Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Zaru has spent much of her life addressing the Middle East crisis and the concerns of Palestinians. She is a founding member of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, and presiding clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine, the regional Quaker denomination.

Zaru, who is traveling in the United States with two other women from Jerusalem, has spoken to groups throughout the world. The tour, called "Jerusalem Women Speak — Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared City," is sponsored by Partners for Peace, a United Nations-registered nongovernmental organization that educates people about the Middle East conflict. Organizing such speaking tours is one of the group's major projects.

While many Americans say they now "understand what Israelis go through" after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Zaru says Americans should also sympathize with Palestinians, who have been uprooted from their homes and face violence.

Zaru also criticizes reporters who fail to present what she considers a nuanced assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"They question the terror, but they do not speak of the political, economic, social, religious, and cultural factors, and so forth," she told CT before a Chicago speech. "We must bring peace by looking at the root cause of suffering. The root causes of violence need to be addressed."

Zaru challenges the United States on providing aid and military equipment to Israel and, in her view, failing to hold Israel accountable to international law, United Nations resolutions, and the Geneva Convention.

"People ask about [enforcing] U.N. resolutions in Iraq, but not in Israel," she says. "Violation of human rights is okay in Israel but not in other countries. We have to uphold a common standard of morality for all people."

While the women's talks in major cities such as Philadelphia, Raleigh, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Boston were planned several months earlier, the September 11 terrorist attacks have given them a special relevance for some audience members, who ask how to cope with their fears.

Michal Shohat, 48, a Jewish Israeli, agrees that many Americans now "know what it means to be afraid of terrorism at any moment." She adds: "We have lived like that for the last 50 years."

Shohat, who served as an officer in the Israeli army during the invasion of Lebanon in 1978, was born on a kibbutz. Her father escaped from a Romanian concentration camp, served in the Underground during World War II and rescued Jews before going to Israel in 1948. She is general secretary of the Meretz Party, composed of Jews and Arabs committed to equality, social justice, and "humanistic Zionism."

Shohat encourages Americans not to alter their lives because of the attacks. "We live our own life," she told CT.

Peace is possible if people are willing, Shohat says. "We can have a lasting peace," she says, but "there is a cycle of violence, [and people say] 'I don't want to be the first to stop the cycle of violence.'"

Still, Shohat says, both sides will need to make significant compromises to achieve a lasting peace.

"I believe we'll have to leave the settlements," she says. "Israel will have to come back to [its] borders before the '67 war. I think we'll have to make compromises on Jerusalem—to find some way to share. I think the Palestinians must understand we cannot accept [their] right of return to Israel."

next page... |  1 of 3

September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45