging to the other, a kind of equality between them. But it’s not easy in these circumstances to talk about it. What we’ve done are amendments in the Shari’a law court.
Some women aren’t physically hit but there is psychological violence.
This can be worse than physical violence. Sometimes it’s economical violence where he takes her salary. Sometimes in the street there’s sexual harassment. Every day we have a new story about a different kind of violence. At the Center we define “femicide” as not only death—it can be still health but certain to be death.
You have two daughters. Are they feminist?
They are feminists, as well as my husband and son.
When you go through a checkpoint, you tend to get frustrated as a normal human being. Is there part of you that has some compassion or understanding that violence comes out of this frustration?
I always feel a migraine at the checkpoints. I cannot deal with them. Our treatment is the opposite of humanitarianism. But the most difficult place for me to go through is the airport. There, I feel they do not treat us at all like human beings. In my view, the way they search your body is sexual harassment. All over the airport, the people look at you because you’re being searched this way and accompanied by security. It’s humiliating.
Do you have contact with Israeli women who do the work you do?
There are three shelters in Nazareth that we refer cases to, but only Palestinians holding Jerusalem ID can make use of the shelters in Israel. With the Jewish people, no, we don’t have any contact.
I want to say to all women, we face the same problems so let’s go hand in hand to change the world. We have to work together to give women everywhere the chance to make a change in their lives. It’s remarkable when I tell one of the women I am counseling that she is strong enough to confront her circumstances, to see the uplift in her. We have to work to empower women.
What is courage?
Courage for a woman is for her is to know that her body is her own. No one should be able to humiliate her body. It also means that she feels that she can do anything, even the small things.
Nashashibi brings years of experience in women’s issues and a degree in administration to the Center, with offices in Hebron, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. Established in 1991, the Center counsels women facing domestic violence, supports women in civil and Shari’a courts, and advocates for laws creating social equality for Palestinian women. It has regional and international relationships, including with Israeli organizations.
Maha Saca
Founder-Director of Palestinian Heritage Center
The past 18 years I’ve worn black. I’ve been with martyrs and refugees. I’ve attended demonstrations and visited people in hospitals. I used to wear black to these occasions and when I returned, I’d change into the colors I love—red and yellow. But I wasn’t taking a stand if I dressed in black for a martyr and then changed. I vowed that after Jerusalem is our capital, I’d wear color again. For now, I add embroidery to connect to my heritage through fashion.
How are heritage and fashion related?
Our heritage is our roots and this land. We have to show that this land belongs to a people through our culture and heritage.
I’ve done a lot of research in the refugee camps to find out more about my culture. I learned that for the women, the most important thing they held onto was their dress. The reason is that the dresses traced the identity of the different villages and towns in Palestine where their homes used to be. The dress speaks a story about the village because the women, they wrote by the design, what surrounded her and what she thought about it. You can tell where a woman is from her dress. That’s why I’ve spent so much time researching Palestinian dresses with their beautiful designs, colors, and motifs.
Tell us about the exhibits you’ve put together from Palestinian dresses, and what kind of impression they make in the global market.
I took photographs of all the historical, archeological, and religious areas from which the dresses originate, and I joined them with the dresses together in a map of Palestine in 1948. I put the Bethlehem dress with the Nativity church, the Nablus dress with the historical area of Sabastia.
I also participated in a big competition sponsored by the United Nations featuring garments from 60 countries around the world. I represented Palestine with my pictures of traditional Palestinian garments and won first place. The beauty of our culture can be appreciated worldwide. I’ve done more than 40 exhibitions in Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. One of the most important exhibitions I’ve done was at the museum of the University of Chicago.
That’s why it’s upsetting when Palestinian culture is made invisible. There was an encyclopedia published on exhibitions of traditional dresses, in which my grandmother’s dress was referenced as an Israeli dress.
It’s important that these dresses be recognized as a part of Palestinian heritage. It’s a peaceful political statement when I exhibit the culture and beauty of Palestine. I manage fashion shows, and people cry when they learn about the villages and their histories through the dresses.
Have you exhibited the dresses in Israel?
Many times. My aim is to show we are a good people, we have a good heart, and we need our right to live together as two states. It’s hard to believe in this century that we’re under occupation. Peace comes from the heart, not a wall. We have accepted to live on 22 percent of historic Palestine but they are not satisfied. Why do they build more settlements and this Wall? It separates not just towns from other towns, it separates us as human beings from one another.
How do the checkpoints and Wall affect your life?
