/PEOPLES’ UNITED NATIONS/ MIDEAST: Motherhood Breaks Down Barriers

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

PERUGIA, Italy, Oct 11 2003 (IPS) - Words were never going to be enough when Salwa Najaab Khatib met Robi Damelin on the steps of the grand Palazzo Priori in Perugia’s main square. The women just sat on the steps and wept.

Khatib, a Palestinian gynaecologist and president of the Juzoor Association – a health and social development group based near Jerusalem – had heard of Damelin last year, when her son was killed by a sniper’s bullet while on duty with the Israeli army.

"I wanted to go meet her but the checkpoints were in the way," Khatib says. "I wrote out a letter, but could not find her address. And then I saw her name on the list of delegates in Perugia. I found her on the steps."

But this was more than a symbolic meeting between mothers on either side of the conflict in Israel. On those steps overlooking the Piazza IV Novembre where the 5th U.N. Peoples’ Assembly was being held, the women discussed how the bond between mothers has given rise to a movement.

Robi Damelin is with the Parents’ Circle, a group of about 500 people who have lost someone in the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. Yitzhak Frankenthan launched the group in 1995 after his son was kidnapped and killed by Hamas. He soon extended it to include Palestinians, who now account for about half its members.

The rapid growth of the group’s membership indicates the scale of violence in Israel. But it is testimony also of the need to reach out to one another, of the bond that suffering can bring.

Damelin’s son was a member of the peace movement, and he was doing a master’s degree in the philosophy of education. Fighting for peace has been a tradition in the family; members of the clan had joined Gandhi’s campaign for independence from colonial rule in South Africa, and then fought for Nelson Mandela during the treason trials. That Damelin’s son should have died says everything about the senselessness of violence.

"This connection with mothers has been greater than with any other group here," Damelin says. "We share this bond as mothers first and foremost, but also we are people who recognise one another’s pain. Unless you can understand the pain on the other side, there can never be reconciliation. Politicians can make all the agreements they want, but unless people forgive one another there can be no peace."

Damelin has been struggling to turn her own suffering into peace for others. Members of the Parents’ Circle have visited 1,400 schools in Israel, along with Palestinian members, to tell their story. "These children have never met a Palestinian before," says Damelin. "They see a human being behind the stigma, they recognise his pain. Next year we will begin to do this on the Palestinian side, and maybe they can also see that Jews are not the demons they imagine."

These voices of togetherness have grown. The Parents’ Circle now runs a phone line – Hello Salaam or Hello Shalom – so that the two sides can talk to each other. "It can be about anything from occupation to injustice, pain, anger, children, or even recipes. The only condition is that you have to listen. Since October last year, half a million Israelis and Palestinians have listened to one another over this line."

In Perugia there are no checkpoints or phone lines in the way. Damelin and Lotty Camerman – also from the Parents’ Circle – linked up not just with Khatib, but many other Palestinian women who were here to speak foor their cause, and listen to other points of view.

Yet, the last of the suicide bombers in Israel was a Palestinian woman. Could this threaten the bond between mothers, between women?

There are real difficulties here. Like men, Palestinian women are also being looked on now as "potential terrorists", says a Palestinian professor in Perugia.

"Everywhere I go people ask me now about women turning suicide bombers," says Norma Hazboun, professor in the department of social sciences at Bethlehem University. "Before this three women carried out martyrdom operations, in Bethlehem, in Ramallah and in Jenin," she adds. "But after the last attack in Haifa, everyone wants to talk about Palestinian women as suicide bombers."

"Since the conflict between Israel and Palestine in 1948, Palestinian women have paid a very high price," says Hazboun. "The world needs to listen.."

Families were uprooted then and scattered all over the place, after the occupation and division of land where the Palestinians had lived. "The situation became worse as occupation continued, and after the beginning of the Intifadah," Hazboun says. "The greatest responsibility fell on women, who in our tradition carry the responsibility of giving their family a better life."

Few women have reached the decision-making level in Palestinian society, she says. "But they have contributed a lot to the struggle in helping the family, the youth, despite all hardships. They have seen their sons, their husbands detained. The high unemployment, the economic climate, all affect family life. Every single family in the occupied territories has been hit one way or another. The mother carries most of the burden, and all this has affected her psychologically too."

The mother suffers when her husband or son is detained, but also when they carry out attacks, says Randa Siniora, director of Al Haq, a human rights organisation. "The mother blames herself, she asks herself, where did I go wrong in bringing up my son. She thinks she provided her son all she could give so he can have a good life. A lot of work needs to be done with these mothers, over their feelings of loss, of grief, but also with their feelings of guilt."

A mother’s grief goes beyond boundaries on the ground. "I have deep sympathy with Israeli mothers who have lost their sons," says Dina Khouri Nasser, director of the Juzoor Association. "I am a woman and I am a mother. I have a child, I would like to protect my child. I feel with all mothers.."

But while there are losses on both sides, those on the Palestinian side are far higher, she adds. "You have to see the root cause of this; the root cause is the illegal occupation," she says. "The whole of the international community says the occupation is illegal, but no one wants to do anything to end it. The circle looks vicious, but there has to be a starting point to resolve the conflict."

Perugia, in the heart of Italy, is not meeting ground enough. Nor is an encounter between women in the town square. But the 5th U.N. Peoples’ Assembly has assisted efforts to end fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. The women here have something to say that demands to be heard far beyond the Palazzo dei Priori.