If I want to go to Ramallah for a 40-minute meeting, I have to spend six or seven hours because of the checkpoints. It’s too difficult to make it to Jerusalem. They can stop you there with no excuse. And what hurts me the most is that while we have good hospitals in Bethlehem, the women living in the surrounding villages can’t go there for medical help. You hear many stories of many, many women who die at the checkpoints or they deliver their babies at the checkpoints and many of the babies die in the car. The university students can’t come from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Why? What will we take with us? Nothing. The land is for God, not for us. We’re just people who live on this land.
We’re in Bethlehem. What would Jesus think if he were here today?
I think if Jesus heard of these big problems between people, he would not come to this land. Did Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses come to create problems? I don’t think so. They came for peace. We want Bethlehem and Jerusalem to be open for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. I believe in the three religions, but I don’t believe in occupation.
You have a big smile. What makes you sad?
Just my mouth is smiling, not my heart . . . They refused me permission to see my father in the United States when he was dying, they said other people were there to take care of him. I’m the only family still here. My mother and children live outside. So, at the Center, I say, now the Palestinians are all my family.
Saca’s founded the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem to continue the work of her political father, who was forced to live outside of Palestine. She gathered and displays artifacts, especially the traditional and wedding dresses of the Palestinian local cultures on the land pre-1948. Her exhibitions have been shown in more then 40 exhibitions around the world, where the garments evidence a rich cultural life.
Terry Boullata
Documentary producer
In the construction of the Wall most of the fertile land on the border between Israel and Palestine was confiscated to the Israeli side. These are the most fertile areas, the main food basket for the Palestinian Territory.
And the Wall has sealed off water flow into the Occupied Territories. The water tanks are on the Israeli side and they have the keys to the tanks. They can choose to give water to the Palestinians or not. It comes down to things like strawberries, flowers, land, olive trees, and freedom to move—captured by human greed, lack of will, and selfishness.
Do your documentaries advocate for Palestinians?
Even if the occupation ended, I would continue—there is always injustice in the world. If you are an advocate for human rights, it does not matter who is acting against human rights. At the moment it is the Israelis, but if there were violations by the Palestinian Authority or Palestinians, I would advocate against it.
Morality is being responsible for your actions for yourself and the people in front of you. We live not just to enjoy life. We are responsible to develop the world educationally and culturally.
Connection with other human beings is very important to your sense of morality.
Yes, that’s true. Having a sense of belonging to communities on the national or international level is what morality is all about. I cannot go to the church when I know that in India or South Africa people are starving, and just say “Okay, I can send you money if you are starving.” That is not what the people are looking for. We have to bridge continue that social and economic gap in the long term. We were brought to this life in order to share the world and its resources.
How did you become the woman you are?
I come from a middle class, moderate, open-minded family that has allowed me to grow to be whatever I am. Politics was another big influence. I grew up in a time when we were well organized, with one vision and one leadership. I feel sorry for my daughters because they are living in a time where the vision for the Palestinian is becoming uncertain, and there is no good leadership.
My time was different; we had national and international role models. Stories of people like Che Guevara were fresh in the minds of the people, and I grew up with these tales. Even Hollywood delivered messages of social action, instead of just fun and entertainment as it is now.
Do you believe both sides in the conflict have perpetrated human rights violations?
Yes. However, you can’t place the occupier at the same level as those who are under occupation. There is a difference between human beings and nations. A state is bound by international regulations. When a state takes an action, it has to be viewed at a different level than an action executed by an individual. Therefore, state terror has to be considered at a higher level than individual terror.
And you say the Israelis are acting against human rights.
As a state, you are responsible for the safety of the people you are occupying. When Israel sent helicopters to assassinate a guerilla leader, they destroyed a whole building, killing 25 people in order to kill one wanted man. That is state terror. A state is bound by international regulations. When a state takes an action, it has to be considered at a higher level than individual terror—although people always claim that terror is terror.
And I see the American government becoming more tyrannical, trying to impose their political and economic wishes on the world. You can’t come in with guns and tanks, and claim you are bringing democracy. A joke we have is “Don’t be impolite to an American, or he will bring democracy to your country.”
Define justice.
Justice is when people are dealing with each other on the same level, with equal human rights and opportunities for life. Justice is when people have the opportunity to live in dignity and prosperity and provide a better future for coming generations.
How can you resist a larger power?
Nonviolent resistance would make a difference and embarrass the Israelis. Women need to think of nonviolent resistance. The Israeli army inspects all parcels at the checkpoints, so I would put dirty diapers in them. Then the Israeli would see what a silly position he is in.
The majority of actions in the first intifada were nonviolent, and the Palestinians put themselves on the world map as a nation. My generation, in our twenties and thirties, translated our anger into resistance. This generation has the same anger but it developed into despair.
We women create life and we need to protect life—and without hope, there is no
life. No matter how frustrated or tired you are, you have to wake up with a smile and send your children off with their sandwiches. You have to give children a sense of security no matter how insecure the environment.
Can Israelis and Palestinians share this land?
Of course they can, but only as equal partners. They cannot share the land as master and slave, or occupier and occupied. The word “slave” describes the indignity and humiliation that we feel at the checkpoints. It describes the feeling of witnessing an 18-year-old boy give orders to a 60-year-old man to strip, just because he suspects him. It describes the feeling when men and women are physically searched, told to take off their clothes because the soldier is in a mood to strip people at the checkpoint.
Checkpoints control a large part of our lives. Since the big embargo in June 2007, around 20 people have died at checkpoints just seeking medical treatment. Many people with cancer and chronic diseases, many in wheelchairs, are at the checkpoints pleading to leave Gaza to obtain medical treatment. These people want to get to hospitals on the West Bank or inside Israel and Israel will not allow it. Why should we punish 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the sake of the election of Hamas?
If you could say a few words to the women of the world, what would they be?
As women not only do we share experiences on the level of our gender, but also the political aspect of being women. The fact that as women we are always facing the double oppression of any political circumstance. I want to say to the women of the world, “Don’t just talk about gender issues. When it comes to social needs, talk about gender issues from a political standpoint because with politics we can make a quicker change.”
Boullata produces documentaries of the lives of Palestinians under occupation and she is National Program Officer for Swiss Development and Cooperation in Jerusalem. An activist since the first intifada, Boullata was raised in a liberal Christian family and has worked with many social organizations. She is Director of the New Generation School and Kindergarten in Abu Dees, and produced Jerusalem: East Side Story.
Weaam Dawoud Ali Iriqat
Director of Public Relations and Culture for Jericho Municipality
Jericho is one of the oldest cities in the world. Most people read about it in the Bible. We showcase the way the people live, the natural beauty of Jericho, the charm of the city, the magnificent, hospitable people.
Who are the people who live in Jericho?
There are Muslims and Christians. We have many churches—Romanian, Russian, Greek, Coptic, others. We also have Bedouin, native citizens of the city, as well as people from Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. There are people from Jordan who came before the war of 1967. Because of the political situation, we don’t have Jewish people living with the citizens of Jericho.
We have had one million visitors to Jericho. Now, because of the great difficulties, the number of tourists is very limited. Sometimes we don’t have any. All the people feel the economic repercussions. How to bring tourism to an area full of conflicts and clashes?
Israelis have conflict but they mostly hear about it, they don’t live it. In Palestine, we live it in our lives, in all our movements. In Israel they live like Europeans. It’s a piece of Europe, Israel. But Palestine is a piece of hell. We don’t have an economy, we don’t have borders, we don’t have control of the land, we don’t have freedom to move.
If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
It may be a common dream—all the people here dream the same—to see the President of the U.S. because he controls everything. I’d like to tell him about the normal people and what we need.
Maybe he’ll listen to me but he’ll not give us more—politics are not like sympathy. Politics is a game of power and interest, and his interest is to support Israel. We think the U.S. wants to have a place here to move into and control, like it’s a game.
A miracle happened and walls came tumbling down. Can that miracle happen again?
The Wall can come down, the apartheid wall and the walls of prejudice. We can find a solution. In the past, we lived like that—Jericho was open for the Israelis. They could come, could buy fruits from the market. That can happen again.
People can forgive if they have a stable economic situation, freedom to move, their own ID—a Palestinian ID respected around the world.
How do the Wall and checkpoints affect your life?
They affect all the people’s lives. We don’t have the Wall here but we have trenches around the city and two checkpoints. When they’re closed, no one can move between cities. If they’re open, we thank God.
The citizens of Jericho come from different places, so people hold different IDs. In my family, when we want to go on a family trip, we have to choose different checkpoints. Sometimes my mother and I can go out and not in and it’ll be the opposite for my father and sister. You cannot imagine how difficult it is to manage.
What do you dream for the future?
I dream about living like other people. When you get used to living in Palestinian cities, you don’t feel think about your life. But when you travel and see how other people live, the contrast is so striking.
I wouldn’t change a thing about Jericho’s atmosphere and beauty, but I want to change the city’s economic situation and the lives of its people, so they have a chance to live a better life. I want tourism to increase. I want more people to visit Jericho and have a good time here.
I dream of my nieces and nephews growing up in a healthy and peaceful environment. I don’t want them to be afraid of checkpoints or talking about soldiers at the checkpoints and tanks entering the cities. I don’t want them to be worried about their fathers or mothers when they are traveling to or from Jericho. Instead, I want to start concentrating on our future and rebuild our city’s infrastructure.
Do you have hope for the future?
Yes, I have a strong belief in people’s power to make change. For myself, I feel I can change something. When I meet people and I introduce my life to them, I feel that something is changed. It’s not a huge change that’s going to get reported in newspapers around the world. But through such daily interactions, normal people are affected and the circle grows wider and wider.
Iriqat gained her degree in tourism in Syria and returned in 1995 to live with her family in Jericho, where she became Director of the Public Relations and Culture Department for the municipality. With the building of the Wall and encircling of checkpoints, Iriqat saw the economy decline and tourism dry up. The region is financially dependent upon tourists and outside markets for its agricultural products.
Tal Kramer
Former Executive Director of Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel
Working with women who have been raped or sexually abused, you must listen to hear their particular needs, desires, and voices. They are so varied and so different from each other. Everyone reacts differently in the world of sexual abuse, and each person has a different way of coping.
Often a woman who has experienced sexual abuse in the past tends to be aggressive as a way of protecting herself. We have to loosen our boundaries and try to accept different kinds of behavior and different kinds of women.
How does courage enter into your work?
Courage is speaking our truth. The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel gets between 30,000 and 35,000 calls each year on their hotlines. The statistics in Israel are similar to those in the United States. One of every three women will be sexually abused during her lifetime, and one in seven men will be abused. In early childhood, there are no differences between girls and boys, they are equally vulnerable to sexual abuse. After 12 years of age, there is a difference, and many cases are incest cases. One of every six or seven girls and one of every ten boys will be abused by their father, big brother, or uncle.
Courage is also to break through the ring of secrecy, silence, and denial that surrounds victims. Sexual abuse is the only crime in which the victim blames herself and society often blames her as well. Why did you dress that way? Why did you walk that way? Why did you go to his house on the first date? It takes courage to break through that ring and tell the secret, to let someone in on the secret so that not everything rests on your shoulders, so you can begin a process of rehabilitation.
Your work must take daily fortitude.
People don’t work for this organization for very long periods of time. At some stage, it becomes very burdensome emotionally, dealing all the time with sexual abuse and rape and everything related to them. So, supervision and guidance is provided to all the workers. Without that, it would be very difficult to manage. In this work you quickly reach the extremities—there are great successes and great failures. The middle, the grey area, gets submerged.
What accomplishment are you the proudest of?
The thing I’m proudest of is the family I established—my children and my husband. I am prouder of that than I am of all the work and all the successes.
Does the Association work with Arab women?
Certainly. It doesn’t overlook any sector of the population. At the center in Nazareth all the women working in the call center are Arab and talk with the callers in Arabic. They coordinate requests for assistance from throughout the country. There are many examples of cooperation with the Arab community.
You were born and raised in Jerusalem. What are some of the changes that you’ve seen?
Many changes have taken place in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem where I grew up is not the Jerusalem of today. There’s a lot of nostalgia for the Jerusalem that once was. The population is also different. Today, a lot of young couples with children leave Jerusalem because it is financially impossible for them to live here. Jerusalem has become a place for wealthy people only, foreign residents who buy houses and apartments and come to live here maybe two weeks out of the year. It’s become a ghost town with a lot of houses that unoccupied most of the year
Do you believe peace is possible here?
To raise children in this country, particularly boys, you have to believe peace is an option. There are periods when you’re more optimistic and periods when you’re less optimistic. But there is something naïve that makes you believe that peace is possible.
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers is the umbrella organization for nine centers that provide support for victims of sexual violence. Their 24-hour hotlines include help for Arab, Russian, and Ethiopian women in their first language. The association advocates for legislative change and works to raise awareness in Israeli society, the workplace, and the media. Kramer recently left her position to be with her family and new baby.
Siham Chalabi
Facilitator at Daliat El-Carmel Community Center
The Druze are conservative people who believe in one god. There are religious Druze and secular Druze. One of our principles is that wherever we are, in whatever country, we have to be loyal to that country. We are concerned not only with our own interests but with the interests of the country. We do everything “Israeli,” everything. We have people in senior positions and regular jobs in the government. Our children serve in the army. We are Arab Druze, but we have a good life with the Jews. We love our country.
As a leader of Druze women, what changes have you seen?
After 20 years, women feel they are the moving force in our village of Dalyat El-Carmel. The situation was really bad. Women didn’t have education, only four or five had high school diplomas. So I recruited some women and each week we would host a lecture or discussion. When the community center director asked, “Why don’t you have your activities at the center?” the whole village began to talk of what we could do. There was an explosion of activity. Women became involved in politics, and they began acting on behalf of their husbands and brothers. Today, for every man enrolled in school there are four women. We have a woman lawyer and woman engineer on the council, and women as departmental directors. We started a revolution.
The center offers courses for women, men, and teenagers. In my job, I begin with women who cannot read or write and extend to women completing their high school diplomas. We have courses in cosmetology, hairdressing, jewelry-making—and workshops for teachers and career officers in the military, courses for which they get credit.
My ultimate goal is to spark a revolution within women. Every woman should love herself and care for her own needs first. People who lack things in themselves cannot give to others, so every woman should study if she lacks education. Then, by forming groups of women who can speak and listen to each other, we can get things going for women. I love women very much. Wherever they are, I hope they do things for each other, for peace, and for their children.
Can a women’s revolution bring peace?
If we don’t work toward peace, it won’t come about. I’m an Arab, and I hated other Arabs. It was a lack of acquaintance—we never had a chance to meet. We were brought up to think Muslim Arabs were off limits to us. Then, suddenly, we had meetings with a few women every month from the surrounding villages, and I felt what it was like to sit with a Muslim woman.
One gathering grew to about 300 women and suddenly the Druze women and the Arab women began to argue. We were in shock, we didn’t know what to do. It was then I began working for peace at the local level. I hope one day we have an independent Palestinian state as neighbors and we can visit each other.
What makes you happy?
My children doing well in school, spending Saturdays at home, talking to my brothers and sisters, succeeding in a project, or organizing a successful even, and when a woman from the community comes to me and tells me what she needs—an English course or an opportunity to get her high school diploma—and being able to help her.
What is courage?
Courage means doing something that no one has done before. Standing up to strong and powerful people and defending what is yours is courage. Never giving up is courage.
Chalabi, a Druze Arab, facilitates Women’s Programs and Adult Education for the Community Center in Daliat El-Carmel. Beginning her activism 20 years ago, she brought the women of her conservative society together for empowerment programs. Soon they were invited into the Community Center. Today, the women outnumber the men four to one in obtaining high school diplomas and are represented on the local council by professionals.
Ghada Issa Ghabboun
Co-Director of Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem
My father worked ten years before he managed a room for us outside the refugee camp. Even the walls and windows weren’t complete, but it was a palace because it was outside the camp. Father used to say, “We are the victims of the victims.” He meant the Holocaust victims, but my Israeli friends try to build bridges. We have a painful history, and it has to stop. We can’t keep killing each other.
I would say we all deserve good lives, and there are things on this earth that deserve to be lived for. I would say the same to the Palestinians, we must stop fighting each other. It is shameful to kill each other.
Bethlehem. Birthplace of Jesus. Where is God now?
I’ve seen masked men with guns in Bethlehem, and the Israelis just built the Wall only 200 meters from our school. Sniper towers will be built, the military roads will expand, and we will be threatened with demolition because we’re in the buffer zone. When such terrible things happen, you ask where is the wisdom in that, but I believe in God. We must keep this faith. Even in the most difficult times God is there to give mercy to people. My belief gives me some hope.
Hope?
If everybody lost hope, they would stop working or going to school. I can’t be desperate before my children, and I have so many things to do that I can’t take time out. If I had time, I would sit down and think about these terrible things.
Your school is called Hope Flowers School. How was it started?
My father was a refugee. His father, that is my grandfather, died heart broken after becoming a refugee. My father himself was embittered by his experiences in the refugee camps. His idea was that for children, the best thing to deal with the situation is through education. He believed in educating the children in the philosophy of peace rather than in the mentality of killing, retaliation, and war. That’s where the school’s name comes from. Since establishing the school in 1984, we have been integrating the laws of peace and democratic education in the curriculum.
Do you get tired?
Yes, especially after having my third child. But sometimes I feel that it’s a gift from God when people stop feeling. At times, I’m up all night and then in the morning, I start my day. I cook breakfast for the children, give them baths, in addition to all the tasks and responsibilities I had before giving birth. Mothers seem to have this gift from God of not surrendering to exhaustion. I think this is true for mothers all around the world.
We work under difficult circumstances. It breaks my heart when I go to school and see the road closures, settlements, sniper towers, and the wall. It has a material affect, as well as a psychological one. Because of all the restrictions and barriers, we are rarely able to finish a project according to its plan. We confront difficulties that are beyond our control.
I’ve heard people say that Palestinians should be better organized and build a better infrastructure for their own social services. What would your response be?
The chaos is not always the Palestinians’ fault. This is a bigger problem that has to do with politics and other issues that are not in the hands of the people. The sanctions are destroying Palestinian institutions. For example, so many organizations and the governmental hospitals had to close because the employees weren’t receiving salaries, which created chaos in the private institutions. I agree we have to be better organized, but it’s not enough to look at the chaos—you have to look at what’s happening in the larger picture.
What do you want for your children?
I want them to live a better and easier life than mine. When I think of my childhood, I see things that were taking place around me during the first intifada. I remember that we all spent it being scared. We endured the army, the curfews, and being away from school for weeks and months because the schools were closed.
My father worked for 10 years to build a house outside the refugee camp for his family. I remember when we lived in our home outside the refugee camp when it wasn’t complete. It didn’t have enough furniture, the walls and windows weren’t finished, and we used to sleep on the floor. For us, it was a palace because it was outside the refugee camp, but now when I think of that—oh my God, it was terrible.
Yet, I learned a lot of things from my father: to be strong. to go ahead, not to surrender, and to know what you want and don’t want, what you need and don’t need, and to be frank with oneself.
What is compassion?
Compassion is to see the human being inside each person.
The human being in someone who builds a wall or wears a mask?
It’s difficult to see the human being in the soldier at the checkpoint who makes decisions about me without knowing me. But it’s important to understand why this person is doing this. I have many arguments with soldiers when I try to cross a checkpoint, but I try to dig inside for the human being.
When I was nine months pregnant with my daughter, I had a terrible argument with a soldier at Qalandia checkpoint. He didn’t want me to return home to Bethlehem from Ramallah. He was older, not a young soldier, so I asked if he has children. I asked if he has someone to worry about, and he said “yes.” I wanted to see him without a gun. We spoke for ten minutes and he let me in.
For peace, do people have to forgive each other?
There must be a time, if we want to make peace with other people—even on the personal level if I want to make peace with someone who hurt me—that we overcome and forgive. It doesn’t mean forget, but to forgive because I will be killing myself thinking this person did that and this person did this. I must forgive for myself, for the sake of my inner self.
Ghabboun co-directs Hope Flowers School with her brother Ibrahim Issa. The school was established in 1984 by their father, Hussein Issa, who, after years of struggle, brought his family out of Aida refugee camp. Before the intifada, Wall, and checkpoints, the school had 550 students from Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem. With enrollment at 250 students, Ghabboun is focusing on women’s empowerment programs.
Ilanit Melchior
Co-Director of StartUp Jerusalem
When you invest in the economy, you invest in relationships. The market is the creator and founder of relationships. Jerusalem is the poorest city in Israel, young people are leaving. You find a lot of ultra-Orthodox who are not part of the working labor. We want to make sure in years to come that this will not be an empty city. And we want realistic operations between East and West Jerusalem, a reality where people respect each other and work together. The economy is a primary way to do this.
Tell us about yourself and your work.
I am running a nonprofit organization called Start Up Jerusalem, which is geared towards stimulating Jerusalem from an economic point of view. To achieve this goal, we focus on low-tech industries like tourism to the high tech industries. We are looking at how to establish industry so that both sides will profit. We are learning from the industry but also helping them help themselves by bringing innovative, out-of-box thinking to them.
By the end of the day, this city is important to all the three religions. I want Muslims, Jews, and Christians to come and visit the city. I don’t want people to avoid it because they think it is unsafe. I don’t want people to be prevented from using the holiness of the city because of the situation. I want both communities to learn not to be afraid of each other, to look in one another’s eyes and say, “That’s a human being, I can live with him or her.” I see my job as a small step in this direction.
As a woman in the field, did you have to overcome other people’s stereotypes and expectations?
Absolutely. I had to confront a lot of prejudices when I started to work with the tourism industry in East Jerusalem. I am Israeli and a woman; I get a room full of men of around 50 years of age and who have been years in the industry. Their attitude was: “She thinks she can teach us something? Forget it!”
They started to explain to me all their problems with the Israeli government and Tourism Ministry. I said, “Its enough, guys. We need to find a model of economic cooperation to work with or I will leave the room.” They accepted that. You have to be very pragmatic. Maybe emotionally they will not love me, maybe they won’t invite me to their houses, but you have to tell yourself that is fine. They will have the ability to support their families in the same way we want to do it, and that hopefully will create business sharing interactions.
Define courage.
Courage is the ability to say, “I was wrong.” It is when leaders can look in the mirror and say, “This is not what we should have done but from this point on, we can do things differently.”
We don’t need all the mediators, the ceremonies and cameras and other people to help us. We need to get in a room and speak to each other no matter how long it takes. We must speak to each other society to society, intellectual to intellectual, journalist to journalist, man to man, and woman to woman. We must create all these circles. A lot of people come here to try to resolve the situation for us, and it hasn’t worked. We need to get in a room and resolve it ourselves.
Maybe there will be more tears and emotions this way, but the possibility to change ways of thinking will become bigger. Today we sit at home and criticize. We accept a reality to raise our children for 18 years, send them to the army, and encourage them to be good soldiers. They might die. This is not a reality we should accept!
Women, let’s get together, change politics, and make sure we are in a more
powerful position. Maybe women have a different perspective where we can overcome conflict and change reality. We must make our voices heard together.
When you lose a child, it’s not a matter of whether you are from the Palestinian side or the Jewish side. A mother is a mother.
What do Palestinians and Israelis need to understand about each other for peace?
It’s harder for Palestinians because we have a country and feel secure about the goals we want to achieve. On the other hand, it’s difficult for Israeli mothers in a situation where their child is missing or has been killed—for instance, the mother of Gilad Shalit. Can they identify with that, with the pain and misery of the Jewish mother in the same way I would empathize with them? The Israeli society believes in open debate. We are always looking at ourselves each day and asking, did we act morally or not? I don’t hear those voices from the Palestinian society. I would like to hear such voices more clearly.
There is a lot of commonality between the Jewish belief and Islamic belief; it’s a matter of how the belief gets interpreted for political purposes. I would like to find out what is going on with the young Palestinian women my age
What factor does fear play in the Palestinian Israeli conflict?
I think fear is about the unknown. When serving as a soldier, I was deployed in Gaza as a lieutenant. One of my jobs was to go around different units. When we were driving, I would see Palestinian kids and they would throw stones at us. Looking back, I realize that the kids saw me as the Army. I was part of the same Army that was knocking on their doors and taking away their parents in the night. For them, I wasn’t a human because they didn’t know me.
It is the same thing in Israel. When you see a news report that 20 Palestinians were injured, you don’t know the people so it doesn’t make an impact. When one soldier is kidnapped, it makes a big impact and everyone goes to visit the family. It’s the gap in not knowing each other, not sharing your thoughts that leads to fear.
Is love required?
We don’t have to shake hands even, we can just walk next to each other. It’s a cold, very realistic, pragmatic way of looking. But we must have mutual respect, and recognize that each side has its own space. Again and again we, the Israeli people, ask Palestinians to recognize our right to exist. We have this strong fear in our Jewish essence—so many people in history have tried to eliminate us. We must overcome that fear.
At the end of the day, Jerusalem is important to three religions. I don’t want people prevented from the holiness of the city because they think it is unsafe. I want both communities not to be afraid, to look in one another’s eyes and say, “That’s a human being, I can live with him or her.” For the Palestinians, this is part of their struggle for independence. We have to build a healthy society, not based in bloodshed but in morality.
Melchior is Co-Director of StartUp Jerusalem, building financial strength across East and West Jerusalem. As Cluster Manager for Tourism and Culture, Melchior, formerly a consultant with multinational corporations, works with businesses in the tourism industry to find solutions to the depressed economy. StartUp Jerusalem is an inclusive organization working with both Arabs and Jews, secular and religious.
Ihsan Mohammed Turkieh
Comedy writer and actress
A checkpoint is a horrible scene, but as a comedian, I like to play the simple Palestinian lady. She says to the soldier, “Please, my daughter, she is in the hospital, let me go to see my daughter.” He barks, “Do you have a permit? If you don’t have a permit, you will not pass.” She pleads, “Let me go, let me go.” He yells, “Yallah, get away from here!” She curses the Wall and yells back, “I wish a tsunami takes the Wall, takes you. Then both of us will be at rest at the end!” The Israelis laugh, but it is very black comedy.
What is your approach to comedy?
My whole life is a standup comedy. Everyplace I go gives me something exciting to talk about, so I give a show in front of the people. Even when I go to a demonstration, from the situation I get the inspiration and invent funny slogans on the spot and everybody starts to shout out those slogans. Of course, I’m a serious person too, but it’s nice to show the seriousness through comedy.
Are you ever sad?
A long time ago . . . Okay, many things make me sad, but I learned to be strong and not to cry in front of people. When you face horrible things in your childhood, losing people you love, going from place to place because there is no place to live, after that the rest is nothing.
When I applied to act with Israelis, they asked me to write down terrorist countries I’d been to. I said, ”I’ve lived my life in terrorist countries, my husband was a hero of the PLO killed in the war of Lebanon.” And I told myself, “Israelis are my archenemy, how can I work with them?” But you can’t change someone from right to left. First you have to take them over a bridge.
Tell us about your childhood and background.
I grew up in Lebanon with my brothers and sisters. We were the only Palestinians in the school. At that time, it was very hard to be a Palestinian. You start to recognize yourself when you humiliated by other kids and called a refugee.
Even though father didn’t have the money to send me to good schools. I ended up going to a famous school in the mountains attended by the children of high society. Of my own initiative, I went to the Director of the school and asked, “As a Palestinian girl, don’t I deserve to learn and to be in a good school?” He said, it’s the first time someone asked me this question and I am embarrassed by it.” He sponsored me to attend the school without paying a penny.
When I moved to Ramallah and joined Palestinian television, I started going around with a group of friends doing candid camera. I wanted to give humor to Palestinians on television, to help them forget about blood and death. I said to myself, “3et’s let them live another life. I was an actor, and knew how to make the change.” I wrote a comedy series criticizing the Palestinian family. People couldn’t believe that Palestinians were doing a comedy show.
You were a survivor of the Lebanese civil war. What was that like?
When I was 14 years old, the civil war in Lebanon started. We started to move around to avoid getting caught in the fighting. It was very difficult. I met my husband during the war. I volunteered, joining the Fatah movement. I took a course in communication using military equipment. During battles, I helped transmit orders. It was exciting but dangerous.
After that, I was one of the people surrounded in Beirut without water and electricity. It was horrible, shooting every day, bombing every day. I was in Beirut with my one-year-old daughter until an agreement was made to get the civilians out of Beirut. I went to Syria. My husband was still in the mountains of Syria when he was killed in a bomb attack. Iwas a widow at the age of 24.
Are you afraid of anything?
I am only afraid of God, not anybody else. If you are scared, you will not take a risk. Nothing is impossible. If you want to do something, just do it. But think carefully.
When I started peace work with the Israelis, my salary in Palestine was cut for seven months as a punishment for participating in a show with Israelis. I didn’t apologize for it. The other day, the man who cut my salary was killed in Gaza. I survived. God does miracles.
The problem with many Palestinians is they become accustomed to any situation. They say to themselves, “Okay, the Israelis make checkpoints, but we will find a way and go. Okay, they built the Wall, but we will find a way and go.” Always they create alternatives. Sometimes this is not good because you make the enemy smarter to create next steps to close the holes. He needs to realize he is the occupier, he built the Wall, and he needs to fix the problem.
You perform with Israeli actors. What is the process of working together like?
It began when I signed up to do a show with a playwright from New York who was hiring Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian actors. I lived with two other Israeli actors and we had honest talks about how we looked at each other in our hearts. Sometimes, we’d cry and ask each other, “Why did you do that to us?”
Eventually, we became really good friends. Nomi, she was the strongest Zionist woman in the group, she is my best friend. The two strong women in the group—the stubborn Palestinian woman and the stubborn Zionist woman—have been good friends for 10 years.
Now, with my current team, I perform in many Israeli schools. It’s great. They see things they don’t normally see on television: real stories, human stories. That’s what the television doesn’t show.
Once, we performed in a Palestinian municipality near Bethlehem and the Israeli actors were so excited to see the children. After showing us the demolished houses, the children asked an Israeli actor who was an ex-soldier, “Do you have regret?” He said, “It’s not enough to regret, but I am doing something. I am doing shows with Ihsan. I can do the shows and try to make things better.”
Are there Israelis willing to fix the problem?
I’ve been interacting with Israelis for ten years. I’ve met many gorgeous people, very nice, talented, and human. Even in the States, I met Jewish Americans who don’t agree with many of Israel’s policies. I discovered something amazing about Jewish Americans. I asked them, “If you don’t agree with many Israeli policies and feel that it is tough on the Palestinians, why do you support them?” One gave me a good answer. He said, “Israel should stay.” I respect this. I wish for a day when we just say, “Palestine should stay, Palestine first.”
Turkieh is a Palestinian Lebanese refugee who learned early to use her gift of comedy to fight for her rights. Living in Ramallah since 1994, Turkieh is the first woman to establish a television comedy show at Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation. She works with Israelis in peace theater through the Peres Center for Peace. Turkieh was widowed with children at age 24 when her husband was killed in the Lebanese civil war.
